Eagle

No experience using the Caddy calipers, but if memory serves there is a special procedure for bleeding the rear system with the load-sensing proportioning valve. Those are problemmatic at best, anyway. I had one blow out when I was cut off in traffic and did a panic stop. I think you're on the right track to remove it, but with rear disks I think you willl need some proportioning. My suggestion would be a Wilwood manually adjustable proportioning valve in the rear circuit. You can leave it under the chassis and set it once, or run the line through the cab so you can adjust the proportioning on-the-fly if you change the load in the back.

The license plate lights are a "mini" harness to themselves. About 18" from the lights, they plug into the main body harness with a pair of little bullet connectors. One is ground, the other is power. If either one is corroded, the license lights don't work but the stop/tail/turn lights will continue to function.

You can buy the entire set of CCV hoses from NAPA for what a Jeep dealer gets for one piece of the set.

Your front axle has a disconnect in the shaft on the right side. The axle disconnect "motor" is operated by vacuum. One line pulls the sliding collar to the engaged position, the other line pulls it to the disengaged position. Assuming you were in 2WD when the lines melted, you would be able to shift the transfer case into 4WD but the right front axle would be disengaged, so you would effectively still be running in 2WD all the time.

Check the ground.

That bolt goes into a water jacket and doesn't have threads for the full length of the bolt. The Loctite is to seal it so coolant won't seep up the threads. In the old days they had us use Permatex on that one. The reduced torque is so you won't strip the threads in the block.

Somewhere, most likely in the NAXJA archives but possibly some other Jeep site, there is a writeup on doing exactly this mod. They didn't use XJ hatch struts, IIRC, although I see no reason they wouldn't work. I think the article explained what they used for mounts, and where to locate them for the correct leverage. Unfortunately, I don't have it bookmarked ...

Simpler is to jack up ONE rear wheel with the vehicle in neutral (not park) and the brake off & wheels chocked. Try to turn the rear tire that's off the ground. If it doesn't turn easily (or doesn't turn at all), you have limited slip. If it turns easily, either you don't have limited slip or it's already worn out.

It's gotta be some loose connection under the dash. Maybe something that your foot can kick when you go for the brake peddle? Ahhhhh ... The "real" ignition switch is not where you put the key into the steering column. There's an operating rod down the column from the key cylinder to the actual switch, which is near the base of the steering column. I have heard of those shorting out. See if you can get access to look that over carefully. If there's a loose or partially fried connection, maybe you're sporadically nudging it with your brake foot.

The heavy-gauge wire from the back of the alternator up into the power distribution block. It should be a red 8-gauge wire coming off the alternator, then it goes into a 12-gauge blue fusible link which, IIRC, is a ring terminal that bolts to the stud on the starter relay (just behind the bettery on the passenger side of the engine compartment). What you're checking for, though, isn't a "loose" connection. A fusible link is like a non-replaceable fuse (in fact, it isn't "like" a non-replaceable fuse, that's what it is). If the circuit is overloaded, the short section of thinner-gauge wire gets hot and melts, breaking the circuit. That wire off the back of the alternator is what carries the alternator output into your electrical system. If the fusible link fused, you have no alternator, you're just driving on battery. Many people think an 8-gauge wire is too small to carry a lot of power anyway, so they bypass that with a heavier gauge cable and a real in-line fuse. To test, remove the ring terminal from the back of the alternator to isolate the wire, then use the ohm setting on a VOM (or a test light) to check for continuity from the alternator end up to where it bolts to the starter relay.

Blue smoke = oil = rings &/or valve seals White "smoke" = steam = head gasket Do a compression test. When head gaskets fail, they don't blow out all cylinders. Usually they fail between two adjacent cylinders, which will result in a bunch of good compression readings and two adjacent cylinders with low readings.

The 4.0L is overhead valve, not overhead cam. The cam is in the block so the timing isn't affected by removing the head.

Rob, you really need to know if they are driving lights or fog lights. If they are driving lights, you'll wear out the toggle switch in a week because you'll have to shut them off every time you meet an on-coming vehicle. That's why driving lights are wired to work with the high beams -- dim to low beams and the driving lights go off too. Even most factory fog lights are messed up. I hate living in a yuppie area because every dweeb with an Explorer or a Mustang or a BMW insists on driving with their fog lights on all the time, even though last night was the first fog we've seen in about two years. And the damned things are never aimed right, so they're blinding. I wanna borrow the Enterpsise's photon torpedo launcher for some of these twits ... and I ain't gonna set phasers on stun, either. Do it right or don't do it at all. It's not that much extra work and it may save you a ticket, an accident, or both.

That's what originally came from the factory.

Two things I haven't seen mentioned yet: (1) The 97 and newer heads aren't drilled for the temperature sender that controls the dash gauge. On the OBD-2 systems the gauges receive input from the central data bus, so there's only one temp sender. The Renix has one in the head for the gauge, and one on the block for the ECU. (2) The height of the ports was raised and the shape changed in 91 when the HO engine came out. It is theoretically possible to fit the old Renix manifolds onto the new heads (it has been done), but it's a far cry from "bolt-on," and whatever gains you might otherwise get from the HO head you probably lose because the mismatch between the ports and the manifolds messes up the air flow. It's better to change the manifolds if you change to an HO head -- but then you get into throttle body and linkage issues. BTW -- the cam in the 4.0L is not "upper end" stuff -- it's in the block and would not be touched by a head replacement unless you choose to also replace the cam while the engine is halfway torn down.

Wattage doesn't matter. Under American law, fog lights MUST be wired such that they do not operate when the headlights are on high beam. I doubt that Canadian laws are different in this regard. All this means is that you don't take the 12 volts to the toggle switch from the battery or fuse panel, you tap the wire going to one of the low beam headlights. That's the simple way. If you want to be able to run the fogs with just parking lights (no headlights) and do it legally, then you need two relays and it gets more complicated. NOTE: DRIVING lights are the opposite of fog lights. Driving lights must be wired so that they operate ONLY with the high beams, and turn off when you dip to low beams or turn off the headlights. Again, I assume (always dangerous, I admit) that Canadian law is the same.

Don't ask about anything. Most owners are clueless, and the ones who aren't clueless lie. Heck, a few months ago I went with a friend to look at what was advertised as a 1993 Jeep Comanche with liter high-output engine. Well, we pretty well had it figured out that it wasn't a '93, but when we got there it wasn't even an HO -- it was a 1988. The owner said he was sure it was a '93 when he bought it -- then he went home and "looked up" the paperwork and called my friend back to admit that, by golly, you guys were right it IS a 1988. "I didn't even realize it." That took about $300 right off the top. Then there was the 1998 XJ "4.0L Sport" I went to look at on a used car lot near where I used to work, for a NAXJA friend from out of state. I went over after work on a pleasant, sunny summer afternoon. The vehicle was in the front row, looked really nice, but it had some door graphics on it that I had never seen before, even in pictures. Nobody on the lot when I got there, so I looked in the windows. Hmmm ... idiot lights. On a Sport? Then the sales drone spotted me and came out. He opened the doors and I could get inside. It had manual windows, which were nominally the standard equipment of Sports -- but I've never seen one of the new body style Sports that didn't have electric windows. Then we open the hood, and I see this VERY small-looking engine in there. And I only see 4 spark plugs. So I ask the guy if this is the vehicle they had advertised. He says "Yeah, why?" "Well, because you advertised a 4 liter Sport, and this is a 4-cylinder SE." The dweeb professes to not know what I'm talking about. I'm standing on the passenger side of the engine compartment, he's on the other side, and honest-to-goodness, he says "Gee, I don't know what could have happened, it was a 6-cylinder when we bought it" and he proceeds to start looking around on his side of the engine for those mysteriously missing two spark plugs. In short, ask to see the repair records, but don't take the seller's word for anything. As already noted -- inspect everything. Crawl under and look for rust, as well as evidence of being bashed over rocks. Shake the drive shafts to check for worn out u-joints. If possible, if it looks good enough that you're interested, ask if he'll either let you take it to a mechanic of your choosing to be checked over, or if he will drive it to your mechanic. If you aren't very experienced in working on older vehicles, dropping $50 or $100 to have a good Jeep mechanic check it over could be worth a lot of heartache.

Those Delco alternators have the voltage regulator built in, so the problem has to be with the alternator. Where are you getting them? They should be able to bench test it for you. The odds are certainly against getting two bad ones in a row, but anything is possible. The other thing to check is the heavy wire that's supposed to deliver the output from the alternator into the wiring harness. I don't remember if that's a fusible link, but somehow I think it is. If it fused, it is now an open circuit. The fix is to run a new cable, preferably using something like 8-gauge or 6 gauge battery cable or welder cable, with an external 100-amp fuse from a marine supply store (actually, I've seen the fuse at Auto Zone, but they don't always have it). For starters, take your VOM and check for continuity between the two ends of that wire.

Yeah, with 6" of lift and 32s you have enough clearance to mostly avoid the "rock magnet" problem. At 4" of lift on 31s, the brackets are hardly any higher off the ground than the stock LCA pockets on an unlifted vehicle, but you're trying to drive over bigger rocks. Even so, at 6" of lift and 32s the brackets aren't any higher than an otherwise stock vehicle with a budget boost.

I vote to go with OEM rubber. Poly rides harder but, more important, doesn't flex. When a leaf sprung axle gets twisted (like compressed on one side and drooped on the other), the springs have to twist to allow this. Stiffer poly buching mean the spring leaves themselves twist MORE ... which is not good for the springs.

The REs are clones of the original Trailmster brackets, which were on my '88 when I bought it. The Trailmaster kit was a 4" lift, which is what the brackets are optimized for and which is the MINIMUM height with which they should be used. They work. At 4" of lift they bring the suspension geometry right back to stock. Good steering, no death wobble. For street driving, they are ideal. The problem is that off-road they are hanging down right where your chassis comes down when you take a line that runs a frint wheel over a rock (like to clear the axle). The wheel goes down the far side of the rock and the rock smashes into the bracket. I hated them. They are rock magnets. Took 'em off and swapped them to a friend for some other junk he had. IMHO I can wheel better with a 2" or 3" lift and no brackets than I could with a 4" lift and the brackets. It depends on what you want to do with the truck.

You don't need more than 3" to do most of the trails around that part of Massachusetts. NAXJA-NAC wheels up around North Adams/Mohawk Trail a lot. I've done many of the trails with a stock XJ, and a lot more with an MJ at 4" of lift on 31" tires. Yes, there are always a few trails where another inch or so would make a difference -- but that's true no matter how much you lift. Personally, I would not go SOA because if you start out thinking 4" when all you really need is 2" or 3" -- SOA is going to boost the rear about 5-1/2" and then you're really looking at problems in the front, because you can't go that high without drop brackets and adjustable control arms, or long arms. Remember -- K.I.S.S.

The alternator is dead. I had a new one that was DOA, too. Doesn't matter if it's new or rebuilt ... dead is dead. It should read between 13.5 and 14 volts across the battery terminals with the engine running. The gauges may be dead because there's a bad (or corroded) ground between the cluster and the chassis.

I found one at Advance Auto that IS a perfect fit. It's listed for a Ford, but I don't remember which year and model.

Not for a Renix. You've been reading Haybes again ... shame on you. It should give a resistance -- 125 to 275 ohms, on a hot engine. Which has to be one of the most idiotic specs I've ever seen, because how do you warm up an engine that won't run?