Eagle

A guy in one of the other clubs around here was killed by his hi-lift. The ratchet slipped as he was jacking the vehicle up, the handle flew up and hit him square in the face. Busted up the facial bones and did enough brain damage that he died in the hospital. What was it somebody wrote earlier in this thread about keeping the hi-lift oiled? Good advice! Also, always be absolutely, 110% certain that you are NEVER within range of the hi-lift handle when there's any load on the jack. NEVER!

Same thing happened to a friend of mine in NAXJA -- except he happened to be under the vehicle when it started rolling down the hill. Fortunately for him, it had on large tires that were aired down and he was on moderately soft dirt rather than pavement. Miraculously, nothing broken but several bruises (aside from the one to his ego!). Note to self: parking brakes don't help when wheels are off the ground.

The 29-spline version was introduced either mid-year 1996 or with the 1997 models. It is fairly close to the Dana 44 in strength, but it is a c-clip axle. If you want to stuff one under an MJ, it's probably not a bad swap. Heck, the Ford 8.8 is a c-clip axle, too.

Oh, yeah ... I forgot you already have a 3" lift. If it still has the stock track bar, your front axle is off-center about a half inch toward the driver's side. You'll need an adjustable track bar to center up the axle on the chassis before you can really address the issue.

I don't know what "attaboybob"s truck looks like. Steel rims have the size stamped into them right next to the valve stem. Take a close look, it'll be stamped either 15x6 or 15x7

Gents: (1) 235/75-15 was not an optional tire size for the Comanche. 225/75-15 was the largest, IIRC. Nonetheless, 235s should clear ... unless the track bar has been replaced with one from the wrong group of years. They are a tiny fraction of an inch different in length, and that can cause rubbing. My '88 MJ with an aftermarket track bar doesn't rub with 235s. My '88 XJ has a '93 track bar in it, and since the replacement it rubs when I turn all the way to one side. Don't recall which way it is, but it basically means the axle is slightly off center. (2) More lift will NOT eliminate the rubbing, because the interference is when the inner shoulder of the tire hits the lower control arm. More lift won't radically alter that relationship. The "fix" is to shim the steering stop, but you do lose turning radius by doing that.

Thanks to a judicious mix of old and new ... that isn't an issue in the Eagle's nest. (a) I wear gloves, so my tender skin never contacts the yucky grease (until the gloves tear, about 37.29 seconds into the job; and (B) I'm old enough that I have a bearing packer station, left over from the days when people actually knew that wheel bearings should be greased periodically. Even with cleaning up, repacking a couple of front bearings is a LOT less work than swapping out an entire axle assembly. There is no way the times would be even close to comparable.

To confirm what Twisted said ... unless your rims are the stock, base model steel rims they are 15x7. The stock backspacing is 5-1/4" and there are NO aftermarket rims that match that. Most will be either 4" or 4-1/2" backspacing. That's NOT a good idea, because they won't allow the tires to fit inside the fenders when the suspension compresses. You'll be banging the tires into the flares. The stock rims have enough backspacing that they stuff the tires inside the fenders.

An early member of NAXJA who used to post as ComancheGuy said his father was a cap dealer. He reported that early S-10 caps fit. I have an S-10 shortie cap on one of my MJs right now. It's a perfect fit. ComancheGuy said the height was slightly off, but the one I have is a commercial/utility type that's about 6" or 8" taller than the cab anyway, so it isn't an issue.

No way! Not if he has the style 2WD with a conventional spindle and inner and outer bearings. Shouldn't take more than 15 minutes per side, and that's if he's never done it before.

An '89 should have a temp sender in the left rear corner of the head. If you don't have one -- what are you running for an engine, 'cause if it doesn't have one it's not stock.

I voted for Taos, but you need to realize that Taos is really a small town, and I don't think your wife is going to find any big insurance companies (or any big any other kind of companies) there to work for. It's basically a tourist trap, and a rather pricey one at that. Next choice IMHO would be Tucson. Tucson is a real city. It's farther south than Phoenix, but not as hot. Lots of great desert wheeling around there (just gotta watch out for the coyotes, and I don't mean the 4-legged variety), and mountains both east and west of the city. There's also a good-size university in Tucson, so there's probably a better chance of your wife finding a job.

I would run whichever axle has the gear ratio that's closer to what you want to run. Don't even think about swapping gears from one to the other, especially if you don't know how to do it. Like Pete said a few posts earlier, this is NOT a "bolt-in" proposition. As to the relative strength, whoever it was who said the only difference is that when you break a non c-clip axle the axle and wheel don't slide out. That's the ONLY difference. In real life terms, it means that MAYBE you can town it a few feet to more level ground so you can make the repair. You are NOT going to drive it with a broken axle shaft even if it doesn't have a c-clip, and you are NOT going to tow it 5 miles out of the woods and 50 miles home on the highway with a busted shaft in there. If you carry spare shafts, all set up with bearings, the non c-clip is a little neater to repair in the woods because without the c-clip you don't have to remove the diff cover to replace a broken shaft. IF you can get the broken part out, that is. Just throw in the one with the ratio you want and run it 'til it breaks. Then replace with a D44 or an 8.8.

What do you mean by "build"? And what size tires do you ultimately intend to run on this axle? The D35 is fine for street duty and light wheeling with up to 30" or maybe 31" tires, but even for those uses it isn't worth putting a whole lot of money into to "build" it. A lunchbox locker or a limited slip is abaout as far as I would take one for "building" -- beyond that you're probably wasting money, 'cause you're likely to break it and have a bunch of expensive parts that you can only use to polish another turd.

Another argument in favor of the disco axle is the right side control arm mounts. On the non-disco, the UCA mounts to a sheet metal bracket that's welded to the axle tube. Fine for street use, but lots of heavy off-road use can twist that bracket into a pretzel. The right side UCA on the disco axle mounts to an ear that's part of the cast disconnect housing. It's MUCH stronger.

Most likely in the past some tire "technician" used a Gorilla gun without torque sticks and stretched (or stripped) the studs. I refuse to allow anyone but me to touch my lug nuts. If I need tires, I take the bare rims to the shop in the back of the MJ and they mount the tires and balance them. Then I bring 'em home and install them. I always torque the lug nuts with a click-release torque wrench. I use anti-seize on the studs, so I use a torque setting of 85 pounds. (You're supposed to reduce torque when the threads are lubricated, I trust y'all knew that). So far (knock on wood) I've never had a problem. The XJ is now over 260,000 miles. The MJs are trying to catch up ...

Rob, you're in Ontario, so I assume you mean 294,000 kilometers, not miles. That's about 176,400 miles. If the original owner was a decent driver, that's quite possible. I bought my '88 XJ new. I replaced the entire clutch mechanism (clutchdisc, pressure plate, master and slave) at 204,000 miles. The clutch itself was perfect -- I could have left it in, and in fact I kept it for possible use in a trail beater. The only reason I went in there was that the release bearing/slave cylinder was going bad, and once you take everything apart on a 4WD with high miles it would be foolish not to do it all. The disc I took out was not worn down much at all. The lines and grooves were still clearly defined and it was nowhere near the rivets. It is entirely possible that your truc has the original clutch in it.

I want one!!!!!!!!

He's asking about a larger-than-stock, mandrel bent pipe. The parts store pipes will be stock diameter and they aren't mandrel bent.

I'll start by asking (a) why do you want to go 2-1/2" and (B) what makes you think that's an "upgrade"? A number of years ago my brother managed a muffler shop. When the original exhaust on my '88 Cherokee went, I took it to him to put in a replacement. He did a cat-back -- muffler and tailpipe. He talked me into a 2-1/2" turbo muffler and a 2-1/2" tailpipe. (The catalytic converter was already 2-1/2", if you didn't know that). The result was more noise, a significant drop in low end torque (there was a bit more horsepower above maybe 4,000 RPM, but with a 4.0L 5-speed I never get over 3,000 RPM for shifting, and cruise in 5th gear is under 2,000 RPM), and a loss of 2 to 3 miles per gallon on fuel efficiency. Having your 2-1/2" exhaust mandrel bent will only make these effects more significant. I don't regard this as an "upgrade" in any way. By the time that tailpipe and muffler rusted out I was just waiting for the day I could justify tossing them and going back to a stock system. I didn't quite "hate" that system ... but I sure didn't like it.

The AX-4 and the AX-5 are the same transmission, except the AX-4 has an enpty rear section where the 5th gear bits are in the AX-5. The pilot shaft snout should be the same diameter. Either he got the wrong pilot bushing, or your 4-speed is a T-4 instead of an AX-4. For the first couple of years AMC had problems obtaining enough AX-4 and AX-5 transmissions, so the used some T-4 and T-5 boxes to keep the assembly lines moving. I thought that was true only in 1984 and 1985, but I suppose it's possible they were still doing it in 1986 when the MJ came out. BTW, the guy at the shop is wrong. The early XJs and MJs were available with a 4-cyl engine and 4-speed transmission. That was the base configuration. I have two of them here, an 86 MJ longbed and an 88 MJ shortbed.

True. If you don't keep them parallel, you get bump steer.

The 3550 is noisier than the BA 10/5 in my '88 XJ but not as noisy as the YJ AX-15 in my '88 MJ. But the 3550 shifts SOOOOOOOOOOO much smoother than either of the other trannies, and the first gear ratio is lower, which is nice for crawl ratio as well as street driving with larger tires. And the noise isn't objectionable -- at least for me. I know I'm driving a manual tranny and I don't expect it to be totally silent. The 3550 has a nice, comforting background whine in the lower gears that tells me that it's doing its job. I wish I could afford to put 3550s in all my XJs and MJs.

About an inch drop.

Dunno. As far as I know, all 2000 Wranglers had the NVG3550. Technically, all 2000 XJs with the 4.0L engine have it, too ... but they didn't actually build any of those until the last month of production, so there's really no such thing as a "mid-year change." My 2000 XJ 5-speed sat on order for about 7 months before the factory confirmed that they were going to build it. I think they were hoping I'd get tired of waiting and cancel.