Eagle

You can use the XJ panel. I did. Just use your Dremel to remove the four plastic welds that hold that dummy panel into the dash bezel, and the opening will be exactly the same as an XJ. I did mine that way -- I have an XJ panel in there with one switch wired to my home-brew dome light, and the other as a spare for whatever I decide might be interesting that runs on 12 volts. Just remember that the XJ panels are not the same for the right and left sides of the steering column. You need a switch panel from the right side, but the switches will probably be for tranny power/comfort and rear wiper. You may need to replace the actual switch with an XJ/MJ fog light switch to get a simple SPST function out of it.

The fuel pump ballast resistor on an '88 isn't on the firewall, it's on the inside of the left front fender. Between the fender and the air filter box. It's a greyish-white ceramic block about 2" long with a push-on terminal at each end.

I want to know what model MJ, because I think the tach was swapped in from a 4-banger.

Yepp, probably 4.10, maybe 3.73. If it's a 4-speed rather than a 5-speed ==> 3.54.

31x10.50/15s will fit on stock Jeep rims, but they won't play nice with your front flares on aftermarket rims. I think 3x9.50/15 is a better overall choice, especially if you don't want to get into regearing. Even with 30x9.50s there will be some slight rubbing against the lower control arms when the steering is cranked over to full lock. Aftermarket rims with less backspacing cures that, but at the expense of eating your flares. I run 30x9.50s on OEM Jeep alloys.

It should idle at around 650. Are you certain your tach is accurate? What model is your MJ? If it's a model that didn't come from the factory with a tach, the previous idiot (err, "owner," yeah that's it) may have dropped in a gauge cluster from a 4-banger. Think about what that means. In a 6-cylinder, there are three firing pulses for every revolution. For a 4-cylinder, there are only two pulses per revolution, so if a 4-cylinder tach sees three pulses, it reads 1-1/2 revolutions insteal of one. Which means it'll read 1500 instead of 1000, 4500 instead of 3000.

aemsee has a good point. Even if a previous owner swapped gearing, the most common swap is 4.10s from a 4-banger. The gearing doesn't make as huge a difference in RPM as some people think. Even with 4.10 gears, and no overdrive, 70 MPH would only be 3500 RPM. The highest (numerical) ratio available for the D30 is 4.88, and that would only run at 4150 RPM at 70 MPH. Methinks you need to have a bit of diagnostics run that we probably can't do for you by remote control.

I'm currently down to only five MJs. Two are 4WD and stock (one was lifted when I bought it and I took out the lift), the other three are 2WD and stock. I may convert one of the 2WDs to 4WD but I don't plan to lift any of them. I'm not into extreme wheeling, and the short wheelbase MJs wheel pretty darned well in stock form. I enjoy wheeling, but there are plenty of Cherokees to chop up for that. When it comes to MJs I'm more interested in preserving them than I am in destroying them. Hence my sig line ...

I think we have a winnah! They need the shoulder to accurately index the CPS.

The MJ never came with 235s, so let's assume that your speedo thinks you have 225/75x15 tires. Stock gearing with the automatic was 3.54:1. With that gearing, in 4th gear and torque converter locked up you should be seeing about 1615 RPM at 50 MPH, and about 2250 RPM at 70 MPH. It sounds like (a) you're not getting 4th (overdrive) gear AND your torque converter isn't locking up. Assuming you only have 3rd gear, the RPMs would be about 2150 RPM @ 50 MPH and 3015 RPM @ 70 MPH. If you're seeing more than that, the tranny is slipping and/or the converter isn't locking. Or ... a previous owner changed the gearing.

Last year this event drew something like 650 Jeeps. I can almost guarantee that there will be more than one Comanche there. Wish I could promise that mine will be there, but at the moment the cab floor is open and I'm trying to get the transfer case linkage back to some semblance of stock, so I'll probablyy be in the Cherokee. CJLongshot will probably have his there.

so, 89/90 is 21 then? The AX-15 was a running change, introduced mid-year in the 1989 production run. Most likely the change from 21-spline to 23-spline was made at the same time, but ... it's a Jeep. You can't be certain of anything.

I dunno, guys ... it looks okay to me. Note that in that photo the charcoal cannister isn't bolted to the frame rail, so it's closer to the oil filter than it should be. The oil pressure sender seems to be right over the filter, which is normal. Those of you who have seen only 91 and newer 4.0L engines may not know that the 87-90 version used a metric thread filter that mounted pointing up and out like that, rather than the horizontal position Chrysler adopted in 91.

I've seen that done. It works ... not quite as rigid as the factory installation and tends to collect a lot of gunk where you may not want a lot of gunk, but okay for wheeling. However, the original question specified "including the mounting brackets" so I felt I should clarify that they are sold separately from the flares. The inner liners are also separate.

the xj only has one prop valve. go with a newer one 97+ and they work great. i had a write up on this somewhere. :hmm: Alex The MJ only has one proportioning valve, too ... the one in the rear. What is the proportioning valve in the XJ is nothing but the brake system warning light switch in the MJ. There is no proportioning going on in that front juntion block.

Heh, heh ... That's just the price for two flares. Each flare needs three (3) retainer plates with the studs. A set of three will set you back more than the cost of the flare. The studs are 5mm -- good luck finding 5mm flange nuts to put on 'em. Unless you're looking to restore the truck, IMHO you're better off using Wrangler flares, or buying some of that universal stuff that JC Whitney sells in rolls.

They are not the same. The Comanche flare is both longer and higher. http://comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1427 Search is your friend.

Gotta love that Never-Seez stuff. I think it should be a Federal law that the manufacturers have to use it on any part that even might ever need to be taken apart at any time before a vehicle disintiegrates into a small pile of rust flakes.

It's fastest and least expensive to use stock lengths from Auto Zone or Advance Auto. As noted, be sure to get a length that's just slightly longer than the piece to be replaced, if you can't match the length exactly.

10:1 you popped the steel line feeding the rear brakes. Check your master cylinder and I'll bet the chamber for the rear brakes (the small chamber) is either low or completely empty. The most common place for a rupture is along the frame rail where the lines pass over the fuel tank. Next most likely place would be one of the lines on the rar axle itself, from the junction block to one of the wheels. Drop me a PM with your phone number. We can check it out on Monday if you don't have plans.

www.quadratech.com All Jeep, all the time.

Makes perfect sense ... Except that the owner of that shop doesn't have a clue. The newer FSMs give the specs in degrees, which is more accurate because it isn't affected by tire size. However, since I own mostly older ones, I have the '88 FSM here for reference. Spec is:

??????? 1/4" toed out is 1/4" toed out. The factory spec is zero to 1/16" toe-in, so there's no way that 1/4" toed out is 1/2" out of spec. And the only problem it'll cause is rapid tire wear, and some "twitchy" steering response. It won't cause death wobble. Been there, done that. When I took the lift out of the '88 MJ I was finishing up just before a trail ride up the road in MA. I completely forgot that changing the vehicle height 4" would affect the toe-in. Drove it up there and immediately noticed the twitchiness, plus I could hear the tires squeaking on corners. Once at the campground one of the other guys had a tape rule and we measured it. It was considerably toed out. Worse, the sleeve was so rusted that we couldn't make it turn, so I had to drive it home like that. Total of a few hundred miles. Visible tire wear, funky steering ... but no death wobble.

No, the "west coast" trucker style (tow package) mirrors do not use the same holes.

If it's a trail vehicle that sees limited highway miles, DIY. If it's your daily driver and gets a lot of miles, have a shop do it and you'll save the cost in tire wear. BTW -- 1/4" out of spec on toe-in won't cause DW. Insufficient caster might, though.