Eagle

Fixed it for you.

Not bad at all.

Youtube thought I might want to watch this video:

First, does your '88 have a 4.0L engine? If it's a 2.5L, you can't do the swap. Assuming you have a 4.0L, the BA10/5 uses an internal slave cylinder/release bearing. The NV3550 uses an external slave, so you will need the 3550 transmission and the bell housing. Since you will need both, you will not need an adapter. I don't know about the driveshaft length.

Instead of just throwing parts at it blindly, why not figure out what's causing the problem and start there? You say the front end starts to shake when you pick up speed. What does that mean? Is this a slight shimmy, or is this death wobble? Does it happen when your speed increases from 20 to 25 MPH? From 25 to 30? How about ... does it start to shimmy at between 52 and 55 MPH, and then goes away when the speed gets over 60 MPH? A shimmy at 55 MPH that goes away above 60 is tire balance, and there is no combination of parts you can replace to correct for tire balance. Autozone, Advance Auto, and NAPA all offer on-line parts lookup. Have you tried looking up the parts yourself?

Not the way you mean. All the cranks are the same, and all the flywheels are the same. As long as they are for the same engine (by family, not by individual serial number) any flywheel works with any crankshaft. But later GM 2.8L and 3.4L engines were internally balanced, so you can't use an AMC flywheel on one of those GM engines, and you can't stuff a later GM 2.8L crank into an AMC engine unless you also switch to a neutral-balanced flywheel. No, there was no engine blueprinting room where each individual crankshaft was mated and balanced to a specific flywheel.

The version of the 2.8L that Jeep used was externally balanced. This means there is a counterweight on the flywheel / flexplate. If you have a Jeep 2.8L with the 904, everything should swap over with no problems.

I agree.

Simple test -- if the bolt circle is 5x4-1/2 ( to fit a Cherokee or Comanche) they aren't Buick wheels. The Javelin and AMX used the same 5x4-1/2" bolt circle that Xjs and MJs use.

Too low? I was going to suggest $1,500, with the caveat that I wouldn't expect it to sell quickly at that price. It's an 88, so it has the Peugeot BA 10/5 transmission. (Assuming that it's a 6-cylinder). It doesn't need the clutch cylinder to be bled -- it needs either the master or slave (or both) to be replaced, along with the hydraulic line between them. You've said it needs vacuum lines, a/c work, and brakes. When you look at prices in guides like Kelly Blue Book, those prices are for vehicles in running condition. The cost of needed repairs is subtracted from the printed values. That's a truck I would go look at for $1,500. And then I'd start bargaining down for the value of the needed clutch work, vacuum lines, brakes, and a/c work. I would not pay $1,500 for it in its current condition as described.

Steam and coolant coming out of the reservoir is overheating -- UNLESS the system wasn't fully burped when you refilled after doing the water pump.

It should not overheat with the primary fan alone. A concern I have is the comment that the water pump was replaced a couple of weeks ago. Are you certain (meaning are you absolutely, 100 percent, dead-on CERTAIN) that the parts guy gave you the correct water pump? The 4.0L and the older 4.2L engine have the same mounting pattern for the water pump. But ... the 4.2L water pump rotates "forward", for use with vee belts. The 4.0L water pump rotates in "reverse," for use with a serpentine belt. It's not unheard of for a parts counter drone to assume that all Jeep engines use the same water pump. They look the same on the outside, but the impellers are different.

That’s what I thought but after having my tires rebalanced recently the problem still persist. Too many shops now seem to think that having a fancy machine guarantees that the tires will be balanced right. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It requires a technician who knows (and cares) what he's doing. Maybe a year and a half ago I mounted some new tires on a set of used Cherokee rims I had bought. I had a balance problem. Took them to a nearby tire shop and asked to have them balanced. They reported that they couldn't balance them because all four wheels were bent. I then turned them over to a friend who was (at the time) the shop foreman in a VW dealership. He balanced them -- perfectly. The wheels were not bent, they tracked absolutely straight. All we could figure is that the techs at the first shop I went to didn't know what adapter to use for Jeep wheels. A wobble/shimmy/vibration that kicks in around 55 MPH and goes away at around 60 to 62 MPH is a tire balance problem. I don't know why 55 is the magic number -- it seems to be a constant irrespective of the tire size -- but that's the bottom line.

Tire balance.

What size rims are those? They also look a lot like the factory wheels from 68-69 Javelins and AMXs.

A switch is a switch. It offers a way to interrupt current flow in the hot (supply) leg feeding a device (a receptacle or light socket or motor). By definition and by function, the neutral leg is the return from a device (a receptacle, a light fixture, or a motor) to the neutral bus in the breaker panel. How can you possibly have a neutral in a leg that's the hot leg?

No, this configuration is quite common. The main cable (BX or Romex, whichever) containing the hot, the neutral, and the ground, goes to the ceiling box, and then a 2-conductor leg is run from the ceiling box to the switch to extend and switch the hot leg. It's completely code-compliant as long as the white wire is marked on both ends with black tape so down the road someone (like you) won't open up the switch box or the ceiling box and think that white wire is a neutral when it's actually hot. To rewire it so the white functions as a neutral would mean removing the cable from the breaker panel to the ceiling box, and running a new 12/2 or 14/2 cable from the breaker panel to the switch box. In the switch box, the old and the new black conductors would be attached to the terminals on the switch, and the old and new white conductors would be tied together with a wire nut. If the house wiring is in good condition, I don't see any reason to go through all that. On the other hand, if the wiring is old enough that the conductors have fabric insulation rather than plastic, then I would rip it out and start over.

That's like a huge rigid digit to the Des Moines Register. I wonder if they'll be covering the parade and, if so, if they'll find it necessary to mention his old tweets again.

No. In a configuration where the power feed goes directly to the overhead light box and then the switched leg is run out of the ceiling box and then back into it, the switched leg does not have a neutral. It's just an extension of the hot leg.

I'm about 98.732 percent certain that there was no such thing as an "Up Country" suspension code in 1987. I think that's one of the option codes the Jeep has recycled since the early days of the XJ and MJ. [time out] I just looked up the build sheet my dealer ran for me on my '88 4.0L MJ Chief. Build code 'AWE' is described as "Off Highway Package." The truck has a gas tank skid plate. It also has front tow hooks. It probably also came with the front skid plate, but the kid who owned it before me had butchered it and there's no front skid now. (But there's also no hint of the heavy rubberized fabric splash shield that was used on vehicles that didn't have the front skid plate.) The Off Highway Package would also have includes the 15x7 white "wagon wheel" style wheels, and probably 215/75-15 OWL tires (Goodyear Wranglers). My build sheet also says I have a cluster with tach, and I don't. I have gauges (standard on the Chief), but no tach. In fact, I strapped a Sun Super Tach to the steering column, too. But my build sheet also says I have a driver's side airbag, and those weren't introduced until the 1995 XJ model year. But ... my build sheet was printed in 1999, so there had already been some code recycling by then.

Using 12/3 is a less expensive way to get two circuits to the same general part of the house. The NEC (National Electric Code) allows both red and black as the supply side. Google up wiring for 3-way switches. For those, you need 12/3 (or 14/3) because there are two "hot" conductors between the two switch locations. Only one is hot at a time, of course, but if you turn the light off from one switch and then turn it on from the other switch, you'll be using the other conductor when you turn it back on. In fact, never mind -- here it is: https://www.familyhandyman.com/electrical/wiring-switches/how-to-wire-a-threeway-switch/

There is no difference between switching the neutral, and switching the neutral leg. Everything between the circuit breaker and the outlet (light fixture or receptacle) is part of the hot leg -- regardless of what color the wire insulation is. Everything from the outlet (light fixture or receptacle) back to the neutral bus in the breaker panel is neutral -- regardless of what color the wire is. If you have two wires going from the light fixture box down the the switch and then back to the ceiling box, whichever leg they are on, they are both on the same leg. They are either both hot (supply), or they are both neutral. As I piece together your posts, it sounds like it is the hot leg (not the neutral leg) that's switched, but they didn't tape the ends of the white conductor in the 14/2 cable to indicate that it's hot. The fact that it's white does NOT make it neutral. If it's in the supply side of the circuit (upstream of the light), it's supply, not neutral.

Follow up: Folks from Iowa were NOT happy, and did some digging. Turns out the reporter had some questionable posts or tweets in his own history. The newspaper has been besieged with letters, online comments, ... and subscription cancellations. They have since fired the reporter, and they are in full damage control mode, busily trying to create some semi-plausible explanation why the guy's tweets (from when he was 16 years old, fer cryin' out loud) were even mentioned in the story, since they had nothing whatsoever to do with the beer sign, the money, or the contribution to the children's hospital. It ain't workin' -- people in (and beyond) Iowa are stillcalling for some editorial heads to roll.

That alone is a code violation. White is supposed to be neutral. ALWAYS. If a 2-conductor cable is used the way you describe, the hot white wire is supposed to be wrapped with black tape for the 6 or 8 inches that are in the switch box, as well as in the box where the white connects to power. You need to find out where all the wires in that room come from and go to. There should not BE an "unused" neutral. See comment above if you're going to use standard 14/2. Better (IMHO) would be to use two lengths of black wire. But ... what's the point of adding two wires from the light to the switch? You already have two wires. But your opening post said the neutral conductor to (from) the light is switched. Now you say the wire from the overhead box to the switch is hot -- that's not neutral.

Definitely not to code. Fix it.