Eagle

Toyota drank the IFS Kool-Aid a long time ago. The Land Crusher, which I once admired greatly, used to be solid axle on both ends. Somewhere in the late 1990s they went to independent suspension and haven't looked back.

A whistle usually indicates a vacuum leak.

If I remember correctly, glyphosate is Roundup, which has been shown to be carcinogenic. I have tried vinegar, without much success. However, it appears that I was using it wrong. I was spraying it on the leaves, and I have since read that the way to use vinegar is to add salt to it and soak the roots of the plants. That's on my agenda for this summer. The problem is that poison ivy is still poison ivy, even when dead. you'll still need to wear heavy rubber goves when handling it. DO NOT burn it. The smoke carries the toxin into the lungs.

Coker has been around forever, and I've never heard anything bad about them. I haven't bought from them myself, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so if I needed classic tires for a classic car.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never seen a car with a "little dryer duct" from the exhaust manifold to the carburetor.

Before we had throttle body injection, we had those old things called "carburetors." I don't think I can count how many cars I've owned with carburetors, and that's not including the other cars my parents and grandparents owned. Like throttle body injection, the fuel mixes with the air in the carburetor and they travel together through the intake manifold. I've never heard of a carbureted car or truck that had a heated intake manifold.

Why not just pop off the stainless trim, re-seal the glass, and reinstall the trim? If it doesn't work, you can always have the windshield replaced later. If it does work, you saved $390 ($400 less the price of a tube of RTV).

The "old style" alternator is the same Delco style that was used in hundreds of thousands of GM cars and trucks for decades. It's difficult to believe you have trouble finding one.

Problem: You have found a [mostly] intact Comanche that you want to buy and fix and put on the road, but the seller doesn't have a title. Solution:

Fast forward to 22:34

The first tube from the source I provided a link to, the 2-1/2" x 2-1/2" x .238" wall tubing that has an inside dimension of 2.024", is listed as "telescoping" tubing and they say it has a smooth interior (probably DOM). I think that's the stuff for receivers. Or, as gogmorgo said, just buy the right thing per-made. Harbor Fright has it, in 12" and 18" lengths. https://www.harborfreight.com/class-iii-12-in-x-2-in-standard-receiver-tube-69879.html?_br_psugg_q=hitch+receiver+tube https://www.harborfreight.com/class-iii-18-in-x-2-in-standard-receiver-tube-69815.html?_br_psugg_q=hitch+receiver+tube

As to the receiver tubing -- it's not rocket science. Steel tubing is specified by the outside diameter and wall thickness, so the hitch part is 2" x 2". Here's the first vendor of steel tubing I found on-line. They sell 2-1/2" x 2-1/2" x .238" wall tubing that has an inside dimension of 2.024". You can't get much better than that. They also sell 2-1/2" x 2-1/2" x 3/16" wall. That would leave the inside dimension 2.125 (2-1/8"). Below the 3/16" wall the wall thickness is in gauge rather than fractions of an inch. https://www.metalsdepot.com/steel-products/steel-square-tube

Substitute? Looking at the images, I don't see any receiver tube at all, just a knockout for where the tube would go if you choose to install it. They offer a shop-welded rear bumper for the XJ -- for almost $900. It includes a 2" receiver, they have a disclaimer that towing is at the user's own risk -- and they don't provide any specs on the tubing used for the receiver. As for us MJ people -- they want us to pay $340 for a do-it-yourself kit in which the pieces aren't even bent to shape. The instructions call for clamping the pieces to a table and then bending then to specified angles -- after which we get to do our own welding. Thanks, but no thanks.

I'm tempted to ask why you want to throw money away in search of more power if money is tight, but that's your call. However, I WILL ask what you mean by "power." Look at a torque/horsepower graph for any internal combustion gasoline engine, and you'll see that the torque curve usually has a peak somewhere around 2500 to 3500 RPM, after which it flattens or starts to fall off. The horsepower curve, on the other hand, keeps climbing right up to redline. So the simple answer is to run the engine at higher RPM (which means either gears, or don't use overdrive) if you want more power. But most of us don't want to drive around at 5,000 RPM on the freeway. It's noisy, and it wears out the engine pretty quickly. When most people ask about power, what they really mean is that they want better acceleration and low- to mid-range performance. What are you hoping to accomplish?

If you stiffen up the front sway bar (larger diameter) and do nothing in the rear, you increase understeer (plowing). If you install a rear sway bar and don't run a front sway bar, you get oversteer (probably -- or at least a lot less understeer). What you're looking for, ideally, is a balance between the front and the rear anti-sway control so that under most conditions you don't get either massive oversteer or massive understeer. I believe the auto manufacturers prefer to build in a little understeer, because they think people can handle that better than oversteer -- and they're probably right. Personally, I prefer just a bit of oversteer under throttle, and neutral steer when coasting.

Look for a sway bar out of a ZJ V8 -- ideally, the 5.9L V8.

Correct. But the reference in the opening post to "stock buttons" doesn't seem to encompass that technology.

It's always interesting to see things go full circle. For those of you who don't know, I'm 79 years old. When I was growing up, cars had an ignition switch, and a separate push button for the starter. On some of them the starter button was on the dashboard, on others it was on the floor (sometimes near enough to the headlight dimmer switch -- also floor-mounted -- to cause problems). It wasn't until the mid- to late 1950s that we started to see an ignition switch with an extra, "Start" position built into it. The "Accessory" position came even later. And now we are seeing that taking the "Start" function out of the ignition switch is somehow viewed as an innovation ... when it's actually a reversion.

The basic diagnostic in the factory service manual is to remove the TCU fuse and see if it shifts manually. Your transmission passes that test, so the problem isn't the transmission. That leaves the TCU and/or the wiring.

You were lucky.

DO NOT use a Dana 44a. I once made the mistake of buying a WJ with the 4.7L engine. It came with the aluminum rear axle. It spent literally WEEKS in the dealer's shop while first the dealer's techs and then a "specialist" flown in from the factory tried to stop the constant droning/whining noise it made at all road speeds over about 25 MPH. The axle problem was never fixed, and about 6 months after I bought it the engine died at an intersection, never to run again. Chrysler bought it back from me and I replaced it with a 2000 XJ. You want a clue about how bad that axle really is? I bought (as I always do) the factory service manual. The owner's manual doesn't include this information, but the FSM has a warning in it: DO NOT use a floor jack under the differential to jack up the rear of the vehicle. Doing so may cause the differential housing to become deformed. Meanwhile, my '88 XJ with the D35 is at 287,000 miles, has been driven cross country heavily loaded, and has been wheeled hard on some fairly rugged trails with no ill effects. I will take a D35 over a D44a any day.

I'm personally not interested in aftermarket taillights, but I think having a pre-made harness available would be a great idea.

3-D printing is rapidly becoming a popular pastime (if it hasn't already become a popular pastime). I'm sure some of you have at least experimented with it. Question: Are there any free software programs for use with 3-D printing? Preferably free programs that are halfwat decent?

And what year and engine? That appears to be an AX-15 (or AX-5) transmission. And that photo of the tranny mount looks a bit off.

I wasn't suggesting that Classy tell his cousin he's an idiot -- that's just among us. For those who apparently aren't aware -- the XJ and the MJ were designed using crumple zone technology. If you have access to u-pull junkyards (they're illegal in Connecticut, and have been for decades), check out some XJs and MJs that have been hit in the front. See how bad the front frame horns and inner fenders are, where the engine ended up -- and whether or not anything made it into the passenger compartment.