gogmorgo

I didn't realize how bad I had it (and it's still not that bad) until I had two weeks to move everything out of my house. My XJ is sitting full of parts in my parents' driveway, as is the Niva, and I've got a 6'x6'x4' pile of stuff stashed in an old school bus out at a friend's bush property.

The extra connector is for the np242. Instead of the vacuum crap there's an electric switch that grounds the full-time and part-time 4x4 lights. In contrast the part-time light on a 231-equipped jeep with the vacuum crap is grounded by a vacuum switch, I think in the engine bay somewhere on your '89, although on my '91 it's built into the CAD housing. When I say the lights are grounded what I mean is exactly that, they have constant power with the key on and the switches are on the ground side.

If you're completely removing the trans, it might make it even easier to fix. You'll have more access to the top end of it instead of poking down through the hole in the trans tunnel, for one.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/ba10-5-won-t-shift-after-removing-reinstalling-shifter-885822/ I stumbled upon this in searching to find out whether or not the BA10/5 had a similar engagement point as my Lada's. Why wouldn't two junky transmissions be the similar? Lol. But that's the only other trans I've got experience with in a situation like this. The three shift rails have a slot in them that the bottom of the lever sticks into. In neutral, all three slots are lined up, which is why you can push the gear lever left or right, but when you engage a gear it pushes the selected rail either forwards or back and the slots are no longer lined up and they don't let you push the shift lever left or right any more. If you pull the lever out while in gear, and then stick it back in, you're moving it between the other two rails, but you can't move them because you've already got a gear engaged, and you can't push it into the slot for the gear you're in because it's not line up. What you need to do is get the shift rails lined back up in neutral. My first strategy would be trying to get the gear lever to slot into its spot in the first gear rail. You'll need to do this while you're inserting the lever. Hold it in more or less the first gear position as you're sliding it in. If you have your foot on the clutch while you're doing this (Make sure your truck will NOT roll - rear wheels in the air, chocked wheels, parking brake, etc) you may even be able wiggle it back out of first gear while you're doing that, and then be able to put the shift lever back in normally. The key here is to slide the tip of the gear lever back where it's supposed to be. Failing that, you might be able to get things pushed back in place (i.e. putting it back into neutral) with a long screwdriver poked down the shifter hole (again with your foot on the clutch) so you can stick the shifter back in normally in neutral. Remember that the gear lever reverses the action that your hand does, so what the transmission internals see when you engage first gear is right and back, not left and forwards, so adjust your pokings accordingly. I don't know whether it's a wise idea or not on the BA-10/5, but on my Niva I pull the whole shifter tower off the trans because it's easier and far less likely to drop hardware into the transmission. It also allows a much better view of what's going on inside the trans than what the pics I've seen down the pukegoat's shifter hole show. Or you can use this opportunity to upgrade to an AX15, but that's probably a lot more work than you're interested in right now.

For the add-a-leaf it's not the width of the spring that is the issue. The MJ rear springs have much more arch than the XJ rear springs, meaning you won't get much lift if any out of an XJ leaf. You can go with longer rear shackles to get a little bit more lift on the cheap. One of the more popular options seems to be a 2" Chevy drop shackle being good for ~2" lift, but I have no experience there, and wouldn't know what drop shackle you'd be wanting. Just be aware that changing the length of the shackles will change your pinion angle so you might need to do something (spring perch wedges or small tcase drop maybe) to correct for that.

Just a little vocabulary for clarity's sake. Cranking = spinning the engine. The starter has engaged and is turning the crankshaft, etc. Firing = the fuel/air mixture is being ignited, although not necessarily often enough or at the right time for the engine to run by itself Starting = the engine catches and runs by itself. We know what you meant, and hopefully these guys are on the money for where you issue lies, but for next time...

Unless it got dropped in a way it would catch an edge of something. That's nuts though. It really sucks that it would show up damaged cause I know how much shipping to Calgary would cost. As far as actual packaging goes, the only way you can really stop it from busting out of a box is by making sure it doesn't move around at all. Failing that, you'd also want something to distribute the load around any corners or edges, or at least to reinforce the box. For packaging I've seen rolled and/or layered corrugated cardboard to wedge things into place, I've also seen cheap foam inserts in cheap off-shore tools in unbranded boxes. You could always go with a wooden crate, but I can't see that not adding a huge amount to the shipping cost. The other thing to consider is that these boxes will inevitably end up at the bottom of a stack which means that the box will get crushed if there's nothing reinforcing the middle. If you've got boxes coming, I suppose you've talked to a box manufacturer to see what they would recommend doing?

You can pull the whole buzzer right out of the fuse block without causing problems if you really want it gone.

I won't disagree with your findings but I'm not convinced they're evidence of much. We're also talking about an engine with 13% higher displacement, pushing a lot more air than your stock cat was intended to handle. The 12hp gain after the no-cat system will have more to do with the increased pipe diameter than the lack of cat, as well. You can't properly compare one variable when you're changing a bunch of others.

Lol like @#$%ing hell we are. There are some real good censors on here too. If I could only remember the expression that gets them put in in place... Goddamn Son of a b*@$£ a$$hole Maudît ostie de tabarnac. No I'm not going to list all the swear words I know.

Have you ever looked inside a cat? It's just a bunch of hollow tubes. Tiny amount of turbulence transitioning between the large tube of the exhaust pipes and the many smaller tubes and then back again but it wouldn't surprise me if it had less of an effect than a glass pack would. Punching it out to make it only look like a cat on the outside probably will increase the effect on performance due to the large empty chamber and the many horribly distorted tubes around the outside increasing turbulence. With a properly functioning system you're looking at most at a 2% difference in performance, which on something with under 200 hp is not even going to be noticeable on a racetrack let alone on a street-driven vehicle. The only noticeable difference maybe is going to be in sound.

I refuse to say Willy's. Apostrophes mean something, and it bothers me that people ignore that. Mind you, it bothered me today at work that a coworker today while filling a bucket of sand that was located directly over the sand pile wasn't getting all the sand from his shovel into the bucket but instead was letting a small amount fall back outside around the bucket and back into the pile. So I'm willing to submit that my being bothered by things may have more to do with myself than anything else.

Pretty much, haha. In my case, the Niva didn't have one and the MJ's did more to reduce tailpipe emissions by redirecting them away from the tailpipe, so by not putting one in when I very cheaply redid them both I wasn't really changing anything. Plus like I said the amount of oil the MJ burns the cat would plug full of soot before it had the chance to do anything. I haven't looked into it yet, but if I'm required to re-tag my MJ with the upcoming move (pretty sure I will be) and it needs to have a cat to pass an inspection, I will happily install a functioning cat. I might even be temped to blow thickening apart to fix the oil consumption problem to make it worthwhile. But I'm pretty lazy.

I think some clarity is needed as to whether "should I replace it" means "Should I reuse my current catalytic converter with the next pipes" or "should I bother installing a catalytic converter when I replace the exhaust system". The answer to "should I replace it" is going to be yes. Unless something untoward has happened (wouldn't surprise me) it is illegal to tamper with emissions equipment under US federal law. It was put there for a reason, and if you don't know how long it's been there and your exhaust system is in poor enough condition to warrant replacing the entire thing, it's probably not doing much any more to reduce emissions. That said, the chances of being prosecuted for tampering with your vehicle's emissions system are incredibly slim, especially under your current administration, and especially if there's no requirement for emissions testing. Similar laws are in effect here in Canada, and despite the fact that our current administration claims to care, there's also very little chance I'll be prosecuted for two of my three vehicles not having the cats they should have. However that's more due to the fact that I'd rather spend the money somewhere else because both the vehicles blow enough soot out the exhaust any cat would be rendered useless in short order than anything else. You won't notice any significant performace improvement in just removing the cat from the system, but your children's children will have a much healthier life as a result.

Okay I take that back. -28°F again this morning. Now I'm wondering about my exhaust system, cause it started okay-ish with the massive exhaust leak. Didn't have to touch the throttle and it only cranked for ten seconds or so before turning over. Not bad considering I left it unplugged cause I didn't check the forecast. Fortunately my neighbours are only neighbours for the next week and a bit cause I'm pretty sure they'll hate me if I leave this thing idling outside for too long. Although on the plus side they won't need an alarm clock...

I've always wondered whether I should pick up one of those, considering I sometimes find myself driving on top of water. Ultimately my decision becomes one of the captain going down with his ship, and I'd rather have the case of beer. Now I'm happy in my decision. I've also seen spring-loaded ones on keychains. I've always wondered how effective they actually are, and how long the spring will stay under tension before it fatigues and loses some of its spring.

:yeah that: Also it was pretty warm today. Got up to around 10°F.

Scrap prices in the dirt is true for sure. I scrapped a KJ about a year ago and got all of $50 in yard credit. Would've tried somewhere else but my landlord made me get rid of it and that was the first yard to pick up the phone in a 100-mile radius on a Sunday afternoon.

Little bit warmer but not by much. Jasper, AB. Think Banff but a little further north. And about that O2 sensor thing... Going down the road just now I hit a bump and my exhaust got a TON louder. Pulled over and discovered one of the nuts had gone AWOL off the manifold to downpipe studs and the other one's working its way off too. If that's been leaking for a while I'm guessing that could be messing with the O2 readings. The wires looked okay. What didn't look okay was the obvious evidence of the downpipe self-clearancing on the driveshaft. The O2 itself is an NTK that's 18 months old, 25,000km on it (so 15,000 miles maybe? I didn't do math for that) Could still be having issues I suppose :dunno: I don't know how a major exhaust leak would affect starting, given the O2 is ignored until closed loop. Maybe the donut washer thing in there expanded and sealed the gap better when it's warm? I have been noticing that my fuel economy's been pretty low, although I've been blaming it on more time spent idling and also getting sideways around many corners not entirely unintentionally cause I gotta do something out here for fun.

It dropped to about -25°F last night, although by the time I was out messing with things it had warmed up to around -5. Load test on the battery didn't drop below 600CCA. The battery is fairly new, has never been abused and I've noticed nothing to suggest it's bad. No offence but in my mind a battery blanket is a bandaid solution for a dying battery that will leave you stranded when you inevitably park somewhere you can't plug it in. It's not unusual for me to be parked at a trailhead with no cell service for 15 miles in any direction, coming back to the truck around sunset, and I'd rather not walk out in the dark. But yeah. Left the block heater unplugged, and again it wouldn't fire without throttle. Once it did it took me a couple minutes of nursing the pedal until it would idle by itself. Having a full fuel tank doesn't seem to make a huge difference. I've got to run to my parents' to drop off a bunch of my stuff today so I unfortunately don't have time to mess around with it a whole bunch more.

The difference on the "offensiveness" factor between Cherokee and Comanche is that the Cherokee (and/or Grand Cherokee) nameplate has been in continuous production for over 40 years and applied to millions of vehicles worldwide, becoming part of the Brand's heritage. Comanche on the other hand was a name applied to a run of what, 200,000 small trucks built 25-32 years ago that most people don't even remember existed unless they owned one and no one notices because it's just an old small truck to most people. While a JK truck would be cool, I don't think a body-on-frame truck is deserving of the name Comanche. Call it a J— if you will, but not a Comanche. I still kinda want to see that Renegade truck put into production without that lame convertible top, but I'm not optimistic. Also a rear-drive Alfa platform in my mind is a better base for a Jeep than a front-drive one. It would be awesome to see the next Renegade in a traditional longitudinal configuration. We need more rear-drivers out there anyhow.

Thoughts are mostly related to exposing a rust-free MJ to the tin worm.

http://comancheclub.com/topic/51335-diy-renix-40-ac-bracket-bearing-replacement/ This one?

Use the one that goes with the engine. What's going on is that the crankshaft position sensor (CPS) reads off of windows on the flexplate (or flywheel in a manual trans application). In 1991 Jeep implemented Chrysler's OBD1 engine control system on the 4.0 in the XJ and MJ, rebranding it as "high output" (HO) as it picked up a handful of horsepower. Among the many changes from the old AMC-implemented Renix system is a different style of CPS, which reads differently from the Renix CPS, and so the arrangement of windows around the flexplate is different between the two and you'll need to use the flexplate (or flywheel) that matches your CPS and the rest of the engine control system. If you have the two flexplates side by side you'll see that the two are physically compatible (nearly identical) except for the window arrangement — the Renix has a bajillion with one slightly larger than the next, IIRC the HO has like, three. In your case the engine control is the HO/OBD1, so you'll want the flexplate that goes with the engine control, i.e. the '91+. The used one will probably be okay, but they are a wear item and eventually will crack, so if it's got a ton of miles it might be better to replace it while you've got everything apart. Also note that the CPS bolts to the bellhousing, so you'll have to pull that off the older transmission and stick it on the new trans. Unplug it before dropping the trans, but your life will be one hell of a lot easier if you don't unbolt it until you've got the trans out, and remember to transfer it to the 4x4 trans before it goes in. It takes some serious contortion to get at in with the trans in the vehicle. There may also be some differences in the TCU control circuitry between the '90 and '91 trans. You might want to consult this thread for more info on that. One more thing, unless that MJ is completely pooched, we CC members tend not to like seeing running and driving MJ's parted out. All the parts you need (except the rear driveshaft, you should be able to get the old one cut down) can be found in an XJ. If you can find one with an NP242 transfer case as well it's a pretty solid upgrade over the 231, not necessarily in terms of strength, but in terms of function in normal driving in low-traction conditions the full-time 4x4 is a hell of an improvement over the 231's lack of centre diff.

I'll do a load test on it before starting it tomorrow. Battery is admittedly a cheap one but it's only 18 months old and has never been discharged out in the cold. It hasn't seen much more than a couple weeks of heat above 90° either, and the longest time it's spent without the Jeep starting has been a couple weeks at most. If the voltmeter on the dash is to be believed in the above video it doesn't look like it dropped below 10 volts under cranking, and if it's cranking over that hard without losing speed at -35, it's not anywhere close to seven volts. The starter is only a few weeks old, so it's not like it's drawing more than it's supposed to be, either.