gogmorgo

I’ve driven my ‘91 with the speed sensor unplugged. The most noticeable effect is just the speedometer/odometer not working. Cruise doesn’t work either. Otherwise there’s no difference in driveability. The AW4 still shifts normally. Speed sensor data is included in the DRL logic if equipped, it wants to see the vehicle rolling, best guess they might not come on with no input but I didn’t ever check. Shift light might also be affected with a manual I guess. I doubt the speed sensor plays much into the engine tuning. Not really a relevant factor to monitoring engine load and air/fuel ratio. It didn’t seem like it was using any more or less fuel although I wasn’t paying a ton of attention.

It would probably pay to go through and delete all the wire nuts. At the very least replace them with a solid crimp splice. I’ll second the ignition parts if you haven’t done them already. I’m not familiar with the TBI setup, but my ‘91 2.5 MPFI also has long crank times when cold. It helps a little if I cycle the key a few times to prime the fuel pump, but only a little. It starts alright if it’s warm, however. I’ve never really got to the bottom of it because it does always start… eventually. Its very possible you cure your starting issue when you solve your misfire.

I did an engine swap on my back lawn at a rental place about ten years ago. I hauled home a $350 rotten no papers but good running XJ, parked it next to the MJ, threw down a couple sheets of plywood to roll the engine crane around on. Took me about a week of evenings after work to get everything swapped over, maybe including the Saturdays to get everything buttoned up. I swapped engine trans and tcase together, likely wouldn’t have taken as long if I’d only moved the engine over, or if I wasn’t lone wolfing it. Then I donated the XJ shell to the local volunteer fire department for extraction practise, and they hauled it away for me. I also watched some kids do an engine swap in a square body Chev in my college dorm parking lot, looked like they went from a straight six to a big block. They didn’t attempt to hide what was happening, spent a weekend on it, and didn’t make a mess. No one batted an eye as best as I could tell.

That’s a tough spot for a fix. I have a 2.5 with a crack in the same spot, right by the motor mount. It pulls it open when you rev the engine. Took me a while to find the leak because it would only release any pressure while on the throttle when the crack would open up. This is probably due more to stress over time and possibly a casting defect than a freezing issue. I used a block repair in a can type of product and it stopped it leaking for a bit, but not a permanent fix. I dumped a regular stop leak product in it for a temporary fix while having the truck shipped a little over a year ago and it hasn’t started leaking from the crack again but I’ve had to flush plugs of stop leak out of my heater core three times now. Engine block cracks can be welded carefully under the right conditions. There’s also a time consuming technique of drilling and tapping a hole at the end of the crack for a tapered pipe plug, drilling and tapping another hole overlapping the first plug and so on until you’ve covered the entire length of the crack with overlapping tapered plugs. But if there’s other apparent issues with the engine that would indicate a rebuild is imminent, it may better to find another engine to rebuild instead. I also don’t have much issue with a used replacement. I’d be more inclined to buy a complete but rotten donor vehicle that I can start and drive than to get a junkyard engine, but if you’re paying someone else to do it one engine swap is a fair bit cheaper than two. And if you’re struggling to find a Renix engine, Cruiser54.com has a tip for dropping in an HO. And I knew what you meant when you said antifreeze in the coolant. Coolant is the juice that flows through the cooling system, whether that juice happens to have an antifreeze additive in it or is just muddy river water is pretty irrelevant to its function as coolant. I’m all for pedantry but only when and where it matters.

Something not many people consider, or would need to I imagine, there’s a noticeable difference in shifting if I use my block heater or not below -20°F or so. Even after idling for a bit to warm up, the trans will hang between gears for a bit when I didn’t use the block heater. Only possible way the block heater would affect shifting is due to extra warmth in the heat exchanger. It will usually only be the first few shifts, but it still is enough of a thing that I’d rather have the heat exchanger in the system.

ECE is the Economic Commision for Europe. Its the European lighting standards, often referred to online as “e-code”. They’re not legal for road use in the US but they’re good, the beam patterns are much more focused than a DOT/SAE beam and put more light in useful places in comparison, with less glare to directly oncoming traffic. So a lot of people like them. They are legal here in Canada, and some European manufacturers equip their Canadian market cars with them instead of the US-spec lights. I’ve run them, and I’m not really a fan. The low beam has an upward kick to the right which I think is for illuminating non-reflective road signs, but North American road signs are incredibly reflective, which basically means you blind yourself going past them. I also got flashed regularly by oncoming traffic coming around a right-hand bend until I had the lights aimed so low they were becoming questionable. And passing traffic on a multi-lane road you can watch the lights running down the side of a vehicle and glaring straight into the driver’s mirror, which isn’t something anyone ever seemed to try to communicate to me, but I know it bugs me to no end having bright lights in my mirrors. But most of all that upward kick of light is a severe problem for driving in snow. Its like running around with a high beam on the passenger side. I’ve basically come to the conclusion that they’re excellent lights but are very bothersome when you’re like me and live and drive in the middle of nowhere far away from light pollution with not a lot of traffic so the bright lights shining at you are very noticeable compared to the darkness your eyes are adjusted to. It would be less of an issue with more light around in general for your eyes to adjust. But it’s still somewhat telling that Europe also commonly uses many other types of lights to avoid using the low beams.

I’m curious what temperature they run at. High power LEDs do still generate some heat, and my sealed beams weren’t enough to keep up with freezing rain a couple weeks ago anyhow. I didn’t really look into the euro style. Are they an actual ECE lens or just a yellow DOT? More a curiosity thing, I’m not a fan of the ECE beams anyhow. Tinted lenses are a questionable legality thing too. ECE lights are road legal up here, and you can get away with the yellow ECE lights, but only if they were original equipment on an imported car. Otherwise no tinted lenses. They will get you pulled over because there’s so few of them on the road that are legitimately allowed to run them.

These aren’t legit. They only have partial markings for the SAE requirements. They also have a partial ECE marking. Its almost impossible for lights to be compliant with both ECE and SAE standards. They’re also missing all the other necessary markings to distinguish the type of light within either set of standards. Sadly I see they’re selling over 1000 of them per month. The one-star reviews aren’t the typical pissed-off-idiot reviews you see on everything either, they’re talking about failing inspections and poor beam patterns, just unfocused floods. They’re cheap but still not worth the money.

Yeah you really can’t reliably use wire colours, too many year to year changes. You need to look for connector pin locations.

The other consideration with the later tcase is whether or not they’ll have accommodation for your speedometer.

Just something else external to the engine that might be making noise. There is a bearing in it. But if the thing is bad enough to make noise the amount of motion in it would make for erratic spark as well. If the base is leaking bad enough from the mounting gasket the bearing may not be getting good lubrication. If it’s leaking from under the rotor, that’s a strong indication the bearing is worn out. I can’t say I’ve ever had one make much in the way of noise, but I’ve had a couple start puking oil from under the rotor, both times after chasing a stumble for months.

Pull the belt off and give the pulleys a spin on their own. See if they wobble or there’s “grittiness” to the movement. If the harmonic balancer is having problems it can rub on the timing cover, or push the belt against something. Usually if the bearings in the water pump go it’ll start leaking coolant out the weep hole or shaft seal. Also worth poking the distributor with your “scope”, although if that’s having issues it’ll likely give you running problems too.

Can you not find one for a Jeep? Any 242 behind a ‘91+ AW4 in an XJ or the ZJ’s 46RH should have the correct input gear for use with an AX15, although it’s always best to double check before you bolt things together. If you’re using a ‘97+ XJ you’ll need a compatible driveshaft yoke for the sealed output. I don’t know much about the Durango or whether it’s transfer case would work with the AX15.

Anything happen when you push the horn button? The horn button switches the ground side of a relay, effectively by shorting to the steering column. The horn relay is under the dash, it looks like any other relay but when you pull it out it only has three prongs on it. I can’t remember off the top of my head, I think it’s in a block of two, maybe three others. I think they’re supposed to be velcroed to the lower dash but mine were just loose. Of the three pins, one has constant power, one should have ground when you push the horn button, and the other should have some continuity to ground via the horn(s) and should make them sound if you put power to it. When I got my first MJ the horn didn’t work. The guy I bought it from said it needed a new relay. In reality there were actually pieces missing for the horn switch, specifically that parts that go through the steering wheel. When I was correcting that I discovered just how easy it is to damage those bits that go through the steering wheel.

I would guess at the metal lines wrapped up being for the transmission cooler. New lines are available or you can just replace with hose if you can find the right fittings. These likely would be the source of spilled oil as well unless you’re sure the oil leak is gear oil. They puke pretty good when broken. If it is the diff leaking, I don’t know how concerned I’d be about running dry. Maybe stop and check ever so often if you’re stopping anyhow. Pretty common for vehicles to puke from the pinion seals without major concerns. I’m not so familiar with the Renix harness so I don’t have much advice on the harness repair. But I’m more inclined to repair the existing harness with known problems than replace with a used harness with potential unknown problems to diagnose. But it would depend on how far gone it is and how much work you’re willing to put into it.

I kinda wonder if the redesign was intended to reduce load on the headlight switch? The regulation is that they’re not to come on with the high beams, no specific requirement to only come on with the low beams, so coming on with the marker lights fits the bill, given you can’t really run your headlights without them anyhow. But it’s less wiring to just run them off the low beam circuit than to run off somewhere else and disable them with the high beams, provided everything in the circuit is up to task. Although the early XJ/MJ did have a fog light relay, so I don’t know how much the extra load of one relay matters to the switch… but I wasn’t in the engineering studio. We deal with blowing snow and ice fog up here, regular fog as well. The frozen stuff is a lot more reflective than the liquid. And I’ll reiterate that if your low beams are blinding you in fog they’re probably aimed a little too high.

Saw that this morning, random YouTube suggested vid. It is nice to see continued improvements in the field. Nuts how procrastinating on all my projects is paying off the way everyone told me it wouldn’t 😅 Its also pretty cool we have the internet available to see everything that’s out there, and there’s people actually putting these products to semi-scientific testing. Instead of some questionable reviews that may or may not be based on proper application conditions, that are constantly bombarded with “you did it wrong” comments from people who may have never used anything else, or the “opinion” of someone selling or being sold a product. There’s a lot of time and money investment needed in that sort of testing and not all of us have the means to do it on our own. I got suggested a few of his videos or rust proofing undersprays as well and am looking forward to watching them. I’ve put a fair bit of research into that sort of thing in the past and it’s always nice to see if new products are out there and how they stack up to the old faithful.

I think that would be the Holley Retrobright. https://www.holley.com/brands/holley_retrobright/ I would’ve bought myself a set if they were heated. They’re definitely not cheap… but if you want LEDs and you want your truck to not look like a cyborg, that’s the option for you. Good beam pattern, good colour temperature, correct look, reputable manufacturer backing up the product… it’s all there. Except the heated lenses. I definitely need those around here.

Seatbelt bolts are almost always locktited in from the factory. Plus the threads in this case are exposed to the elements under the truck which doesn’t help make them easier to remove. But at least you can get penetrating oil or a very gentle bit of heat onto the back of the threads.

Is everything between engine and trans bolted together properly?

Might not be the worst idea to pop the valve cover off and check nothing’s loose in there. I don’t know if I’d go to the effort of dropping the oil pan to double check everything in there, but usually if there’s a concern with something I’ve just had hands on, my first step is to double check my work. Stethoscope, at least an improvised one, might help you narrow down the source of the noise a bit before going digging. I’d also be curious if fresh or different weight oil might make a difference. But also nearly every 4.0 I’ve owned has made some level of untoward noise and none of them have exploded. I’d be inclined to ignore it if there’s no glitter in the oil.

Seemed appropriate. Its nice and warm out right now. -25°C, only a gentle breeze, the windchill is only around -33. I spent about 10 minutes outside in a T-shirt earlier. In Januaries past it’s been -45 with windchill factors dipping into the absurd. But the warm weather still doesn’t inspire me to go mess around outside on non-critical tasks in the dark, and I’d rather be doing other things when the sun’s out on the weekend.

Nice and tucked up out of the way, so you wouldn’t hit anything with it. Just what you need for illuminating the inside of your bumper. I think you’d need a fair bit of lift to make that work. Could be useful to have the light follow your steering.

When I first got my MJ it had some universal Westin nerf bars on it. Looked like they were either adapted off something else or else this particular set was designed and built on bring-your-kid-to-work day by one of the kids. They didn't last very long, they were only bolted to the pinch welds under the rocker panels, which might have been fine if the pinch welds weren't made out of roof flashing and bondo, but that's a different problem. But. https://www.westinautomotive.com/signature-3-nerf-step-bars/2004/toyota/tacoma Almost all of Westin's tube steps are built with the same tubes, just different brackets to hold them on the different trucks. I don't know what the most easily adapted would be, the Taco was just the first similarly sized truck I looked at where the website said they had stock on it. The tubes themselves just take a bolt into the end cap so it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with some brackets. There's pictures of the mounting system in the install instructions on the page.