gogmorgo

I have yet to see a tire manufacturer spec anything wider for a 7" rim than a 10.5. Sure, there are factors of safety and litigation reasons and all kinds of stuff to push recommended numbers lower than what you might be able to get away with, but those numbers have to come from somewhere, and very few companies wouldn't jump at the chance of gaining a slight edge over the competition by widening their specs if there was nothing wrong with doing it. Yes I realize most people would either suck it up and get new wheels or ignore it and just run the wide tires, but when every single manufacturer is using the same specs... Those numbers don't just come from nowhere.

I take it it's on a truck because it's no longer at a junk yard?

Traditional wisdom is that your tire width shouldn't exceed 150% of wheel width. On a 7" rim that works out to 10.5". There are a couple 32x11.5 options (Grabber AT2 for one) but it's pushing limits. Perhaps a modern tire would be more tolerant of a narrower rim? But at the same time I don't want it to look too much like a balloon, which I think I'd be risking. And a wider tire isn't always better for snow.

Not a big fan of the KO2. They put them on all the 4x4 trucks at work and they don't do so well on gravel. Keep getting rocks pushed through them... But I haven't found them (or anything else) in a 32x10.5 yet, and they're the only ones I've found so far in a 33x10.5. If I've got my lift and axles sorted out before someone comes out with a 32, I think I may end up going with the 33's. My current tires still have lots of life left in them so it's not hugely urgent.

That rear bumper looks waaaay too nice to be on the trails...

If you can get a look at the ball joints while you're doing that, you may be able to tell that there's some movement. Watch the upright in relation to the "C". A bad wheel bearing is usually accompanied by a "growling" noise when rolling -- but not always. If it is the ball joint, generally speaking any play at all is considered undesirable. But that being said I've put about 5000 miles on ball joints so bad they've separated on my MJ. I have a new set but I've been putting off changing them because I've been planning on swapping out the CAD d30 for a non-CAD version, but haven't actually got around to it yet... But I know I'm playing with fire here, and have been reasonably gentle with the truck. Don't take that to mean you shouldn't treat this as an urgent solution, but rather that you should still get away with driving it to a shop. The cheapest source of OEM ball joints is Amazon. You want the Spicer 706944X. It's a set of both upper and lower... even if only one is bad, may as well do both while you're in there... The other won't be far behind. Get the OEM ones... just about everything else is either junk or really $$$.

^^What he said^^ I would consider my hands pretty average sized... But when after installing the 4.0/aw4 from a '93 into my '91 and discovering that the connector was different... After spending a couple hours dicking around trying to get the newer one off the bellhousing, I got frustrated and just cut the connectors off and matched up wire colours, hoping it would work... And it did. Thank god. I was positive I'd have to drop the trans to swap it...

There are lots of relays under the dash... If you mean behind the driver's seat, (my understanding is the jamb applies to both hinge and latch side of the door) there is a speaker there on some models which could be broadcasting a short of some kind I suppose.

Not sure how you are deciding you're using more fuel? If you're just putting more fuel in when you fill up it doesn't mean anything if it's a bigger tank and you aren't keeping track of distance travelled. Obviously a bigger tank is going to take more fuel to fill. Did you swap out just the tank or actually the motor? If only the tank did you reuse your sending unit or switch it for one that came with the tank?

Well maybe I'll wait till you're done and see how it turns out. My eventual plan though is to use the MJ as a tow vehicle for whenever I finally get around to race-prepping my Lada, which is in part why I'm concerned about how much lift it gets, plus I'd be getting metric ton leaves, and other such things. I also don't think going to a 12.5" wide tire is the best idea on a factory 7" wide wheel, and for whatever reason I'm opposed to going to a different wheel.

See that's where we're different... I'm still running the 300,000 mile original springs and they need replacing. I was really only wanting around 3-4" lift, and not planning to do more than longer front arms. I also don't want anything bigger than 33x10.5's, 32 if I can find them in a severe-snow rated AT (want to keep the stock wheels), and at 5" that's getting a bit much.

We've got one at work. 2012 6-cyl. I certainly wouldn't call it fast, but it's not what I would call slow either. I'm 6'2" and 220lbs and while I wouldn't call it hugely spacious it's not cramped either. I've taken it on a couple 200-mile highway cruises, and it's not bad at all. It's definitely not a car, and won't be as quiet or refined as one... it drives like a tall heavy vehicle, and gets typical SUV mpg (around 20-22? I haven't ever sat down and worked it out). It's too "lumbering" for my tastes, but it's not a bad vehicle. I think we've had a bad coil pack and a clogged cat (most of our vehicles seem to get left idling forever) and that's it in the ~50,000 miles it has on it. They've used it to pull our parade float a couple times and it does pretty well with a fairly heavy trailer.

Well, it's one or the other, not neither. The cheapest way would be to swap everything over from the XJ. Only things you'd need to spend on in that case would be fuel gauge sending unit, rear axle perches, and rear driveshaft length. But if you're wanting to go beast mode, which I'm assuming means big tires, huge lift, and high horsepower, you'll be needing to upgrade most of the drivetrain anyway, so swapping stuff in right now seems like a bad idea if you're just going to tear it all out again.

I'm also in the SOA vs SUA conundrum. I like the idea of lift vs ride quality of the soa. I'm just not quite sold on the axle wrap risk and 5-6" lift. Not sure I want to go that high in what is pretty much a daily driver, or go to tires large enough to warrant that much lift, or having to shell out for a front lift to match. At the same time though I don't want to limit myself for going higher in the future if I decide to... Anything wrong with getting both sets of perches welded on at once? :dunno:

The balls. They are holy. A quick google of the part number (chp10148) pulled up a couple posts from October. A member here used it, said he had to bend a couple tabs and reverse polarity for a Renix but it worked. http://comancheclub.com/topic/48649-shopping-for-a-fuel-cell/ It also pulled up a naxja orphan thread from around the same time with a reference to a chp10147 being the same with reverse polarity, presumably for Renix. http://store.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1123509

There are a few guys here who have built 2.5's. If you do want to use the XJ stuff as-is, you're best off using all of it. Engine, trans, axles, wiring harnesses, instruments, radiator... Everything. Pretty much everything supporting the 4.0 will have to come along with. If you are planning on going beast and actually doing something other than street driving you'll want a beefier rear axle than the 27-spline 8.25 in the XJ, but it'll likely hold up well enough behind the 2.5l with ~33" tires. If you do want to continue with the 2.5, the Dakota 2.5L bellhousing will be all you need, the XJ trans will work. Just leave the MJ's rear axle as is and regear the XJ front to match. But if you're going to be putting larger tires on it, you'll for sure be wanting more gear than 4.10's. All of this info has been converted many times. Try going through the "your project MJ's" and "DIY" forums on here to see what other people are doing and get ideas.

You're getting there, you just grabbed the wrong url. You need the one for the photo itself. Then you'll have to manually enter the BBcode img tags. Should look like this: [img]http://i.imgur.com/RK19s8Mh.jpg[/img]

It seems like there are quite a few keyboard warriors (and at least one respected magazine) who don't realize that the early 27-spline 8.25 is not the same as the '96+ 29-spline 8.25. The early one is not much better than a D35, the later is a significant improvement. It may not be quite as solid as a d44 or an 8.8, but it'll definitely be enough to stand up to 33's. I've got an 8.25 out of a 2003 4-cyl KJ waiting to go under my MJ. 4.10's disc brakes, and the correct width for an MJ. But if you're planning on using the XJ's front axle as-is, the rear will work great.

No! This is FALSE. So long as your bolt and torque wrench are turning along the same axis, this will have no effect on applied torque. Sure, if you're using a crowfoot or something that moves the bolt's axis away from the wrench's axis, then you'll be changing it because you'll be changing the effective moment arm of the setup, but a socket extension doesn't do that, and has no effect on applied torque.

Isn't there some kind of funky setup going from the heater hoses into the surge tank? The '97+ hoses go direct from water pump to heater core. If need be I suppose you could always slice it in the middle and put in a T... But it wouldn't be as clean as what I think the OP is looking for.

2003+ 4-cyl Libby 8.25. 4.10's, correct width (8.8 is ~1" narrower) and disk brakes. More stuff to cut off, but in my mind better than running spacers.

You for sure can "sped" the XJ axles under the MJ... If "sped" means what I think it means. But bear in mind that 1) the XJ rear axle will NOT bolt into the MJ, you'll need to weld on new spring perches in differed locations; and 2) if you think the 2.5 MJ is slow now with the 4.10 gearing it has, just wait till you try the 3.07's from the XJ... You won't have the problem of mismatched gear ratios, but you might want to try driving only using 3rd and 4th, cause that's what 1st and 2nd will seem like with the XJ's 3.07's.

And the gear ratios won't match between the XJ front and MJ rear, so you'll either have to regear one of them or weld new spring perches onto the XJ rear axle.

That's pretty standard fare on FSAE cars if not other racing applications. It means you can't accidentally bump power on. It's not much of a key. Another thought on switches, if you had an aux-in cord or something sitting in the centre console or somewhere else that looks like a place you'd set an iPod etc., then you could have a female end with two of the ends looped back together to form the "switch". Plugged in would be on, unplugged is off, take the female part with you and no one would suspect it's a switch. And if there was enough juice going to it, fair chance they'd fry anything they do try plugging into it.

You've got a 27-spline 8.25 out of a '91 if I recall from your MJOTM post? Supposedly not much better than a D35, or so I've read. I bet there's some pretty crazy wear on the pads/rotor now, but I'm definitely happier knowing the 8.25 I chose has discs on it already.