gogmorgo

Depends on your ability. I've seen a couple builds where people have just cut out and moved over the spots that are different. I'd think dealing with a handful of smaller pieces would be less work than doing the whole thing.

By "full tilt" do you mean all the way back (through the back wall of the cab??) or just flipping forward? There's a couple threads in here addressing adding the forward tilt to other seats.

For some reason I want to say there was a change in the clutch/brake pedal tray at some point. I don't know what the difference is or when the change occurred, just remember encountering it in a thread on here a while back... I think. But looking at the pedals, in JM's pics, the clutch and brake pedals mount quite close to each other, and come straight down. It looks like the pedals you're dealing with mount up further left in the footwell and then angle down over so that the foot pad on the pedal is in the same spot. If that's the case, it could be the reason your pedals don't clear the original fuse panel is because they were never intended to. Most of the '97+ swaps I've seen don't use the original wiring harness. My understanding is that it doesn't play nice with the later dash. I doubt the OBD2 instrument cluster would work with the Renix ecu and wiring. I know it's a lot of work but you might be best off just getting rid of the old wiring, swapping it completely over to the OBD2. Possibly you might be able to make it work with an early pedal tray, assuming yours came out of the later XJ?

What's funny about this latest discussion is my ZJ has rear drums. They're cheap and work just fine, as long as you make sure to keep them adjusted. Yeah doing the bearings wasn't bad. It took me a weekend because I decided partway through I didn't want to use the cheap single lip pinion seal that came with the SKF bearing set and had to wait for a better one to show up. My advice there would be to make sure you've got a press to get the inner pinion bearing on and off the gear, and also have some way to hold the pinion yoke in place to tighten it before starting out. I ended up needing over 300 lb-ft to crush down the spacer before I had the appropriate bearing preload. And I did measure rotating torque... You'd want the tool to do that as well. I ended up using a 36" pipe wrench to hold the pinion yoke, and a ratcheting breaker bar to tighten the nut, after rattling it down as far as my cheap impact wrench would go.

I just put new bearings in my '93 zj's d35 at 180,000 miles. I thought it needed them because the pinion was loose and it was making noise but turns out the yoke nut was just backed off. Looks like someone replaced the pinion seal and didn't put locktight on the nut. I would've stopped there and left just tightened the nut and left it, but I had already picked up a truetrac to stick in there. While I had it apart, I discovered the spider gears had been shredding themselves. Too much Yolo I guess. But other than that, the bearings had a little pitting on them but nothing unexpected for that mileage. The D35 has lived long and healthy lives under many Jeeps. One of my MJs has over 300,000 miles on it, still with a d35 under the rear end. No noise or anything. Ironically I've broken d30 shafts on it more than once, but never an issue with the d35. I chose to keep it in my ZJ with 31's in part because it's cheap, light, and the smaller gears mean the pumpkin doesn't hang down as far as a beefier axle would. Now if you're planning to go bananas with your truck, lockers, massive tires, etc, the d35 isn't for you. But for a stock daily driver? Unless you do a ton of heavy hauling or towing, I wouldn't bother upgrading unless you know there's something wrong with it, although it doesn't hurt to have something ready to swap in if it does head south. In terms of swaps I'll second the idea of the KJ 8.25. Disc brakes already, and available in 3.73 and 4.10. Since you're 2wd you don't need to worry about matching the front, and I think you'd be a touch happier with 3.73's than the stock 3.55's, even on stock tires. Especially if you move extra weight around on the regular. 4.10 is probably a bit much for a 4.0 and stock tires, but should be good for something an inch or two bigger.

I stumbled on this a few years back. Ostensibly the old vs new mpg numbers are due to changes in their testing matrix, due to increased average speeds. I do wonder though whether they actually retested anything, or just hit all the numbers with a fancy or not so fancy) algorithm.

Going to a carb is a step backwards technologically, sure. But if you know what you're doing, you can get them tuned to be competitive with fuel injection in most situations. The advantage of fuel injection is the ability to react to changes in running environment. You've got all the basic sensors to read the data, and then the only increased complexity is in the programming. With a carb, you need some fairly complex mechanical systems to accomplish the same, and then there will always be a small delay between fuel entering the intake and entering the engine, so the carb is always slightly behind in responding to changing conditions at least in comparison to port injection. Looking at factory carb setups, it'll be similar to efi systems in that cheap and reliable are the primary concerns. They're tuned to run good under most circumstances and okay everywhere else. Going into the performance aftermarket though you'll have carbs that will outperform a stock efi setup, that are tuned to run great, but because they're so highly optimized, you may need to make manual adjustments over the course of the day, or even change out jets, to keep them in that sweet spot due to changes in ambient air temperature, pressure, and humidity. In contrast a highly optimized efi system can make those adjustments on its own, or else it's a couple keystrokes on a laptop instead of pulling out wrenches. So, would you lose power? Depends. If you bang on a carb off an old 258, definitely. If you go down to your local hotrod shop and dump your wallet out, then take it down to your local dyno shop and hand them the rest of your wallet, you'll probably get something that performs much better. Possibly better even than the factory efi. But as has been pointed out, the factory efi is tuned for reliability and cost of manufacture, not to extract absolutely everything possible from the engine.

What was the ground wire doing? Broken, or just stripped and shorting?

That kit is for a 2-door XJ. Is it actually going to fit in an MJ that uses the shorter 4-door fronts? Seems odd there's two review, one says it fits great the other said it doesn't fit at all. The "customer photos" are clearly a 2-door XJ.

I once watched a guy climb a hill as far as he could before he started spinning, put it in park, hop out to take a picture, and when he slammed his door his Blazer took off back down the hill. The driver's side wheels rolled normally, the passenger side dug themselves a small trench as they spun "forwards"... opposite the direction of the Blazer's movement. Fortunately it wasn't a big hill, just a steep one, and it skidded itself to a stop quickly enough at the bottom without hitting anyone or anything. Would a parking brake that prevented the wheels from turning have held it? Hard to say, but it did stay there while he had his foot on the brake. I realize in 99.999% of situations where you'd ever park there's no chance of that happening, but I still find it unsettling to know the possibility is there. I also have a pair of manual trans Jeeps that split errand duties. My ZJ is always parked in gear with the handbrake set, even on flat, level ground. My mj's parking brake ratchet is stripped, so the brake doesn't hold. I leave it in gear and chock the tires if there's a noticeable slope. I've just heard of too many vehicles somehow (supposedly) coming out of gear all on their own and rolling away. I also will use the parking brake in an automatic to hold it on a slope rather than just the parking pawl on its own, or when loading a trailer hitched onto the truck.

Unless you have a selectable locker and remember to use it, that's not a very effective parking brake, or at least it's no better than throwing an automatic trans in park. With an open diff (or one that behaves as open under no power) if you don't have adequate traction under both rear tires, the one without traction will spin backwards and the one with traction will just roll down the hill. It probably will work quite well in most contexts, and in fact it's not uncommon for medium-duty street-driven vehicles to use a similar arrangement, but it still doesn't totally prevent any of the wheels from turning. I personally would look into installing a hydraulic handbrake before I went with a driveshaft brake, considering you're replacing the whole system anyway, but I'm also with Eagle on making the factory one work before I'd go that far. The 8.8 swap is common enough that you should be able to find a write-up on how someone made theirs work, even if it was in an XJ. I don't really have much other commentary on the rest of your plan. It seems solid enough. Nothing wrong with upgrading to DOT4 fluid, although the silicone DOT5 (not to be confused with DOT5.1) is much better, yeah, but it's also more expensive and you're not supposed to use it unless you've changed literally every component it touches, including the calipers which it doesn't look like you intend to change. DOT4 will be compatible with all your current used parts. But unless you like riding your brakes down longer hills the factory specced DOT3 should still be okay.

Yeah, the brackets on it look similar to the Fey ones, although those aren't welded on. The Fey brackets aren't gusseted, either. Tough to pick up on humour over text sometimes. My bad. That or I'm too used to the morons in the Facebook groups who want to know if they can pull a car hauler on their twisted up rusty junk...

Photos on the truck would be ideal if you have any, just to be able to judge how it matches cab height, etc. From your registry post it looks like you're in Maine... I'd maybe be interested if it was closer, but the rivers here don't flow into the Atlantic.

Looks as though the factory tube bumper uses the same bumper brackets as the regular bumper. If its shared with the YJ, then the YJ bumpers would bolt on. Haven't heard of anyone trying that, but I suspect if it was that easy the aftermarket would have figured it out already. The Smittybuilt one on the other hand may be universal fit, much like the Fey/Westin. Photos of the factory tube bumper have been posted on here before... This thread. Possibly others as well, just the first I found. As far as towing goes, I'd assume the Smittybuilt wouldn't be any better than the factory bumper's 2000lb limit. I would also treat it with the same amount of caution as with a factory bumper. Haven't seen one of those yet with enough structure left that I'd trust it with even that much weight. Any bending or twisting in it compromises it, and half of them have the structure rusted out.

Shown on an MJ eh? Are there stake pockets under those cutouts?

Canada's cool, although I might be a little biased. It's also a pretty seriously massive destination with a huge amount of variety in culture, climate, and topography, much like your own country. If you don't care for crowds, pretty well any destination other than big tourist locations on long weekends will offer you waaaay fewer people compared to what I've experienced at any place I've been in the USA. I've been through quite a bit of this continent, and haven't found a place yet there wasn't a bunch of cool stuff to check out. Some of it is definitely being able to appreciate the finer details and not expecting everything to be "truly epic". The sorts of places most people dismiss as "boring" just gives you more opportunity to slow down and appreciate what's around you. Something else people seem to take for granted is what's around them in the vicinity of home. Just taking the time to explore all those little places you've intended to get to but never had the opportunity. I'm constantly surprised by all the stuff to see and do around here... of course it helps when you live in a place like this: Not to brag or anything.

Yeah, wished I saw this yesterday. As soon as I saw "overheated" then 30 psi... Way too familiar. Bought my 2.5l with "an overheating problem". Radiator was crusty as all hell so I stabbed a new one in, did the water pump and thermostat at the same time. With new parts in, it started blowing out coolant within minutes of starting cold. 15 minutes running had more water in the crankcase than oil. I ordered a head gasket set, pulled the head off, and found a hole in piston #4. Same as you, 25 psi compression in hole #4 before pulling the head. Funny thing, it ran totally fine, made decent power, and didn't shake or make any bad noises either, at least not till it started overheating. Pull your head to inspect. Hopefully it's just a bad gasket. If it was left long enough there may be damage to the block and head, it's worth checking them both with a straight edge. If the bad spot in the gasket has burnt out part of the block or head, you might get away with filling it with JB weld or similar if you don't plan on doing a full rebuild right away, just to get a few thousand more miles out of it. It's also worth putting a feeler out for decent running 2.5Ls. I got two supposedly good ones for $300, stabbed one in, and it runs alright. Eventually I might even get around to rebuilding one of them.

A bit more progress was made today. We've got the tubes both notched at either end, and the driver's side is stitched into place enough the truck can be moved around with risking it falling off. I'm still not completely sold on this angle. The idea is it's protecting the flare a bit, but it looks a bit odd. I'm also a bit concerned it might catch on stuff if I'm rubbed up against something in reverse. Worst comes to worse it can always get hacked off at 45° to match the front. Wish I could weld like that... That's factory sheet metal stitched to 1/4"-wall tube, mind. We didn't quite cut all of the pinch weld out. We left the front fender bolt hole sitting there and notched out the fender to sit around the tube, but still have the one bolt holding the bottom of the fender on. Turns out it also made a convenient ground for the welder I guess. We debated leaving both bolt holes, but decided having a tab sticking a few inches off the first bolt wasn't going to do much for strength. The reason it's not finish welded yet is it may need to come back off to do some more reconstruction. Also we ran out of time today. I don't think it's coming back off, but you can see way up in the first photo the pile of dirt that came out of the cab corner and rear cab-mount-brace...thing. Oddly it seems the top of it went first; guess the bottom sorta half-@$$ kinda drains or something. We may have to build another one. No big deal, just more rust repairs to do, in addition to the floor and cab corner. We also ran into the same issue with the frame vs body lines Krusty had with the first rock sliders. The pinch seam follows the body line, but the body isn't perpendicular to the axles, although the frame and it turns out the inner rocker are. The initial plan was to just butt the tube right upstairs the inner rocker, but if you do that, by the time you get down to the rear fender you're sitting over an inch further into the body, and it just didn't look right. So now we're going to either have to fold the inner rocker out to meet the tube (can you say rust trap?) or else come up with some other way to fill the space. We're going for some other way. There isn't enough of the passenger side inner rocker left to hammer it over, and we want both sides to match... We're use not 100% on how to accomplish it yet. I'm thinking the best bet is to cut the inner rocker right out and just run a chunk of flat bar or something up to where the rocker meets the floor, but we'll have to see what things are looking like once the new floors are in. But it's looking pretty badass, IMO. Even with it just sitting on the door sill and welded to the front door post and what's left of the cab corner, not even really connected to the frame, it'll still lift the whole truck without twisting the sheet metal. Once the floors, cab corners, and cab gussets are fixed, it's not going anywhere. Speaking of cab corners though, it's tough to photograph, and I honestly didn't even notice it until today while trying to line up the tube with the body, but the driver's side corner sticks out about 3/8"-1/2" past the bed at the body line where the molding goes. The whole side of the truck is shaped out of filler, and the more I poke into the rust on the bed, it has about an 1/8" coat of filler over it almost everywhere, so that'll be interesting to see what all is behind that... I mentioned a while back I talked to the wife of the guy who sold it to the guy I bought it from. She talked about how her husband had fixed it all up nice for her... Yeah. Woulda been nice if he actually fixed it properly. The passenger side rocker "fix" fell out not long after I got the truck, chicken wire and bondo. The driver's side had chunks of steel siding sitting in there covered in filler. I guess at least that's steel?.

Came here to share that one^^^

X2 on the better angles of the offset wrenches. My instructors at my first session specifically mentioned them as being the one thing they would recommend buying off the snap-on truck, otherwise the name brand stuff is all fairly equivalent in their minds. Their recommendation was to look at the discount brands from the big names, Blue Point, Matco, etc, as being better for apprentices in terms of it not being a huge amount of debt vs how long it'll last. Even the box store brand stuff will see you through an apprenticeship so far as I can tell, although it'll be pretty haggard after a few years of constant use. And sometimes the prices of the name brand stuff is surprising. A while back I picked up a brake calliper spreader off the Snap-On truck on sale for roughly $150, list price around $225. I happened to wander into Napa not long after and saw they had a similar one on the shelf for $202. That said, you can also still get the cheap ones for $15... I've got about four of those in my collection, good for a use or two before the handles twist off and you've got to use vicegrips on them. Absolutely nothing wrong with buying tools like that if you don't plan on using them very often and likely will forget where you put them between uses anyhow.

I prefer the long bed. The extra foot is noticeable, especially if you're trying to sleep back there. I also like the proportions better. But I get that it doesn't turn as tight a circle, and it's got more rear overhang, which makes it a little less offroadable than a shortbed. I also get the appeal of the automatic. In normal driving situations, sometimes it's obnoxious having to use the clutch, especially in stop and go traffic. But whenever I'm doing something that isn't a monotonous commute around the city, it never behaves how I'd like it. The AW4 is better than some, but it still won't let me roll out of a stop sign into a gap in traffic without hitting second gear during the roll, and then having to pause to downshift when I mat the throttle. Or a steep road with tight switchbacks, it'll upshift as soon as I hit the switchback, then pause to downshift, sometimes twice, to keep going up, killing my momentum and forcing the engine to work harder to regain it. Or if you're climbing a slippery hill, and you're able to push just a little more throttle into it, but it decides that means you want to accelerate and kicks down a gear, and you spin out and loose your speed. It's also great to have a manual for bumping along slow trails, because it doesn't have an unlocked torque converter pulling away power every single tiny rock you need to roll over, so you're not in and out of the throttle as often. I get why people want an automatic, but every time I get back into one, I hate it.

Red fox? They're adorable until they start screaming in the bushes. Makes your blood curdle. This is a terrible photo of the visitor we had at our campsite this weekend. Small black bear, interesting colour pattern. He just looks blond in the photo above, but it was dark underneath, in that classic '90's bleached-tips style. Had to chase him out four times. He wandered in Friday night as we were setting up, just munching on berries, and I shooed him out. The next morning I'd been hearing some rustling in the bushes outside my tent. I got up and realized all the berry bushes I "watered" the night before were stripped of berries, then I found him munching on another bush up near our kitchen area, which is where I snapped that photo, of him running toward the lake when I shouted at him. I headed him off and he went up the trail out of the camp, figuring he was gone. A half hour later though as we were eating breakfast I saw a bush moving in the typical cartoonish "something's hiding behind me" way. There he was munching away on berries again. This time we teamed up and chased him far enough into the bush that we lost him. Didn't see him again that day, but this morning when I got up he was munching on berries in the site again. I gave him a solid run, heading him off every time he tried to go into the bush, about 200 yards up the trail in to the campground where it connects to the main trail, where I lost him. It was actually almost comical, because he'd run ten yards or so, turn around, look at me like "wtf dude?" and then turn and keep going when I shouted, or smacked the stick I was carrying off a tree, or whatever. I kinda felt bad chasing him, because it's his home, not mine, and he wasn't interested in anything other than the berry bushes from what I could tell, just going about his natural life being a bear. But we didn't want him getting curious about our tents or anything while we were gone for the day. But it's a good reminder to keep a clean campsite. Everything with a scent (food, water, toiletries) went up the bear poles, as it normally would, but we were extra cautious about not leaving stuff out or bringing the odd thing into our tents. And for the sake of posting a half decent photo, this was our destination. Snake Indian falls. 7km cycle into our "base camp" with the bear friend, and then 25km or so onwards to the falls, and back to camp. We road out this morning. It was my first major bike ride for a few years, and I'm definitely not in the shape I was back then, so I ended up pushing up the steeper hills (1500m total elevation gain), but all in all not too bad.

Yes and not necessarily. Running with no driveshaft is essentially the same as being in 2wd. It would only ever be an issue if you've got a full-time transfer case with no 2wd or locked centre diff, but that's not the case with any factory XJ/MJ tcase, and definitely not a concern without one. To answer the other question, if you find a stock XJ donor with the same engine/trans combo, it probably has the same gear ratio, but it's not a 100% guarantee. Maybe 98%. On the other hand if you find a matching d30 and c8.25 out of a 97+ XJ it's not a big job to weld perches onto the rear axle and it's going to be an upgrade, not that there's anything wrong with a d35 in a daily driver. Unless you're lucky enough to already have a Dana 44, but that's unlikely. As far as truetracs go, I've got one in my zj (4.0/ax15/np231/d35) and yeah, it's pretty much the $#!&. Traction when I need it without my input, almost imperceptible on the street, and it doesn't clunk or slam together like an auto-locker. When I put it in all I did was reuse all the shims off the old carrier, and the gear pattern was good enough to run. But also before the truetrac went in I swapped on a decent set of winter-rated ATs and went from almost requiring 4x4 to get around town to 2wd and open diff and no problems. I've also got a 2.5L 2wd shortbed MJ that gets around okay with an open diff and mediocre winter tires, although I do need to be more careful about where I park than something with 4x4. As Pete said, 4x4 is great, but proper winter tires will get just as far as 4x4 and non-winters if you're only planning on staying on maintained roads. I don't know what winter's like in your area, but our last snowfall is typically mid June and the first will be early September... mountains and whatnot. That's not to say though that the combination of winter tires and 4x4 isn't a pretty big deal.

It's not a particularly complicated conversion, but it's not a small project either. You are pulling and replacing the front axle and transmission to do it, after all. Arguably though you don't need to do it all at once. You can do the axle one weekend, transmission the next, sort of thing, without affecting the ability to take it to work.