gogmorgo

3.55 is easily the most common ration in XJs, any 4.0/auto will have it, for the d30. '97-'99 axles have bigger ujoints, but 2000+ is the TJ/ZJ low-pinion axle, which is less desirable. It also shouldn't be too difficult to find a 3.55 geared MJ d35, which wouldn't be horrible. That would probably be the cheapest and easiest route, more so than regearing existing axles for sure. But if you're not opposed to welding perches on, its not much more money or work to get an 8.25 out of a 97+ XJ (probably same one as the front) and you'll have a much beefier axle. If you can track down an XJ d30 with 3.73 or 4.10 gears, a KJ 8.25 can be had in either ratio and has disc brakes. I wouldn't bother regearing. You're looking at over $100 per axle for new gears, and another $50 for the bearings because there's no sense installing new gears without changing bearings, and those are the cheap parts, not the ones you'd want to replace stuff with. Then unless you're comfortable setting up your own gears, it'll be another couple hundred to pay a shop. Basically there's no point spending the money to regear unless you're doing a full rebuild on the axle at the same time... but if you can bolt in an axle already set up with the ratio you want that will probably be fine to run as is and bolt it right it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What's an "external washroom"?

There's a 5/4/92 in the registry. or I guess your post calls it 5/3. The oldest I found is

I've got 3.55's and 31's in my 4.0/ax15 ZJ. It was definitely a noticeable change when I put on the 31's in place of the factory size but it's totally fine for a daily driver, IMO. I'm grabbing 4th going up hills more often, but I wouldn't call that necessarily a bad thing. I can also make it all the way across intersections before needing to shift out of first now. If you're towing with it though, I'd definitely go for something deeper. I was thinking that already on stock tires, haven't towed on the 31s yet, but I can't imagine doing any better with them. I don't know what axles you're running, but if budget is a consideration you might want to look into where the carrier breaks are. Going from 3.07 to 3.55 crosses the carrier break in a d35. D30 carrier break is 3.73+, d44 is 3.92+.

Very clean for a truck from the east... I wish mine were that nice.

For those asking if any other components would be in jeopardy if you leave it for a bit, if the ujoint fails it's very likely the axle yokes will destroy themselves knocking against each other. Even if there's just a small amount of distortion in the yoke, there's a chance it will never hold a ujoint cap properly again. There's also a pretty good chance of shredding the axle seal if a bad ujoint allows the shaft to wobble around. This was one of the first larger repairs I ever did on my MJ. The hardest part was definitely undoing the axle nut. I broke a bunch of admittedly cheap tools, borrowed impact wrenches, and eventually ended up cutting it off. When I had to do the one on the other side, I just undid the hub bolts, and slid the whole shaft out and tossed it and put in all new components. I was working illicitly in the tractor testing lab at my university at the time, and the amount of time and mess saved doing that was worth the cost of the new parts. One other obstacle I ran into was because I ordered parts online and had to wait for them to ship, I drove around for a week or so whigh destroyed the shaft anyhow. But with it banging around and smacking the diff carrier's cross-pin it managed to roll itself a lip over the end of the splines, so I could get the shaft out until I got in there with a die grinder and got rid of the lip. May as well get new carrier bearings and axle seals at that point, because you're going to fill at least the one bearing with iron filings, and you have to pull the carrier and bearings to clean them out. So yeah. There's not a huge amount of stress on the steering ujoints in 2wd, but it can get into a pretty deep rabbit hole if things get worse than just a bit of play in the ujoint.

One of my coworkers recently was given the opportunity to buy the condo he's been renting for the last five+ years. His bank insisted on an inspection before to probing the mortgage, which he grumbled about because he didn't think he'd need to pay for it. The inspector found critters in the attic crawl space they didn't know about, and some related rot and chewed wires and things that weren't a huge deal to take care of immediately, but could have gotten very expensive in a hurry if not addressed. He had no idea... but he's happy about having had the inspection now. My bank was offering 60-second mortgage pre-approvals online so I figured I'd check for the heck of it. I came in at 189k approval... that sounds good and all but mobile homes go for $400k+ in this town though, so... Yeah. Don't think that's happening any time soon. You seem to have had a pretty good deal land in your lap though.

If finding a 2wd ax5 is difficult, and finding a 2.5/ax15 Dakota is difficult, would the answer not end up being whichever option you stumble upon first? Dakota I'm pretty sure will be external slave, I imagine trying to track down an external slave wouldn't exactly make the search for a 2wd ax5 any easier.

A topper made for a similar vintage midsize truck with a similar length bed likely will work. People have been using hard shells off S10s and Rangers with reasonable results, so I don't see why a soft top would be much different.

So I've also been under the impression that WJ lower control arms were slightly longer than stock, which I had picked up on this forum and have been repeating. Turns out I'm wrong. Figured I should add a photo to illustrate the points made in this thread about them. I just changed them on my '93 ZJ, which has the same part number as the MJ/XJ arm. The WJ is actually slightly longer by like, 1/16" or so, which I'll call negligible. But then I didn't get Mopar parts, these are the Napa Premium part. The advantage to the WJ ones as said and as you can see is that they're fully boxed, without the tire-catching reinforcement lip on the MJ/XJ arms, in addition to having the curve in them that accommodates the larger tire size. I'll reiterate that to make them fit, one of the bushings will need trimmed. I elected to put the oval bushing at the axle end, as the round one fit nicely in the frame-side cup. You've got to take about 1/4" out of each side of the oval bushing's sleeve. That's the only trimming I did, and the arm doesn't come into contact with the axle or vehicle, but then again this was a ZJ.

"Backpressure" is an imaginary concept used to explain some fluid dynamics phenomena, but doesn't really do a good job of it. The idea is that when you're shoving air down a pipe, there's a specific diameter of pipe where the full volume of air is moving, which helps pull the exhaust out of the engine as the hot gasses cool and contract. Larger pipe diameters than necessary won't necessarily have the full volume of air moving, which leads to turbulence and reduced velocities, so less natural suction helping to evacuate the exhaust gasses. Smaller pipe diameters than optimal mean the engine has to compress the gasses to force them through the pipe, which robs horsepower. At lower rpm you notice benefits to smaller pipe diameters because you're moving less air, but it's not because you're developing more pressure in the exhaust or anything like that. I doubt a small exhaust leak would affect performance much just because it's an exhaust leak. I would say if it is an issue, it would more likely be due to the exhaust leak acting as a venturi and pulling in a small amount of fresh air that skews the O2 readings.

There's a couple redirects for mobile users in there, might be part of the issue? https://m.alibaba.com/product/60351741581/For-jeep-2500-vc-jp-2500.html?spm=a2700.7724857.normalList.17.3c89eee70xridv&redirect=1 https://m.alibaba.com/product/60352074855/For-jeep-2500-vc-jp-2500.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normalList.12.a4136ecbPrjgUH&redirect=1 That's what I eventually ended up at.

There's three at the end looks like you missed or didn't work out, which is what I'm referencing. No stress, pretty sure we all appreciate your work!

Most coolants are already full of rust inhibitors, so other than the various flush products if that's what you want, pretty well any additive is snake oil. Getting it up to operating temp can loosen up a ton of gunk that wouldn't necessarily come out just by running a garden hose through it.

Low serial number is correct. There's a couple other 86's with no build date listed yet but this one currently is the oldest MJ in the registry.

Seems this is the newest MJ in the registry. With estimates of around 1000 built in '91, we've only got representation of 13% here, probably not enough to go on to establish its the last built, but last known built?

I'll also point out that the MJ/XJ version of the AMC20 was a variant of the FSJ axle with one-piece shafts, not the CJ variant that had shafts that liked to come apart.

Good. White lights are junk anyhow. They wreak havoc on oncoming traffic's night vision.

What's funnier is I'm pretty sure my roommate had it filled last fall... I didn't remember it being full, but I do remember having a convo about the date stamp on it. He's been away for a bit so I'll ask when he gets back where/if he got it filled, because if they did fill it, they clearly have the correct adapters.

Well the barbecue being hooked up to it is at least that old as well. Funny that a tank made illegal that long ago is still certified until the end of the year when they're only good for ten years.

I'll have to talk to our welder at work then. So far we've been raiding the throwaway bottle bin at one of the local campgrounds for 1-lbs that aren't empty. Even if I could figure out a way to get the propane into those, that wouldn't be terrible. We touched briefly on oxy-propane in the short welding class we took in school, but the gist of it was no one does it... but you really never know what's floating around in a government shop. Just the other day I encountered someone throwing out a mechanical tool for measuring air humidity. It looked cool as all hell until it landed upside down and crushed itself under the weight of its own base.

Find a local spring shop, give them the specs for a metric ton spring, but tell them how much lift you want above that. Or go SOA and tell them how much drop you want to get back to around 4.5".

Since I posted earlier I've changed my power steering pump, and a lot of the dieselly clatter from my 2.5 has disappeared. Worth looking(listening?) into if you've got a stethoscope, or reasonable alternative.

I've got an older-looking propane tank. My roommate got it last fall and it's full, but I don't have a clue how to hook it up to our barbecue. The fitting on it doesn't look like a typical one to me. Its got a tapered seat inside it, but the inner bore is smooth. The external threads are left-handed. I figued it would be the older style male POL but I've got an adapter with female POL threads (for running barbecues off 1-lb throwaway tanks) and that won't go on past 1 turn, so clearly that's not it. The date code on the tank is 12-09, so I'm not really anticipating getting a ton more use out of it given I can't get it filled after this winter, but it'll save me a bit if I can get an adapter for the tank, so long as it doesn't cost more than a refill (~$25 locally)

Small update. Picked up some parts at the wrecking yard. I've added a back of cab panel, where mine was missing, and got a driver's belt buckle. So now if there's three people in the cab the middle passenger isn't hanging onto my belt to make it look legit. I also managed to track down my power steering leak. It was tough to find because it was getting on the pulley and serp belt and going everywhere. Turns out the pump itself was leaking from the shaft seal. I tossed in one that came on one of the engines I picked up. Gotta say, fighting against empty power steering sucks... It took me a bit to get used to how light the steering is now. I also built a canoe rack for it. Yeah, carbohydrate foam is terrible, but I do appreciate the rustic look. I've also used it for 12' lengths of lumber to fix my fence. If I were to build another one I would put a 9' rail along the top, to bring it all the way to the front of the cab, and I would've worked out to be able to slide 4' wide sheets inside (it's 45" wide inside... didn't really plan that), but this works alright. I've got it held down with turnbuckles to the factory tie-downs, and I can lift it in and out on my own. It also works great for solo carrying the 17' canoe, just walk up to the back of the truck and slide it on/off... although typically I've got an assistant for that.