gogmorgo

Looks like not the best coffee if you've got to dump a bunch of crap in it to make it drinkable...

Good luck finding that info. The MJ is a ton more rigid than competing light trucks from the era, but there's still some. I initially had my Leer topper about an inch from my cab, and never made contact, but I wasn't wheeling it. Eventually I moved it back a touch so I could get my hand back there from the outside to unlatch the pass-through window to the topper, so I could open that and juggle the MJ's slider window open in the event I locked myself out.

The factory metric ton springs didn't come with the military wrap. That was just part of the General Spring group order deal. The only differences in height between factory springs were that the 4x4 models sit about an inch higher. So a 4x4 metric ton spring pack will lift an orginally 2wd truck about an inch, but that's not inherent to it being a metric ton spring. You'd get the same out of good condition factory regular-load 4x4 springs.

Yeah, push in like 1/16" or so and twist counter clockwise. Some dielectric greases seem to harden up over time, which can make it sticky.

Our of curiosity the other day I fired up the MJ mostly just to see if it would start. After a week or so of temperatures dropping to -40 overnight, at -15°F, it cranked over kinda slow but still fired up. The Juke is still a brick tho...

That 21-slot grill was factory on '84-'85 Waggys. They didn't adopt the four-eyed look we all think of when we hear Wagoneer until '86.

Bearing in mind that it's been almost two years since my AT2's on the MJ died (deer sleeping on the highway... ribs through sidewalls, it wasn't pretty) and the MJ and ZJ are different vehicles, and the fact that there hasn't been much in the way of bare pavement since I installed the Grabbers on it, so far my impression is that the ATx is an improvement over the AT2. The sidewalls are much stiffer, the sidewall lugs are more aggressive but still visually subtle, and I'm guessing the compound is different because the ATx seems to have much more grip on ice, and the tread patterns aren't all that different.

To change the taillight bulbs, you need to remove the screws holding in the taillight lens assembly (two in the light and two more you need to drop the tailgate to get to). Then the socket should twist out of the lens assembly, probably while pressing a tab on them... it's been a while. Then the bulb itself will twist out of the socket, press it in gently and turn. As Pete said, make sure the bulbs are correct for what should be in the sockets. But personally, for a problem with parking, tail, and dash lights, there's one major connecting point between them, it's a known point of failure, and coincidences usually aren't. I'd take a good look at the headlight switch while you've got the dash apart to change the cluster bulbs.

I just put the Grabber A/Tx on my ZJ. Seems like a sturdy enough tire, with a fairly stiff sidewall. They don't drown out the d35's howls on the highway, and they have excellent traction on snow and ice... if that's a concern in Florida... But I'm pretty happy with them. This is the sort of topic where you can walk into a room of six people and get ten answers. For just something cheap to get around with, Craigslist etc might not be the worst way to find a decent used set, but not all cheap tires are created (or worn down) equally, and those four tiny patches of rubber are also the only things holding you on the road, so they are kinda important.

Re: the 242 vs 231 shifter. It's correct that it's the same parts apart from the bezel and gate. I didn't initially swap the gate because the donor I was pulling parts from was super hantavirusy, and I didn't want to spend more time in there than necessary. There are people who will tell you you don't need the shift gate, and I've even had someone laugh at me for suggesting the two were different parts (despite showing them photos and parts manuals... stupid gonna stupe) and yes I was able to get all the 242's positions with the 231 gate, but it was a major pain in the @$$. Basically to get full-time in the 231 gate you had to pull it all the way to the 4hi stop, then move over and pull it back just a hair and half the time pull too far and end up in neutral, and going the other way, you'd hit the gate again before making the shift from neutral back to full-time. Ending up with your transfer case in neutral at highway speeds (I.e when I'd be most likely to use full-time) is something that you need to essentially stop to correct, hence it being a PITA. Sorta defeats the point of shift-on-the-fly if you have to slow to under 3mph. With the 242 shift gate, pulling it straight back till it stops gets you in full-time, as does pushing it forwards from neutral.

I've got one from a ZJ in my MJ. It's a little stiffer than the stock one. IIRC I grabbed the brackets and bushings from the ZJ and used end links off an XJ. Everything bolted right up. And to answer the "why" question, some people like myself think predictable handling is important in a daily driver. The original one is a bit of a compromise between roll resistance and flexibility, and isn't necessarily the best for trucks that don't always venture so far off the pavement, especially if they frequently carry tall loads, like a truck bed camper.

I just put a set of General Grabber ATx in a 31x10.5x15 on my 4.0/ax15 ZJ, with 3.55's. It's not awful, but it was a noticeable change as far as acceleration is concerned. I think 4.10's would be a bit much, but I did briefly consider a set of 3.73 axles from a 5.2. I just haven't been able to find a set for under $300 each without just buying a second ZJ... And I don't really want to do that, haha. And I'm sorta enjoying not having to shift out of first until the other side of the intersection now. But I digress. I was already convinced in the power of the winter tire, but after going from the non-winter ATs I had to the winter-rated Grabbers, I now have about the same traction on snow and ice in 2wd as I did before in 4x4, possibly more, open diff and all. I really wasn't expecting such a huge difference either as I saw.

I had a similar sort of leak after cruising over a deer a couple years ago. I didn't initially notice after checking it over, but a friend pointed out the drip. It didn't seem like that big a leak so I wasn't super concerned, but upon closer inspection I saw a hairline crack running along the back end of the tank. My insurance paid for a new tank, $0 deductible because wildlife, but it was a six-month process for the body shop to figure out whether or not they were allowed to proceed and then track down a tank (Rock Auto, like seriously), and I'm pretty sure they fired the claims person who agreed to cover it instead of just writing off my 26-year-old 330,000-mile truck part-way trough the process. :/

So were the OE ones only attached to the thin sheet metal bumper without any additional bracing? I mean I know the factory stuff is almost just decorative due to needing to survive crash testing, but that doesn't seem very solid at all.

12" is a lot in one dump almost anywhere I've been. I'd still be out in it, but whether I'm driving or on snowshoes is a toss-up, depending on the snow itself. Wet and heavy like you would've got, I probably would be driving, but in hard-as-rock drifts, not so much.

Yeah it was -40 even here this morning. We need the cold to knock back the pine beetles, but I must have gotten soft after living here for so long... I had no desire to go outside today, although I did get a grocery run in.

I'm in an interesting position. I haven't watched many movies as an adult, so a lot of the ones I saw as a kid/teenager may as well be new to me. But because when I was a kid we didn't really do that many movies, there's a ton of stuff I've never actually seen that would be totally brand new. Like Jurassic Park. But again, I don't really watch that many movies, so the list that I've acquired that I need to watch just keeps getting longer.

It's very much not a $700 truck anymore. Haha. I pretty much doubled that just getting it home, and then changing out the cooling system. And that was before the engine came out... For context, work is less than a mile away. It's not much of an accomplishment to make it there and back, but really not good if you can't. I was planning on swapping on the winter tires today and hitting the highway for the first long (ish) trip, about 100 miles, but my roommate's fancy 2014 Juke bricked itself in the driveway in the cold and is now blocking it it. Stupid modern cars that don't completely turn off when you switch them off and drain the battery...

The parts that are the same as an XJ will always be the same as a same-year XJ, at least from the factory. Any changes that happened to the XJ also happened to the MJ. As for changes specific to MJ parts, well, trim options changed a bit between '86 and '87. The rear bumper brackets changed in '87 when they came out with the short bed. (Brackets are the same between bed lengths, but now have clearance for the short bed's rear spring hanger). Mostly it's inconsequential stuff. The MJ was fairly small scale production, and it didn't really benefit them much to switch out parts unless they needed to either for continuity with the XJ, or some other necessity.

This thread has some good photos and descriptions of the horn button components in the steering column. https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/steering-colum-tear-down-repairs-39494/ The centre cap is loose because it is the button. Some fit less snugly than others, especially if some of the tabs on the back of it have been broken. Have you confirmed the electrical portions of the horn circuit are functioning?

Yeah, the photos app (or whatever they call it now... I'm a few OSs behind current) is a bit awkward for file manipulation. Pretty well everything you want to use outside the appleverse ends up needing saved on your computer twice. What you do is navigate to the picture you want, or select multiples pictures within an album or just the photo library, then either select "export" under the file menu, or hit shift+command+e. This opens a prompt that allows you to save an actual file that you can do stuff with somewhere on your computer. I frequently will upload to imgur.com (or some other third party host... NOT photobucket) and then just link in my photos from there, only because individual space is limited on CC.

My boss was rubbing me the other day because I was outside washing a truck in a Tshirt around -25°C. I dunno, though, it felt nice and warm in the sun, especially after the first few days this week in the mid -30's. Compared to the -40s and a few of the places I've called home over the years saw in the last couple weeks (before windchill...), still pretty balmy.

Damn squirrels... I had one that liked to hide under my MJ. I never found anything he stashed, but he chewed the $#!& out of my taillight harness. One day I saw him run over and jump up onto my tire and into my engine bay as I was about to leave. I fired up the truck, and backed it out of the driveway. There was one very stunned looking squirrel laying on the ground, twitching. I got back an hour later, and he was gone. Never saw him again.

Same year MJ and four-door XJ parts should be the same from the doors forward. Engine control parts will interchange best from '87 to *'90 (not '91). Most other stuff in the front end will interchange up to '96, or in some cases through the whole production run, although there are some differences, like say the brakes, where there was a major redesign at some point and you can't mix and match parts from before/after the the change. Pretty much any question you've had will have come up at some point or another, so I'd encourage using the search feature, or my preferred method, a Google search including the term site:comancheclub.com to limit results to this domain, but sometimes answers aren't so clear, or you get stuck on something no one else has... happens to all of us at some point in time. I've one question for you... why the gigantic font?