Tomahawked

So are you going to be able to use the top half from parts truck to repair the missing one on lifted truck? :clapping:

Then go grab a Cherokee rear driveshaft from boneyard and get the tube changed to correct length.

If tube isnt bent just take to a driveshaft shop and have the end replaced.

What year and motor?

The reason for piston to swell up is due to heat pressure, and brake fluid. Not necessarily in that order. Chrysler was one of the first to change over to phenolic pistons. And the first to have major problems shortly after.

With this line of thought, I might as well replace every wearing part on the truck. Lines were fine. Not even cracked on outers. When lines do go bad, its usually from someone pinching them shut in the past when doing repairs, or letting the weight of caliper hang down by only the line. The inner layer ususally has to be broken for the line to get clogged. If it deterorates, the fluid would be very dirty, contaminated and hold some residual pressure immediately after driving. Trying to rotate the wheel showed a lot of drag but no pressure when opening bleed screw. So now you know an easy test to help diagnose brake problems.

I had to remove studs in frame and use different holes when swapping in the auto. You don't use all of the holes that are in crossmember either. Definately a major difference in the tranny mounts.

Just finished the same conversion on my `88. Find a donor Cherokee up to 1990. They should be plentiful, so don't just jump on the first one you find. Sit back and wait until you find what you want for the truck on one vehicle. I don't know why you would prefer the 4 banger, but if the bellhousing is same, there are plenty of donor 4.0 liters around that have rest of the parts needed. Mostly its a plug and play swap unless you convert from auto to manual or other way.

The belt was new. Water pump is new. Belt keeps jumping back one groove on crank gear towards block and riding over the lip. Everything appears to be lined up, but obviously not. I did notice A/C compressor has a pulley with one groove wider than the others. Belt is centered on the flat pulleys. Any possibilities before I get too ambitious and remove everything. I need to change compressor before summer hits and will make sure that pulley matches the others.

Do you know for sure the rear end is bad? You may have snapped a ujoint and just need to replace the yoke on axle. If so thats a quick easy fix.

I took all of the above suggestions under consideration. But since I always think outside the box, decided on this fix. Removed the wheel and there was the usual black dust and burnt smell. I had just machined the rotors and replaced the pads. So was expecting there to be some problem with calipers sticking eventually, and common to plastic pistons with high milage. Just didnt expect the trouble to be almost immediate. I removed the caliper and noticed how badly the pads glazed over. Whats really ridiculous is there is only 35 miles on them. Removed caliper and tried pushing piston back in. Just curious how tight it felt. Not good. So I used the air hose with blower and popped out said piston. It measured about 0.004" larger(thickness of a fat hair for reference) in size than should be. In the lathe it went and shaved down to the right size. Polished it with some 600 grit and was done. Wiped the inside of caliper out and slid piston back in using existing seal and square cut oring. It went back in much easier than before. I would normally replace rubber parts, especially for a new dust seal. The oring is not normally subject to wear or swelling unless fluid has been contaminated. But nobody locally had them in stock. I also heard a clunk when applying pedal after changing pads originally. I noticed the usual worn gouged area where inside pad rides on caliper mount. It was stepped more than I cared for, so grabbed the MIG welder, ran a bead over, and built up where the step was. Ground it down smooth. The welded surface was extremely hard. Actually much harder than spindle itself. Maybe a good thing. The file wouldnt touch it. But now there is no ridge for pad to bind up on and piston is not sticking. So tire spins freely when pedal is released. I guess that makes me a happy camper. But not so fast. After doing the extreme test run, I noticed the left side is starting to act up the same. So tomorrow, I will do a pete and repeat on it and should be good to go. I know I should have done both at same time, but a big storm was fastly approaching. Now you are wondering why I would go to this much trouble. Just slap another caliper on and get on with my life. Well that is one way to approach it. BUT, I would not have educated myself at all. Just spend some money and learn nothing. When I repair something I really want to learn more than I need to get by on. Not only did I repair the problem. But did so in the same time would have taken if I drove down to the store and purchased a replacement part. So for the same amount of time spent, I did the repairs for nothing out of pocket. AND got a complete understanding or what was wrong and what it took to fix. If I had done all of this and didnt correct problem, it would have been irritating. But I would have eliminated the more obvious reason and looked further into what more serious issues there might be still lurking.

One inch in front is all I need to get the truck level. Any simple options that have proven to work? The suspension is all stock.

I have a right side caliper sticking after driving thru too much stop and go traffic today. I could either swap for a rebuilt caliper $17, replace with just a new plastic piston $15, remove old piston and machine the 0.005" off OD it has swollen over the last 20 years of use, or just machine a new one out of stainless steel. All are easy enough to do. I hate just replacing with rebuilts, especially if something simple to repair. The rebuilt caliper will not have a new piston. It would be just cleaned, painted, and rubber parts renewed. Replacement piston fixes problem and should be good for many more years, but cost is nearly the same for a rebuilt. For the 30 minutes it would take to drive and pick up another caliper, I could have the old piston taken out, machined and replaced. Machining a new one out of SS stock is te most time consuming, but a permenant reapir good for the next 50 years. What would you do?

I just finished piecing an 88 together from 90 motor and donor parts. It does exactly as you described. At idle in gear with brakes on it will drop down to around 600 or less and run rough. Everything loose in cab starts shaking and rattling. I put it in neutral and idles up just enough to stop running rough. But after a couple seconds it will idle back down to around the 600 and be rough again. If it sits long enough the idle rises just a little and smooth out for a few seconds then drops again. Its not a surge or wandering. I have other vehicles do similar without the real low idle that results in a rough condition.

Sorry about the slight misinformation. The nothing I wrote was not a dead battery but the alternator not putting out. I gave up on trying to get the alternator going for the the moment. Later I started all over again. After rechecking the usual, I tore out the instrument panel and decided to focus on why the two gauges were not functioning. Since only two little screws hold gauge, I removed volt meter to check if it worked. Hooked to battery and worked fine. I checked across the connection on back of mylar circiut board and nothing. Followed back to the connector and with key on it had voltage. I noticed the copper strip powered both oil pressure and volt gauge. At least I found a common denominator between them. I scratched thru the strip at intervals along path to first gauge. All the way to the oil gauge there was continuity, but not at the gauge itself. I removed the connection screw and there was the problem. A tiny crack across copper strip where the washer had cut thru. So I just loosened the screw and pushed washer over the break and tightened it back. Now everything is working, battery is fully charged and I am a happy camper again. Its suprising how such a small imperfection could cause major problems. I realize now why the alternator was probably missing on the donor Cherokee. Someone had removed it thinking was bad. I swapped most of the Cherokee parts over to Comanche since all of the 4wd lights and things that were different. It also reaffirms how thorough someone needs to be when troubleshooting something without knowing exactly what is causing the problem.