mjeff87

No, I didn't get it in last weekend....Sunday ran long and I ran out of time. If the weather cooperates this weekend, I'm going to try to get it in. I'm also hitting the junkyards, and I'll grab any of thoses vac switchs I can if there's any there for you guys. Jeff

Same size, they just pop right in. Jeff

#1 is a 242 skid. Wanna sell it? :D I'm picking up a 242 this weekend to throw under the MJ (and I forgot about needing a new skid.....unless the 231 will clear?) Jeff

Remove the cover plate on the inside of the gate, behind the handle area (3 torx screws). There's a scissors-type mechanism, and the two arms attach to to rods that run thru the 'gate to the latches. Squeeze the arms together and it should pop open. Jeff

I have to go to Rhoadesville either sometime this weekend, or on my way back from PA next weekend, to p/u a D30 and a 242 from a guy. If you're gonna be around wrenching on it, I might could stop by and give you a hand. Jeff

You didn't happen to buy that from a guy around Charlottesville, did you? If so, I know who sold it to ya....I was gonna buy it but the boss said no way. I'm right down the road from you :cheers: If you want to build that thing on the cheap (money, not quality) c'mon down and I'll take you to the junkyards. Jeff

Welcome to the club. Beer's in the fridge..... :D Where y'all from? Jeff

If/when I ever decide to flatbed mine (I do still use it as a pickup truck currently :driving: ), this is what I'll be doing: http://www.comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3890 I've seen a handful of flatbedded MJ's, but that's the best one I've come across IMHO. Jeff

Could you do me a huge favor??? :D Since you put ZJ coils in the front, could I get a center-of-hub to bottom-of-flare measurement off yours? We've got the same driveline, and I'm trying to match my front to the lift I got in the back with new leafpacks (now at 20.5"). I've got a couple different options to lift the front, including a set of ZJ springs, and was going to experiment this weekend. From your pic, it looks like you got about 3" with them, which is eggzachary what I need :D Thanks! Jeff

I just put a ZJ tie rod in the MJ Saturday when I swapped axles. Here's a couple pics that show the difference. Also, the XJ/MJ TR is hollow, and the ZJ one is solid stock I've got an extra one if you're interested, too. Jeff Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found

No pics, but I've had one good stuck and one "accident" with the MJ. The stuck was when it was still 2WD and I buried it up to the framerails on the farm in a very wet field....had to get the 60's era IH tractor out of the barn and chain it out :oops: About 2 years ago I was driving it to work one day, merging onto the interstate in one of those nifty "weave" lanes (onramp and offramp are the same road), and I bumped nasties with a ZJ....she was exiting as I was merging and we hit passenger side to driverside almost dead center. State police came because it was an interstate, found it non-reporatble due to minimal damage and no injuries, but I was faulted because I was in the merge lane :headpop: It popped the mirror off and put a dent in the center of the driverside door, and scuffed the rear flare on the MJ. I popped the mirror back on (didn't even break the glass), pulled the dent out of the door skin with a sink plunger, and didn't even bother with the flare. BUT, I caused $1600 worth of damage to the ZJ :chillin: Jeff

I got it (if we're talking about the same thing) off a website, and it's an EXCELLENT resource. Opened it up on the webpage as a .pdf and saved a local copy to my PC. The site had parts manuals for all years up to 2001 or so. Clicky here: http://www.xjjeeps.com/tech_reference.a ... ion=2&ID=0 Jeff (the 88-90 manual listed is a typo...it actually covers 87-90)

A former NAXJA guy did the rear floor of his XJ with plexi, right over the diff, so he could self-spot over rocks. I'll see if his pics are still up over there and post the thread if so. Jeff edit: pics are gone, but here's the thread- http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.p ... ight=plexi

Jerry did a neat trick to get those cables back into the strut. Use a pair of needlenose vise grips to push the spring back on the cable and then clamp down to hold it. Then just slip the exposed cable thru the slot in the strut and release the grips.....works like buttah! And to get the "barrel" end out of the backing plate (or splitter), I use a small hose clamp and some banana juice. Slip the clamp over the tangs that pop out to anchor the cable end, squirt it down, and tighten the clamp just enough to compress all 3 of the tangs (usually you can't get to one of them anyway) but not so tight that the clamp tightens fully up. Then grab the cable and give it a good tug and it should slip right out. Jeff

Most report in the neighborhood of 5-5.5". It's the combined height of the OD of the axletube plus the height of the perch, if you reuse your existing springs. If you replace damaged/sagged springs with new ones, you also have to add in that height difference as well. I just replaced my sagged out 2WD leafpacks with a good set of 4WD packs (still SUA) and all new eye bushings, and got a good 3". If I would SOA, add 5" to that and I'd probably be somewhere around 7.5-8". Jeff

Thanks CW....I've been baby-stepping the build on it for the last umpteen years, doing my research both here and on NAXJA before doing anything (and meeting a helluva lot of nice folks along the way :cheers:). I'm building in stages, as time and $$ allow...it'll be where I want it someday, I suppose ;) I got the graphite paint idea from a bud who redid his XJ packs with it, but he also installed teflon padding inbetween each leaf as well...I'm to poor to do all that at the moment. Dang, I didn't think of doing that, sounds workable to me. Only thing is you'd have to be careful to not snap the hardlines into the wheel cylinders, or else unbolt them and rebleed (which we did anyways....). The biggest PITA with disassembling the drums was the parking brake cable, like you mentioned, and the lower spring. I'm going to discs eventually on the '44 so I won't have to deal with all that crap.

flooring is overrated....my driverside comes to you now courtesy of Lowe's :D Jeff

I've got (what I just found out to be) a piece of the factory towbar bracket from an XJ mounted on mine....got it out of the 'yard for $3 or so. It attaches at the towhook bolts, and basically acts as a frame stiffener for the front of the framehorns. The receivers at either end are where the towbar would have attached. Image Not Found

I just put a ZJ tie rod on my MJ this weekend. FWIW, the drag link is the same as the XJ/MJ one, it's just the TR that's larger. Here's a couple pics: Jeff Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found

If you're sure you got all the bellhousing bolts off, thread one or two of them back in a bit to act as a safety and push up/down on the tailshaft while pulling it backward...the only thing that could be hanging up is the input shaft splines inside the clutch disc. Wait a minute, yours is a 4.0L right? Did you pull the starter? Jeff

I'm still digging pebbles out of my @$$ ;) The original plan was to use Chuck's garage (the one in the pics where I swapped the front axle) that's about 3 miles away from Jerry's house, but his tranny had to come out unexpectedly. So we just did it where it sat. I've got a couple choices for the front, not sure which is gonna work the best tho. I have both a set of stock V8 ZJ coils (mine's a 2WD 2.5L, so those ought to get about 2" ) and a set of Skyjacker ZJ lift coils (at least 2", not sure exactly because I got them off a wrecked ZJ in the 'yard) that I know will get 3" at least. And I also have a set of 1.5" spacers from that ZJ as well I can use. Not sure what's gonna get me to a matching height, so I'll just put stuff in and see. I'm thinking I'll put the stock coils in and see, then add the spacer if I need it.

Yesterday morning, Jerry, Chuck and I proceeded to transplant rear axles. Pulled the MJ’s along side of each other and commenced to unbolting Image Not Found Image Not Found We figured the easiest way to deal with the e-brake cables was to pull them off the parking brake arm inside the drum (hindsight says we should of just pulled them out of the equalizer arm and left the drums alone…..Chuck was smart enough to take a pic of the assembled drum beforehand so we had a reference to get all the bits and pieces back together correctly. Here’s a couple shots of the brakes for anyone’s future reference: Image Not Found Image Not Found Jerry took the time to unbolt all of his stuff nicely so he could reuse it all. Chuck (pictured) and I chopped my U bolts off with a cutoff wheel….. Image Not Found Got the packs off both vehicles and pulled the axles out. Here’s a shot of my sagged/bent/toasted 2WD packs next to the newly assembled 4WD packs. Hard to see from the angle, but there’s a lot more arch in the new packs Image Not Found I got new spring eye bushings and had them shop pressed in, and we both used new bent-to-order U bolts and hardware from the same shop for $6/ea (and some change). I snapped one brake line and had to rebend a new piece to fit (the shiny new line there in the pic that hooks to the flex line), but other than that all went well. Got mine all buttoned back up and bled the brakes, and that was it. We’ve still got a bit of work left on Jerry’s MJ, but should have it done and running (have to put the tranny back in it) by this weekend for a trail cleanup. Image Not Found I netted about 3” of lift with the new packs. Center of hub to flare measurement with the old packs was the same as the front, 17.5”….now it sits right around 20.5”: Image Not Found On the way home I stopped by a supermarket, and got a good shot of the rake on a nice level parking lot. I’m going to swap out the front springs with a pair of V8 ZJ coils this weekend to try leveling it out. If those don’t do it, I have a set of 1.5” spacers I can add (hindsight again says I should have put them in on Saturday when I had the front axle out, but I wasn’t sure just how much lift I was going to get in the back) Image Not Found Image Not Found The D35 will ride underneath until I get the D44 regeared and locked, then it'll come back out. I'm not sure now that I want to SOA it. It rides great (still need to replace shocks and brake line) before I can flex...right now they are my limiting straps :roll: I'm thinking this might be a nice height for now, with a good set of 31 or even 32" tires. We'll see what happens next. Jeff

I’ve been working on the leafpacks for the last few weekends, getting them to be ready to install when we pulled the rear axle. Here’s what I started with, a set of stock MJ 4WD leafpacks from the junkyard for $26 bucks…. Image Not Found Image Not Found I pulled them apart, hit them with a cup brush on the angle grinder, and reapainted them with graphite-based paint: Image Not Found shot of my “workshop” LOL Image Not Found this is the stuff I used, called EZ slide. Got it from Tractor Supply Co. for $24. Neat stuff: Image Not Found cleaned up the factory case hardened eye and shackle bolts with the wire wheel on the bench grinder, and repainted the shackles. Fasteners were like new under all the grime, and saved me some $$$ not having to buy new stuff Image Not Found Image Not Found got all new hardware for the alignment clips. My neighbor machined down some ¼” pipe nipple and reamed out the inside and tapered the edges, to replace the stock sleeves…pretty trick. Painted with the same graphite paint Image Not Found new sleeves: Image Not Found he also machined a set of new center pins for me. I had to drill out the perches just a tad to get the heads he turned to fit: Image Not Found all ready to be put back together: Image Not Found

Started with the D30 on Saturday morning….had it swapped out in about 3 hours working by myself. Step 1, pull old D30: Image Not Found “new” axle, cleaned and painted: Image Not Found Image Not Found my shimmed CAD motor: Image Not Found Image Not Found also swapped the stock tie rod with a ZJ one, notice the beef: Image Not Found Image Not Found using a bottle jack to remove/install coil springs without unbolting everything: Image Not Found all done: Image Not Found

Went from 4.10's to 4.56....for free :D :D :D I snagged a 4.56 D30 from the yard for $100 a while back, and put it in myself on Saturday morning. Sold the 4.10 D30 I took out for $125...net gain of $25. Jerry (tjbliley) and I swapped rear axles yesterday (he had a 4.56 D35 and wanted my 4.10 D35) so that was no cost either.... All I gotta say is ANY 2.5 should have come from the factory with 4.56's. I can't believe how much more responsive it is now! Will be posting pics shortly. I also installed new leafpacks in the rear and got about 2.5" of lift....will be lifting the front with some ZJ springs this weekend to level it out. Jeff