mjeff87

Couple things pop to mind, since we're at the 20K foot level here. Engine side complete wiring harness from a compatible year Renix (87-90) that includes the TCU/NSS harness. New TB, or at least the auto trans cable (your current TB might already be suited for the cable different TPS (auto wiring harness has a separate connector to communicate with the TCU) new interior pedal assembly new auto shifter assembly (I'd opt for a floor shift version over a column shift if you can) different radiator, to include the trans cooler, plus trans lines to get there and back new flex plate bolts, flywheel bolts are too long to reuse new front (if you're 2WD now that's not an issue anyhow), plus new rear driveshaft possible new trans crossmember, if you currently have an AX15 Impossible? Not in the least. But you have to count on all of the little stuff along the way.

X1000^^^ Happened to me as well. Those cheezy little U-shaped clips that hold the slave lines into the throwout are garbage. I barely got 100 miles on my new internal slave before one of them popped off. I pulled the tranny back out, saw what happened, and promptly replaced those clips with cotter pins bent so they'd never come loose. If you're now in the Richmond area and still need a hand, I'm around all weekend. Let me know, I can at least take a look at it for you.

I didn't see any more of them anywhere...I assumed it was a closeout type of a deal. I got a nice pair of work shoes there once in the tool department, they were on closeout and markdown. I was looking at them, I wear a size 11-ish and the smallest they had was a half size too big but still fit me reasonably well enough. The lady in the tool department saw me looking, came over and hand-wrote $8.00 and her initials on the sticker (they were like $75 shoes, marked down to $30 or something). She said she had to get all of them out of there as she needed shelf space for new items. It was one of those "right place at the right time" moments.

Every once in awhile, God smiles at me and lets me cash in some Karma coupons.... I was at Lowe's yesterday buying some hardware and wandered into the small little towing/pickup truck section for no good reason. I saw a box holding a Reese adjustable hitch kit sitting in an odd place so I checked it out. It was complete, but for some reason it had a yellow discount tag on it. I looked twice to make sure I wasn't seeing things, then scooped it up and proceeded to checkout. Even the checkout girl said WTH when she saw it, but said "you hit the jackpot here". It scanned in at $9.00 for some reason, and I said that wasn't a problem and I'd gladly pay that. No, she said, and did a manual price override to what the discount sticker had on it. Made my day. I "think" it was supposed to have a hitch ball included, which now looking at it I see is not present. That's not an issue at all, I have spares. Maybe that's why it was marked down, but I still think whoever did it screwed up a bit.....

Tomato jam My tomato plants are out of control, sadly most of the fruits are fubar because of the excessive rain we've been having here (about 11" over the last couple weeks). Most of them are splitting and/or rotting on the stem before I can get to them. I pulled about 3 lbs worth off today, pared them up (saved the seeds for next years planting) and made a small batch of tomato jam. This is something you make today to eat tomorrow and later on. I got about 2 lbs worth of edible fruit after paring, chopped them all up and threw them into a heavy bottom pot. Added about a1/3 cup of local honey, a splash of apple cider vinegar, some kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Simmered the whole mess for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, then let it cool for a bit. Pushed it all through a colander in the hopes to strain out the skins but that didn't really work out so well, so I just stirred it all together. Ended up with about 1.5 cups of the most concentrated, dead-of-summer tomato jam you could ever imagine. Once cooled and congealed, it will make one heck of a good spread on crostini, BLT's, or dolloped onto a plate with some fresh basil and mozzarella cheese, among other things

Holy crap....how did I miss this thread? Your end point (Richmond) is my front yard LOL. Good to hear you're going again. I'll keep tabs on the thread to watch your progress. You can ping me once you get closer to here if you get in a bind (assuming you're coming through the Roanoke area, that's about 4 hours from me....I can help you from that point if you need anything). What's bringing you to the RIC area anyway? I'll have a couple cold ones (beer/soda/water) here if you want to swing by. What's your updated ETA now? Jeff edit: If you're planning I40 to I81 and then up to Staunton to I64 in VA.....I81 on that stretch pretty much sucks. Way too many trucks, lots of up/down hills, and your cooling system WILL be tested. If you want, when you get around Roanoke, look for route 460 east. It's a 4-lane divided highway (mostly) that's alot more rural. It's a bit longer, but it's a much easier drive (specially in an older MJ than the interstates), and it'll bring you right about to the same place as I64, just south of Richmond instead of north. There's a point around Farmville that 460 intersects with route 360, you can take 360 right into downtown Richmond if you want, or stay on 460 and come out onto I95, a few miles from where I live.

Holy counterweight rear bumper.....

Wicked Barley Brewing Company https://www.wickedbarley.com/food/beer/ They also brew meads and ciders. Last time we were down there my wife went there with my buddy's wife, us guys stayed home. They had root beer mead they said was to die for. They didn't have any this trip though

Wife and I were in Florida last week, our friends there took us to a local mircobrewery somewhere around the east side of Jacksonville. They had about 20 different pours, my buddy and I split 3 flights. Mostly IPA's, a sour, pilsner, and a couple of ale's (he had one stout). I wish I would have taken pics of them and the beer menu but I totally spaced out and forgot. Only got one pic of the brewery operations through the front glass window. Impeccably clean and decent sized. Their best pour I had, IMHO, was called "F*#%!^ Aye". Remarkably similar to one of my favorites, Perpetual IPA, from Troeg's Brewing in Hershey PA. Dee-licious. And dangerous

I use a torque wrench too, both my vehicles have aluminum wheels. The only thing I can figure is that I had the Focus in the shop a month or so ago for annual safety inspection. When I picked it up, the service writer told me that they noticed my tires were installed backwards (directional tread) and that they pulled all the wheels off and remounted them. They were the original installers when they got put on, I just never noticed it (they didn't either, apparently). So, that would have been the last time the lugnuts were touched until I pulled the passenger wheel a couple days ago. It's just funny that the 2 rear wheels were still torqued but the fronts were loose. And I usually double check the torque any time a shop touches the wheels on either of my vehicles, or my wife's. I'm gonna check them again this weekend to make sure they're still tight.

Just found loose lugnuts on both front wheels of the Focus Monday. I had been noticing a little "shudder" in the front end on the interstate last week and couldn't think of what was causing it, or if it was just me imagining things. The only reason I found them was I had to change the oil in it, and the easiest way to get at the filter (unless you have a lift, which I don't) is to pull the passenger wheel. I found 3 of the 4 lugs on that side loose, and all 4 of the driver side ones loose as well . Both rears were tight as ever. Weird.

29 years is just about 28.5 more than I would ever be able to handle as LEO.....congrats and thank you I had to do ride-alongs with PD when I was a 911 dispatcher, overnight shifts in sketch-town. Twice I thought I was gonna die, lol.

She's perky..... (but kind of annoying at the same time)

Same old same old here. Wife and I just got back from Florida, spent a week with our retired friends down there (again). 1400 mile round trip, but it was fun. Drank a lot of beer, ate a lot of seafood and shot ALOT of bullets. They have 10 acres of wooded/rural property so setting up shooting lanes was no problem 😊. Today was my last day of vacation, and I changed the oil in the KJ and the Focus, then hit the range for a bit. Changed my stance to open and tried a modified grip, I think I'm finally dialed in. Some shots still a smidge low/left, but all are still effective, lol.

Yeah, somewhere around 3/4-7/8" or so. Now that GM yoke, it's considerably longer. It's like 9-10". IIRC Hornbrod either ran one or had one in his stash.

YJ slip yokes (or TJ ones, I can't recall....maybe both) are nominally longer than XJ/MJ ones. The yoke ears are also more spread out/squared off, due to the short drivelines and angles that SWB Jeeps have. Some GM's also have an extended 27 spline yoke. Either of those would theoretically work (I ran a YJ yoke on mine but I didn't have any length issues, it was just what I had on hand at the time). However, consider the physics involved in running an extended yoke versus a proper sized driveshaft. The further away the yoke is from the TC output the more force (and trust) you're placing on it.

Look at the screws on the face of the speedometer. Flathead screws denote one style and phillips denote the other. It's been so long I don't remember which is which, but it's an easy way to identify the clip style without having to pull the whole cluster.

Yes...yes it is.

Tangential to the subject matter at hand, you're not going to be able to purchase any new vehicle without at least some type of driver assist gadgetry. I can live with a backup camera (although I never use the one in my wife's car because I'm not used to it....I keep looking through the mirrors and/or over my shoulder LOL), but I absolutely cannot stand all the other bells and whistles. Lane-keep assist, turn signal alert, predictive braking, adaptive cruise control, etc. I love her car, but HATE all of this safety crap. You can disable most of it, but you have to re-disable everything every time you cycle the key. There's no way around getting it, and paying for it all too. edit: and to top it all off, she had to get a new windshield put in it a couple weeks ago. All that crap^^^ uses cameras inside the glass looking forward, so in addition to the labor to put the glass in, the cameras had to be re-calibrated to work correctly with the new piece of glass. Not cheap. Luckily our insurance paid for it all.

Id wager a bet that I could take my 9/16" offset box end wrench to any Renix era XJ/MJ and get a half turn tighter on every intake/exhaust manifold bolts. Start there.

Definitely sounds like a low charge on the A/C....you should have about a 20 degree delta over ambient (as a spitball measurement....). I dropped my KJ off at the local shop for safety inspection, picking it up later this afternoon. We're leaving for Florida at 0400 Saturday morning trying to make it down there by noon-ish, coming back late next week. I know myself, and if I don't get a new sticker put on it this week I'll completely forget about it once we get back, and it runs out at the end of the month. We're taking the wife's Subbie (again) on the trip, so the KJ is just going to sit in the garage all next week anyway, LOL. edit: shop just called, new sticker installed

I can't see your pic, but I used one on mine. Got it from Advance Adapters. The fittings in the back of the master cylinder and slave are held in with a tiny roll pin...just use a small punch (or a finishing nail) and pop them out.

Yeah, not saying that you can't reuse parts in a custom fashion, but I'm just trying to save guys some time and aggravation by trying to use non-AX15 parts in a stock configuration......they just don't work, period. I know, I suffered through it way back when and finally figured out the differences after a billion trips to the junkyard to get the correct parts. There was even a thread on here a few months ago from a member in a similar situation as the OP is now. After 5 pages of us telling the guy what he needed to do, I still don't think he ever figured it out. Anything can be made to work with enough time, imagination, money and fabrication.....but trying to reuse a Peugot crossmember, or an AW4/AX5 one, or any of the other associated bracketry in original mounting locations with an AX15 just ain't gonna work.

You need the AX15-specific crossmemeber as mentioned, plus the AX15 specific mount plate that the mount attaches to. Either MJ or XJ, 2 or 4WD, doesn't matter, they are all the same. You'll also need the AX15-specific shifter assembly, basically everything for the shifter except for the handle part. Don't forget the shifter bracket that bolts to the trans/TC at the flange on the driver's side as well as the tunnel bracket and the shift rod. They are all specific to the AX15 and others will not work, to put it simply. That's if your keeping your shifter all stock, if you go aftermarket then disregard. edit: we really need a sticky for this (if there isn't one already). This topic comes up with some regularity.

Depending on where abouts your talking about Bo, I'll be right there come Saturday. Wife and I are driving down to Hillard FL (actually closer to Folkston GA, about a mile off the St. Mary's river). Friends of ours from Pittsburgh retired last year, bought a huge chunk of (undeveloped) land for DIRT cheap and dropped a modular home on it. This will be our 4th trip down, and the third time driving it. Flew into JAX once, they picked us up at the airport which is about 30 miles south of them. The area definitively meets to OP's demographic requirements, LOL. It gets country quick once you get outside of Jacksonville. Quick.