Pete M

It's cool and all, but where's the couch? :roll: You guys can keep your fancy "kegorators", I'll be sticking with the good ol' fashioned "bucket 'o ice". :D

As some of you may have noticed, there is a new forum at the bottom of the main page. But it is locked. Why you ask? Because I'll be adding in completed writeups that include lots of pictures. I ain't doing all the work though. This is for you guys/gals. Here are my thoughts for making it happen: Step 1: Feel free to post up suggestions right here (you should probably do that even if you're going to take it on yourself). Step 2: Someone needs to step up and volunteer. Lots and lots of pictures and instructions are required so that even a novice can see what's going on. Step 3: I will then post that up in the Tech section both to put it into the searchable database and to give the club at large an opportunity to comment or add in suggestions or variations. As similar as all MJs are, there are differences an individual owner may not realize and so I'd like to get all those thoughts together before I put it into a non-respondable forum. Step 4: After the vetting is over, I'll copy/paste the project and add it to the DIY forum. I'd like to see if I can host all the photos from a single hosting site, so each member will need to email me all their photos at full resolution and I'll crop/shrink them as needed (but don't send them until I'm ready to post up the final version to the DIY forum). I think I might start a new picturetrail account just to handle this. We'll see. Sound good?

Glad to hear it was something simple. :thumbsup: Also, is there any chance you could condense all of your project posts into a single topic?

I celebrated by buying my marine buddy a case of his favorite beer... :cheers: ...which we promptly consumed while blasting aliens in Halo 3 Happy Birthday!! :USAflag:

They simply twist sideways 90* and then you can pull the bar free from the plastic clip. It might take a second to get the first one, but once you get it it's easy. :D

That brings up another tip: the female side of the seatbelt buckle has a plastic sheath around it in a bucket equipped truck, but doesn't in a bench truck. It just means that with no mods, the female side might fall down between the seat and center console (and that full center console can easily swap from an MJ or XJ if you grab the brackets that hold the it to the transmission tunnel).

I totally agree that XJs could stand to attain plenty of flex up front. Your rear isn't fully stuffed yet. If fact, your rear axle isn't flexing much at all in that pic and to my uneducated eye that seems to be fairly typical of XJ leafs with bigger lifts. MJ rear suspensions perform better than an XJ's (partly due to things like longer leafs/shackles but most importantly we can go SOA and net 5-6" with our relatively flat leafs rather than needing even to add 5 inches of arch to said leafs). And since we can get more out of the rear suspension, that means the front can get away with doing less. I like how balanced my suspension turned out (although admittedly I was far less concerned with the suspension performance in the early days of the project than getting the hunka-hunka-oil-burning-rust out of my dad's garage). And I have even more available in the rear once I get the proper size shocks and I'd have more up front if I could let go of the stock flares.

Oh, and I had a fan rust into position and wouldn't move until I poked at it with a screwdriver through the lower vent above the passengers feet. But I don't remember if it was making a noise like the motor was trying. THat was many years ago.

I guess that depends. How much flex do you think you need? Remember, I went with the Bronco arms for the ease of installation. If you're putting a ton of fab into them, will they be easier than links?

Axle end or body end?

Yes it is. I bought black poly ones.

:D But back to the topic at hand, I hate the poly bushings. I couldn't even get full stuff with mine.

I just noticed that near the upper right corner of the front page of the forums is a line called "view your posts". Does that give you what you're looking for?

We had a hacker go through and change all the titles and I screwed that one up when I changed 'em back. Makes me smile when I see it so I've been leaving it as-is. :D

Parts are so easily swapped in MJs that sometimes it's hard to tell.

Not necessarily "pointless", but you'd need to re-evaluate the purchase if you aren't prepared to spend the money on regearing. It all depends.

It's never to late to edit and shrink that enormous photo. :brows: I think his truck is big enough already. :D

Is the engine actually rotating when you turn the key? If just the starter is making noise, then it could be that either the battery is too weak, the connection to the battery cables needs to be cleaned up with a wire brush (both the outside of the terminals and the inside of the clamps), the cables are too old and need to be replaced, or the starter itself is failing.

You will need to adapt whatever non-MJ seat you find to the floor brackets in the MJ. Fortunately the MJ bucket and MJ bench seats both use the same floor brackets. :D

The heater blower is under the dash above the passenger's feet. But it is removed from the engine side of the firewall. If the motor ran solely on high and not the other speeds the likely culprit would be the resistor pack which is located above the passenger's feet and removed from the duct work with like a 7 or 8 millimeter socket. I guess there's a chance the pack died entirely but usually it's just the slow speed resistors that go kaput.

The closest Michigan has to any vehicular inspections is the cop as you drive by. :D

3+1 standard and 4+1 for Metric (or a standard with an add-a-leaf).

Can you give me a link to the site? I'd like to check out what they are running. I don't know if our software supports that.

The only "qualification" is that you PM me your address and tell me what you'd like. :D