Pete M

they should work fine. :thumbsup:

why D-rings? why not use the hitch for extraction? those ring loops will hang down and drag on the ground. and I'm not entirely crazy about their distance from the bolts. that's quite a bit of rotational force on the little hitch/bumper bolts. I integrated a bit more beef into my bumper brackets by extending the beam and adding a 5/8" bolt through the frame (bolt not installed yet in the photo). I figure if I was going to design my own, I could make it better than stock. :D

I would never contemplate this swap with the goal of more get-up-and-go. Lower gearing is a far better way to get that. I would, however, contemplate the HO swap in order to get a lower mileage drivetrain or to fix a severely mistreated renix era MJ. Any boost in HP is offset by a loss of low end torque and that's a whole lot of effort for only a few extra ponies. The HO is not a panacea of power, but they did fix some of the issues that renix era 4.0s can have. :thumbsup:

88-06 all seem to be the same. :dunno: http://motors.shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw ... 06.c0.m283 and just for the heck of it, spacers: http://motors.shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw ... m270.l1313

no hills near me. lots of turns though. my dakota is a death trap. experiences may vary.

this guy simply wrapped the cable around the 8.8 lever and secured it with a cable tie.

If they have plastic in them, then they are probably stock (which suck). I wish you luck on removing them if they are. :( be very very very careful with those tiny screws. and when you re-install them, use anti-seize on them. :thumbsup: MM hubs are good. I went with Warn premiums on mine. any aftermarket hub is light years beyond stock in ease of installation and removal. :yes:

88 is too old for chrysler to be of any real help. :(

what brand hubs do you have now?

silly question, but did you remember to engage your hubs?

if you sat a stock 2wd MJ next to a stock 4wd MJ, the 2wd will be about an inch shorter. So if you added the same spacers and shackles to both trucks, both trucks would be 2" taller than they were previous, but still the 2wd MJ would be 1 inch shorter than the 4wd. But all of this is moot since a bone stock 4wd can run 31" tires (on stock Jeep rims) so the 2wd will look like a 4wd with a 1" lift and 31" tires. In order to get the 2wd up another inch, you'll need to buy springs, either used, new or whatever. I wouldn't sweat it too much. :thumbsup:

phooey on that. aggressive 31s and lockers (and a smart driver) can go just about anywhere you want to go. :thumbsup: 33s give you only 1" more ground clearance and will most certainly cost more to run (more lift, more gearing, more chance for breakage). do yourself a favor and get some armor. bumper and rocker guards go a long way towards bringing your truck back from no mans land. :D I don't understand the question. :hmm:

ebay seem to be popular

yes, it'll work exactly the same on your 2wd truck. But it'll be about an inch lower than a 4wd truck with the same mods. but that doesn't matter since it's still going to be tall enough for 31s on stock rims. :thumbsup:

sorta. it'd be a huge project though. do you have the entire 2.5L Jeep? Which Jeep is it? MJ?XJ?YJ? What precisely went wrong with the 2.8L?

I wanna say the MJ is 42 and the XJ is just shy of 44. lord only knows if my poor brain is remembering that right. :dunno:

rob, the front axle was swapped in.

do you know if the rear axle is C-clip or not?

far as I can tell, there were no official gearing options with the 4.0. Not even if you got a Dana 44. not saying that the original buyer couldn't have somehow finagled something, :dunno: but it's far more likely that the original Dana 35 broke and they swapped in that one in its place. plenty of owners have done that (me included).

no. drop pitmans should only go in if you also get a drop bracket with the trackbar. messign with the angles can induce bumpsteer (meaning as the suspension moves up and down, it can literally turn the steering wheel out of your hands) actually, I left them off on purpose. I fear that on "paper" the numbers look close enough that guys might think they can just bolt in that XJ axle without moving the perches. and that's bad.

SOA gives anywhere from 5 to 6.5 depending on the condition of your leafs and the specific perches you use. 2wd MJ leafs typically sit a bit lower than 4wd leafs.

If you have a 4.0, then that pretty much settles with 99.9% accuracy that it's not original off the assembly line. It came from a 2.5L truck and was likely installed when the 4wd conversion was done. might even be from that XJ. look reeeeealy closely for any evidence of other bracketry having previously been welded to the axle. Also, what's the measurement center-to-center between the leaf perches?

1 3/4" or 2" spacers up front and the 2" chevy drop brackets in the rear seem to work good for a small bump in height. :thumbsup:

some skill, mixed with patience, and in this particular case, quite a bit of luck. and rob, you know you're first in line when I find any duplicates. :thumbsup: