FrankTheDog

I’m guessing Town Center, Cobb Georgia. Seeing it’s only 23 miles from Atlanta where Warren99 is from.

Was this in the Wrangler you just bought?

Lifters tick. Pistons clack. Hit some of your piston pieces together. You’ll probably recognize the sound. They go bad around the wrist pin. Maybe to much clearance when it was assembled. Or faulty piston castings.

It was a mint 96XJ and l bought it at a junk yard with the piston noise. It was really bad. I drove it home but it let loose before l got there. I had a wrecked 96 with identical mileage and swapped out the engine and transmission and drove it to 355k with no further internal engine problems.

It was a problem with some 96-97’s. They would develop wear around the wrist pin and eventually blow if you didn’t take care of it. Quite possibly that’s what happened to yours. Although the 96 I had was really noisy before it let loose at 82k.

Of course he does, he’ll probably buy it when he retires.

I bought a “totaled” 2000 XJ from my wifes nephew. It got hit on the driverside nose and mangled the fender, grill and bumper and lightly damaged the inner fender. I straightened out the inner fender and bought some matching color parts l found on Car-Part for $300 and reassembled it. In CT you have to get your car inspected at the main DMV station in Weathersfield if it has been in an accident with a marked title. It passed and it was given a rebuilt title. I didn’t have any trouble getting insurance for it.

Probably 87 model year, 86 build year.

Mostly Old Parts And Rust

There were some 29,000 or so MJ’s made in 1985. They were 86 models but the build dates were 85.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50k18gL76AU Lefty Frizzell, The Long Black Veil

Now that’s funny!

Wrangler and XJ AX15’s have both holes cast into the housing for the transfer case. You just have to drill out the other ones on the Wrangler AX15 so you can bolt an XJ NP231 to it. You will need the XJ AX15 tranfercase shifter bracket also.

I drove my 92 2wd MJ for a couple years with a 4wd transmission. 2 low was handy several times. 4wd AX15’s are much more common. Throw one in and if you ever get the itch for 4wd you’ll already be half way there. You’ll have a better drive shaft too.

Jeep, Just Everybody Else’s Parts

One of the guys l work with is Italian and his name is Tony and he does a lot of machining repairs. He has a big FIAT sign in his department with a sign that says Fix it Again Tony written under it.

How far is it from Whitehall MT to where the truck is?

258 and a T-18 isn’t going to win any races but you’ll be able to crawl over most anything it’ll get over in 1st gear low range. You won’t find a more durable combination in a J truck. Here is a link to fuel tanks that should fit. https://www.gastankdepot.com/replacement-jeep-j10-j20-gas-tanks.html

For $100 for wheels and tires I would use them as a set of winter tires. Heat takes a toll on tires though and you’re down south. If you mostly drive on local roads and very little highway you probably would be ok. Even if you only got several thousand miles out of them it would be worth the hundred bucks. Then sell the wheels with tires for $50-100 when you’re done.

Put a big price on it and see if it sells. Also I found that state and national park service campground sites are generally more spread out and the people are friendlier to strangers. Most have a 10 or 14 day limit so you don’t have people that stay the whole summer there and think they run the place.

My daughter saw it, not me, unfortunately. She spotted it while her and her boyfriend were driving along the Farmington River in Pleasant Valley and she hollered at him to stop and she jumped out and took the picture with her phone.

Care to explain?

I think it’s part of the fuel tank protective cover.

I haven’t seen a pre 4.0 era XJ around here in years.