Ibby

Just a note, in 2000 Chrysler moved back to a low pinion D30 for some reason. I'd look for one from a 99 or earlier, the hi pinion ones will be a little stronger in the ring gear than a low pinion would be. CJ and YJ D30's are leaf sprung. YJ's will have the pumpkin on the correct side for you, the CJ's are on the opposite side. Adding the coil mounts and control arm mounts is a bit of a pain in the @$$. Also, the CJ ball joints go in backwards compared to YJ and later D30's. Don't know why they did that but if you're scavenging parts from different axles, these parts definitely will not interchange. Lastly, try to find one without a vacuum disconnect system. This is a little fitting in the middle of the long side of the axle. It splits the axle shaft in two and uses a sleeve that reconnects the two halves by vacuum pressure. The vacuum system breaks about as often as a CPS does, and the axle is not as strong as a D30 without this system.

I load my metric ton up quite a bit. It's currently got about a thousand pounds worth of parts and project stuff in it. Helps out with driving in the snow. I've carried wood, 14-40 lathes (old heavy ones from the 60's), and even cut down Samurai's in it. I was a bit surprised to find that the springs did flex down but not as much as I'd expected. The previous owner used it as a moving truck for years and loaded it down well on many occasions. You just can't seem to kill those spring packs. The only problem I saw was the rear brake proportioning unit arm likes to fall off. Pretty simple fix though.

Thanks for all the helpful replies. That's the sort of stuff I was looking for. After the dealer quoting me over $360 just for new head bolts I think I'll look around elsewhere.

I picked myself up a 1990 long bed MJ last year and I completely love it. I've been a Jeep guy for years but needed something a bit more convenient than the CJ or XJ I have so an MJ seemed like a good idea. I drove it out from the west coast to eastern Ontario this Christmas and everything went well. I now have 186,000 miles on it and after checking the oil this weekend I found it milky. I picked up a new Felpro "don't retorque, don't use gasket sealer" head gasket as well as all the stuff I need to do the head job (PB Blaster, moly grease, intake gasket etc.). I'm just curious about things I should be aware of when I do this job. What parts need to be taken care of? Does anything in particular break if you're not careful? I`ve searched through most of this forum so far, and didn`t find anything that really sticks out. Is it a straight forward job? I have a couple of questions about what the Haynes manual has in it about installing a new head gasket. When removing the rocker arms and pushrods it mentions you must bring #1 cylinder to TDC. Why is this important? If the stuff comes out a certain way, shouldn't it go back in the same way without setting #1 to TDC? Also, I've noticed the fuel rail on the Renix system doesn't stay pressurized after shut down like the Chrysler system does. Is this normal or do I have a leak somewhere? Lastly, I do hope to keep this truck for quite some time. I'd like to do an HO swap but if I go to all the trouble I'd like to put in a freshly rebuilt long block. Keeping in mind I'd prefer a rebuilder in Canada if possible, but if the price is right I have no objections to a decent builder in the US as well. Any recommendations?