terrawombat

Most of the YJ wiring and accessories won't work too well in an MJ. :( It's okay. One of my MJs is getting a transplant from a '98 XJ donor and the other MJ only has 78k miles on the drivetrain so I suspect it'll go for much longer. If not, I have a couple spare 4.0L's lying around, but who doesn't these days? :rotf:

I'll be going over the truck with a fine-tooth comb. I've been replacing the floors in both of my MJs so I'm somewhat set up to be doing rust repairs at the moment - my MIG is gassed up and ready to go, got plenty of sheet metal, seam sealer, paint, brushes, and warm weather coming up this weekend. That hardtop will be coming right off!

I have 167,250 miles on the '01 XJ. When does the tapping occur on your wife's vehicle? Once it dries out a little bit here (we just got dumped on with rain), I'm going to remove the front driveshaft and see if that makes any difference.

Not a Comanche, but the drivetrains are near identical. Posted the same issue on NAXJA, but I'm talking to myself over there: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1028978 Anyway - long story short, I'm getting a very distinct tapping noise somewhere near my feet that is consistent with the speed of the vehicle, not engine RPM. It will only happen when my foot is off the gas and the vehicle is decelerating. The tapping seems to die down some when the vehicle is put into 4wd-Hi and is almost non existent in 4wd-Lo, but it could be that while in 4wd-Lo, there is so much driveline noise and whining that I'm not even hearing the tapping. My first thought was, obviously, u-joints, but I crawled underneath last night and tried to shake, wiggle, and rattle every driveshaft and axleshaft under the truck. The u-joints all seem extremely tight and the only one that may have exerted a tiny bit of movement was the front passenger axle shaft u-joint. I also replaced the transmission mount for good measure. I bought the thing months ago and this was a good reason to finally install it, but to be honest, I think the old, 167k mile tranny mount was stiffer than the brand new one from Jeep. It also did nothing to fix the original issue at hand :dunno: The only thing that struck me as odd was the amount of play in the front driveshaft. I had all four wheels of the Jeep on the ground and it was in 4wd-Hi at the time, but I could still rotate the front driveshaft a solid 3/8"-1/2" in either direction. I checked on my '98XJ (it's nice to have near identical vehicles around for additional troubleshooting!) and it seemed to have a similar, although a little less, amount of slop in the front driveshaft (that vehicle has 74k miles on it). I think I'm going to wind up buying all new u-joints for the vehicle anyway. I believe all of the ones are there are the originals and I'd like to get greaseable ones so that I can have some level of control with them. However, I don't believe that it's going to solve the issue as all of the current ones seem pretty tight. Does anyone else have any other suggestions or troubleshooting tips I could use to narrow this down further? Is the amount of slop in the front driveshaft normal?

But it's this XJ's fault it got the goofy idiot lights ;)

My co-worker got me the name and number of the owner over the weekend. Called him up after work and I'm going to look at it tomorrow and I'm 99.9% sure I'll be purchasing it. He told me that 3rd gear grinds pretty bad and it may need a new clutch, but it is still very drivable in its condition. I only need to take it about 5 miles so it should be fine. I'll have my roommate drive me over and follow me back just to make sure. Also, this was a pretty big bummer - he can't find the title for it, but he's got a couple of other places to look. Although, he was a real nice fellow and said he'd even go down to the motor vehicle place and apply for another tomorrow if I was serious about buying it. Told him I was so we'll see what happens with that.

I was always under the impression that the odometer reading was stored in the computer, but that's not the case. I swapped in a used computer from a JY in my '98 XJ and the original mileage remained. I guess this odometer 'computer' is somewhere else on the gauge cluster?

I recently cleaned my bench upholstery in the wash with scented detergent and it has really lingered. Good thing it smells nice!

AWESOME!!! Thank you and thank your friend for me! I think all three of those shots are of the passenger side mount. Nope he stated and quote: If that's the driver and passenger side, then he's got two alternators on his truck ;) Just poking fun - I'm still very grateful you had your buddy go out and take pictures for me! :cheers:

AWESOME!!! Thank you and thank your friend for me! I think all three of those shots are of the passenger side mount.

I'll forward that recommendation to my roommate. I'm certainly not having any part of that.

For now. I bet you anything over the next 5 years, they're going to be damn near impossible to find. They're "clunkers", remember? I guess I should hold onto the two spares I have then ;)

Where are you located? 4.0L engines are evvvvvvverywhere!

I'd love to get my own place, but I can't financially justify leaving the place I'm at now. If you knew what my monthly expenses were for the house + utilities, you'd want to stay, too! My roommate (who I don't think I've mentioned also happens to be my cousin) isn't a complete waste of space. I'm sure I could mention the issue with the paint in the basement and he'd figure out a way to clean it up. I'll be doing that this evening when I see him next.

You may have to trim the bed and lose the tailgate. I'll hold onto the tailgate for you ;)

I've got a new rant about my roommates! I go down to the basement to get my laundry out of the dryer (imagine that - someone who actually removes their laundry so other people can use the facilities!). For a couple of weeks now my roommate and his girlfriend have been building horse jumps in their spare time and selling them to local horse farms in the area. Seems to make a pretty quick buck, too. Anyway, I knew they've been using the basement to paint the jumps, but I assumed they were being clean about it. Nope. I took a peek on the side of the basement I rarely go to and saw the ridiculous mess they made. There is white paint all over the floor, the walls, and it's even splattered on the ceiling. They also used a couple of patio chairs I had stored in the basement as a means for propping up the jumps while they painted them. Guess what - there is paint all over my patio furniture...on the metal frames, in the mesh lining, everywhere. Awesome. This basement isn't finished so it's not like some paint here and there is ruining the floor or walls, but common. You can't just splash paint around wherever you feel like it and expect it to be 'okay.' No one living here owns this house - it's a rental, but the situation we have is very delicate in the sense that we're living in this house for a ridiculously low monthly rental rate because my Dad and the owner are real good friends and he's basically doing us a favor. Now, if he were to come over to the house today (although he never does) and sees paint all over his basement floor and walls, I can't imagine he would be very pleased. No need to rock the boat when it's sailing straight.

LOL :clapping: I'm easily annoyed, as you can tell. I go out of my way day in and day out to make sure I've extended a bit of common courtesy to others and when I don't get it back in return, I get angry. I also usually let the issues boil up inside and if I didn't have CC to vent/rant, I may turn into Jim Carrey's character from Me, Myself, and Irene!

Common courtesy is fairly hard to come by these days. On a daily basis, I probably say to myself 'REALLY?' about four or five times when I see someone doing something (or not doing something) that just completely blows my mind. I hold high expectations of people and I'm usually let down...a lot. My latest rant dealing with common courtesy comes by way of my roommates idiot girlfriend. I'll give you two examples: 1) She doesn't work a 9-5 like everyone else in my house does (I live with two other people) and is normally home by 3PM. On recycling day, I took out the trash bins the night before (as I do 7 times out of 10). This particular recycling day was a nasty, wet, windy day and when I arrived home from work, I saw the traffic backed up in front of my house and people swerving to avoid the three recycling bins that had blown into the street. They had probably been like this for some time, too (thanks to everyone who couldn't stop for one minute and move the cans out of the road and into my driveway, but I don't really expect them to anyway so no big deal). So as I try pull into my driveway, one of the cans has conveniently placed itself right in the middle making it next to impossible to get into the driveway without going off on the grass (and it had rained hard that day so the ground was too wet to drive on), but low and behold, I see that my roommates girlfriend has driven on the grass, made some nice ruts, and is likely in the house lying on her bed searching the web (and I was 100% correct). I don't expect her to bring the trash cans back inside, but she couldn't grab these from out of the street and bring them in closer to the house where they wouldn't be causing a traffic jam? REALLY? 2) Again, my roommates girlfriend. She decided to order a daily delivered newspaper for whatever reason. She has NEVER ONCE read this paper. In fact, I don't think she has ever once picked it up from the end of our driveway. I know this because when five or six of them get scattered at the end of the driveway, I eventually get fed up and get them myself and throw them in the trash. I've commented several times that she needs to cancel the subscription or pick up the papers and throw them away and every time she agrees. But the papers keep on coming and I'm still throwing them away. REALLY? I could go on with other little pet peeves that I have with her (leaving lights on, leaving laundry in the dryer for days, even weeks!), but I'll wait for some better ones that I'm sure will happen in the near future. I'm not sure if this is just a lack of common courtesy, laziness, or stupidity. Frankly, I think it's all three. /end rant

Well, I inquired with Brown Dog about some of their SuperMounts for a WJ. They told me that the WJ is bass ackwards in the sense that the rubber engine mount is ON the engine and the bracket bolts to the frame. I really have no idea since I don't have a 4.0L WJ in my possession or know anyone that does. I might have to cruise down a local dealership and check it out for myself. Does anyone on here have a WJ with a 4.0L they could snap a picture of for me? :wavey:

No, not at all. Or at least I don't think so. I'll definitely look into that - thanks for the idea! I know that I certainly wouldn't trust my small buzzbox welder to handle it, but there is a good welder down the street from my office that could do it. It'd be getting the block plenty hot, though...I need to think about what that may do to it or anything behind the bosses...

Here is a picture of what I'm working with. The yellow circles are two mounting bosses that are completely screwed. The red circle is a mounting boss that is messed up, but still looks very usable as there is plenty of threads left on it. My issue at this point is that I have no clue where the '99+ WJ engine mount brackets even mount to. I've found very little information on this subject matter.

I stopped and took a quick look at it on my way home from work today. I didn't get any more than a couple of minutes to poke around as some other people in the neighborhood were out and about and I didn't want them thinking I was up to no good! I checked the interior and the rear frame rails mostly. The rear frame looks to be real solid - no rot of any kind that I can see. The interior is all there, too, and it looks to be in pretty good shape. There is an aftermarket radio and some real cheapo speakers in the back that looked like they used to be hooked up to an amp that sat under the rear seat. Amp is long gone, but radio and el cheapo speakers remain. Also found some rust on the drivers door and a couple more flat tires. Knocked on the door of the house - no one was home so I decided to leave before someone called the cops on me!

I feel confident that I could make these and I'd really only need to do it for one side (the side with the two broken mounting points). I'm just wondering how close the TJ (or XJ or YJ) brackets are to the WJ that I could just get one of those and modify it some.

Has anyone ever seen the "bomb proof" motor mounts that M.O.R.E or Brown Dog sells for a WJ Grand Cherokee? http://www.mountainoffroad.com/_e/dept/05/Motor_Mounts_Bomb_Proof_.htm http://browndogindustries.com/S2883-lsuperbracketleft.aspx I have an interesting situation on my hands. I have an '00 TJ 4.0L engine that ran good, but two of the three motor mount embosses broke off on the drivers side due to a HARD hit. I was looking at these "bomb proof" brackets and they use four more mounting points, which may render this engine useful again. Got a lead on a '99 WJ with a blown 4.0L motor for real cheap that I may be able to swap this engine into if I can find motor mount brackets for a WJ. Any advice? I know this is an unusual request...

It's easy to see both sides of this argument. When it's closing time, you want to do just that, close. Go home. Take care of your other "job" as a husband, father, homeowner, etc. Makes perfect sense to me. However, I will be one of those guys that shows up 10 minutes before closing asking if you can do this and that. Why would I do this if I know the people I'm asking to do these things want to go home? Because I have no other time to do it. So many places in my area simply do not cater to the regular 9-5 working Joe like myself. Their operating hours directly conflict with mine and it makes it incredibly inconvenient. My paid time off from work is precious to me and when I take a day off, it's to RELAX, not to run all of the errands I missed because Bob's multi-service shop is only open limited hours on weekdays. I'm not saying your shop is at all like what I've described above, nor do I care, as I'm making a very general blanket statement and trying to give you some insight as to why a fellow might come in 10 minutes before you close. Granted, I'm not an @$$ about it either. If I know I'm cutting it close on closing time to the shop I'm going to, my first question out of my mouth will be, Do you have time to do blah blah blah today? If the answer is no or if I get a yes with a hint of 'I really just want to go home, buddy', I'll ask them when would be a better time. I run into this problem a lot with a local NAPA dealer. He's only about 10 minutes from where I work and on my way home, but he closes right at 5PM on weekdays. We've gotten to the point where he'll stay open until about 5:30PM if he knows I've got a part to pick up. It's not really a big deal for him, though, as his house is right next door.