terrawombat

I really like the way it looks on that truck - kind of goes with the theme of the truck, if ya know what I mean. However, while it may be practical (sometimes the rain doesn't cooperate), I think it would just look silly on most trucks.

When I bought my '89 Wrangler in 2002, the previous owner informed me of the wave, 'don't be surprised if other guys/gals in Wranglers wave to you. It's normal - wave back.' Apparently it dates back to the army days when the Jeeps would pass each other, they'd wave? Just something I heard down the line at one time. There is supposed to be a universal motorcycle wave (normally two fingers pointed downward at the road when you pass another motorcyclist), but a lot of Harley owners won't wave to you if you don't own a Harley. Same goes with BMW owners, too.

I got mine from RockAuto for about $25/set.

0331...lolz Yep, I've got an original with 157K miles on it and no cracking yet. They have a bad reputation in the Jeep community, but it looks like there was a bad run of these heads as there are a lot of 0331 heads still on the road with more miles than me...

Cool thread - I'm going to be transplanting an engine from a 2001 Cherokee into my 1988 MJ in the very near future. Yes, I'm aware of the cylinder head cracking issues on those engines, but I'm going to take my chances. I like to live dangerously.

I'm replacing the head gasket on my '01 XJ and I opted to get new head bolts, however, the field service manual does not say it is necessary unless the bolts have already been used once before. If they have been removed before, the mechanic should have painted the tops of the head bolts white to indicate they were reused - but that doesn't mean he/she DID.

I said I'd get some pictures up and I'm going to follow through on that promise! While they're uploading, I'll go into what I've done over the past couple weeks - it hasn't been much due to a few holdups in getting the replacement engine and other various parts I need to install it. I bought a used engine from a salvage yard for $500, which I thought was a little steep, and upon further investigation of the truck it came out of, I paid WAYYYYY too much. Anyway, I'm hoping for the best at this point and I do have a 30 day warranty on the engine (which will run out by the time I get the engine running). It seems to have decent compression and I'd like to do a leakdown test on it, but I don't have the right adapter for the sparkplug holes. Anyway, in 2000 and 2001, Jeep "updated" the cylinder heads on the 4.0L engine for emissions reasons (I believe), but that particular head came with a whole mess of problems. It seems there was a production run of these heads that was faulty and causes the head to crack between the exhaust ports on the No. 3 and 4 cylinders. I didn't see any cracks in the head that came out of my '01 XJ, but I didn't want to risk it and put in a '00 or '01 engine and have to replace the cylinder head a couple months down the road. Instead, I looked for older engines in the '96 to '99 range. The only major problem is that the exhaust manifolds are completely different. My '01 manifold has FOUR O2 sensors and is a two piece mani instead of the single piece that we're all familiar with on the MJ 4.0L's. Luckily, there was a guy on NAXJA making adapter plates to bolt the newer style exhaust manifold to the older style heads, so I picked one of those up (it's in one of the pics too). Looks like the pics are done uploading, so I'll stop blabbering since no one wants to read words, they want to see pictures!

yeah, i'm not saying its a bad piece because they make some good power, and don't seem to be as prone to leaks as the FWD 3500s and stuff are but it's not much fun. BY no means am I saying it's a shoddy engine, either. I've got a '98 Blazer that I've been daily driving for the last 10K miles and I've been extremely pleased with the performance of the engine. Has plenty of power and can still pull off 23-24 MPG on the highway if you drive it right. I was contemplating getting a 4.3L V6 for one of my MJ projects, but I wasn't ready to tackle such a project.

The 4.3L Vortec V6 is no picnic to work on - even for the simplest of things like spark plugs. I'm not sure if the engine bay of an MJ/XJ would help or hurt its ease of access.

I've always noticed that my engines tend to take a little bit of time to build up oil pressure immediately after startup when I use Fram filters. I would attribute this to their leaky anti drainback valves, which causes my oil pump to need to fill the oil filter with oil before it can build up pressure. I've switched to WIX/NAPA filters and the oil pressure comes on almost instantaneously after startup.

I'll see if I can get some up today or tomorrow. I have them on my shop computer, just need to upload them to photobucket, but that's sometimes easier said than done considering my shop is about 3/4 of a mile away from my wireless router in my house so the connection can often be, well, not so good, especially if it's raining. I was just looking at that yesterday. I've got a lot of respect for you taking that MJ and making it into what it has already become. It takes a lot of motivation to restore a truck, especially ones in that condition!

I've got two intakes - one from a '00 Cherokee and another from an '01 Cherokee and both are made of aluminum.

Sorry that I haven't updated this in a while, but I stumbled upon another project at a price I couldn't pass up. A guy was selling an '01 Cherokee Sport 4x4 for $400 in my area so I went to look at it and quickly snatched it up. Has 157k miles and a spun bearing on the engine, but it still ran decent (other than the knock) and the trans shifted great through all gears. The body is in good condition with maybe 3-4 easily repairable dings and a dent by the gas filler lid. The interior is in real good shape other than the thick smell of cigarette smoke, but I've been airing it out for a couple weeks now. Got the engine and transmission pulled and am going to clean the engine bay up, reseal the transmission, and drop in a good, low mileage 4.0L engine from a salvage yard. The engine that came out of this XJ will be rebuilt in the near future and be transplanted into my project MJ! I can get some pictures up of the XJ when I get home if anyone is interested.

I disagree. Though it might not solve the OP's problem I think anything being wrong with any ground wire on these trucks affect it. Changing one ground on mine made a huge difference. I think anything being wrong with the terminals and connections of the ground wire will affect it, but a little bit of missing wire insulation isn't going to change how a wire functions unless that bare wire is touching others around it. Current is going to flow through that wire regardless of the sheathing (or lack thereof) that is on it.

My ground wire on one of my MJs is the same way - haven't gotten around to replacing it yet, but the truck runs fine. I doubt a little bit of missing wire insulation is going to cause any noticeable issues.

The physical changing of hte motors is not hard, but making all the later model electronics work is going to be a pretty tough job...at least to someone like me that knows VERY little about electronics. Going to an HO set-up from Renix is a nightmare that I would not want to get in to. I would much rather just pull the head and repair the problem. Not a terribly difficult job, and definitely much easier than a complete swap. Why not just take the entire wiring harness and associated electronics/sensors from the '96 ZJ?

To answer one of your original questions - Like someone said earlier, that square connector is for the transmission controller/computer if you had an auto in the truck. I also have that connector on my '88 4.0L 5-speed and it's just dangling next to the throttle body.

I just did a RMS on my '88 because I had a constant drip coming from the bottom of the transmission. A couple things I've learned from doing that job - Get the Fel-Pro double lipped seal as it supposedly works much better than the original seal that Jeep used. While your RMS is most likely junk, you may find (like I did) that the oil filter adapter o-rings are shot and you're leaking oil from there too. I know it might sound crazy that something so far away would wind up dripping oil from your transmission, but I was skeptical until I saw it for myself. The oil finds a path from the oil filter adapter to the starter to the transmission and onto the ground. If you wind up doing it yourself - here are a few tips for the RMS. Loosen all of the main bolts, but do not remove them. Just let the caps hang down a little bit...this will make it very easy for the upper portion of the RMS to slide out. Use the one-piece Fel-Pro oil pan gasket - it's rubber and is a nice design. Don't over torque the oil pan bolts - they only need a few foot pounds. While you're wrenching, might as well replace the oil filter adapter o-rings for good measure (search part number 82560 on NAPA or Advance Auto...it's a kit that comes with more than you need, but it's supposed to have all of the necessary o-rings for our trucks). If you're replacing the valve cover gasket also get the blue Fel-Pro rubber gasket...it'll be the last time you'll need to replace that (be warned, it's expensive!). That's all I can think of for now. I will say that the RMS was a PITA mainly because of the old oil constantly dripping on my head.

It's been a couple weeks since the rear main seal replacement and while the leak hasn't gone away, it's substantially better. However, it has become very obvious (with a clean oil pan) that the o-ring on the oil filter adapter is also bad and is leaking oil down the block, onto the starter, and onto the transmission cover plate, which eventually drips to the ground. I'm going to pick up the o-ring today and hopefully swap it in sometime this week to see if it finally cures my oil leak problem.

Struck out on these - part discontinued. But I did manage to locate a pair for the 84-96 XJs (55134856) from a dealer in IA, $2 more. So these will work for sure and are on the way. I can't remember off the top of my head, but these seals are not side specific, correct? Also interested to see if that part number will work as I need to replace my seals, too.

I replaced the timing chain and reinstalled the oil pan. Got it all back together this afternoon and....NO MORE OIL LEAK! (Knocks on wood). I've driven it around my fields and put several miles on the truck and so far, so good. I really hope the rear main seal repair goes well - I've seen so many people that said they have replaced the thing 3-4 times before it finally worked. I DO NOT want to drop the oil pan again. I probably also spent more time cleaning off years of oil/dirt/sludge/grass/dead birds off the engine.

The 2JZ-GTE engine does make 320hp (at least the version for the US market, others are "only" 280)> But it's not a 4 banger. It's a twin turbo 3.0 liter inline 6. I'm pretty sure that's at the crank. Put that in an older rwd Corolla, add a wide body kit and you got yourself a nice drift car. 320hp is just scratching the surface of what that engine can produce in its stock form. Many supra owners were pushing 550+RWHP on those engines with a completely stock bottom end (but bigger turbos, of course!). It'd be very interesting to see a 2JZ engine in an MJ! HA!

Replaced the rear main seal and I have a timing chain set coming to me tomorrow. While the oil pan was off, I decided to give a fresh coat of paint. I used Rustoleum BBQ paint - supposed to be tough and good for high temps...guess we'll find out.

I saw the thread on your method and it looks robust, but I'd like to weld in new backing plates on the body side rather than using bolts. I'm a stickler for details and even though you won't see the bolts because they'll be hidden behind the door, knowing they're there will bother me ;)

Both of my MJs have the EGR installed on the exhaust manifold, but the vacuum line on the diaphram before the EGR has been removed and capped. I was having a ton of problems with the trucks stalling as soon as you stepped on the gas and it turned out to be the EGR valve not functioning properly. They are expensive to purchase and they have been found to have little effect on the emissions of most engines. I've completely removed my EGR from my 3000GT and pass emissions with flying colors. It's intended purpose is to reduce nitrides of oxygen (NOx) emissions, so you'll likely see an increase in those, but not enough to fail you. Basically, the EPA and DEP catch wind of such devices that will theoretically lower emissions and they get an instant hard-on and amend laws/permits to include the installation of said devices. It usually takes several years (sometimes decades) to convince them that these devices don't do what they were intended and are more of a hassle than they're worth. I see it all the time in the field I currently work in... Oh, and to answer your initial question in the thread title, EGR stands for Exhaust Gas Recirculation. The valve will take exhaust gases and put them into the intake to dilute the stream with an inert gas, which will lower the flame temperature required for combustion and also reduce the amount of excess oxygen. Nitrides of oxygen form quicker at high temperatures, so lowering the temperature required for combustion is said to reduce their creation.