terrawombat

Hmm. I've never come across one THAT stubborn.

Sounds to me like you don't have the quick disconnect removal tools: http://www.harborfreight.com/4-piece-fu ... 96834.html

I'm still debating it. It's about 10 hours for me so that's quite a bit of travel for my MJ. My dog would have to come with me, too.

Thanks all for the information. Just so that I'm clear - the carrier bearings that I should be inspecting - these are the ones on the sides of the differential? I only have the FSM to go by for removal procedures and they refer to those as differential side bearings. In order to get to those, I would need to remove the adjusters and bearing caps, which would lead me to believe that I would need to setup my diff when it went back together. Certainly don't have the experience and the tools to do that...but I DO have a spare, good 8.25 axle if I REALLY screw up...I'm just trying to avoid swapping in a whole new axle to this Jeep.

Although they look original, they passed all of my standard u-joint excessive wear tests. They are still extremely tight.

I'm chasing a driveline clunk in my '01XJ that serves as my all-purpose daily driver. Ever since I've owned the thing it has had a noticeable driveline "clunk." Anytime you're cruising and you tap the accelerator, it will "clunk". When you slow down and come to a complete stop, you'll hear and feel a "clunk." Changing from reverse to drive (and vice versa) nets you a nice "clunk." The "clunk" has become more pronounced as of late so I decided to finally chase it down. It's been 30K miles since I last replaced the rear diff. fluid so I decided to pop the cover off today and do a full inspection of the gears. No missing teeth, but I did observe a lot of slop between the side and spider gears. I could rock the side gears on the center pin side to side and there seemed to be an excessive amount of backlash between the side and spider gears, but honestly, I don't know too much about differentials to know what is acceptable and what is excessive. I snapped some photographs of the gears in hopes that some of the more experienced people on here can school me and tell me what they see. With the spider and side gears out, the ring and pinion backlash seems to be very, very small - although I do not have a dial indicator to tell me the exact number. I'm hoping I can get away with replacing the spider and side gears and have a much tighter and non-clunking rear end.

It's part of the Prestone cooling system flush kit that I got at Walmart for $3. It's just a plastic tee with a cap on it. I had no idea what the condition of the cooling system was when I first got this truck, so I had that's been installed since before this swap. You don't need it, I just didn't want to get rid of it.

This is basically the reason I don't sell anything. Motorcycle is a good example, though...haven't ridden the thing yet this riding season, but I won't get rid of it...no point unless I get real hard up for cash. I already overpaid for it and it's never going to increase in value...it's paid off so I might as well keep it around if I have the space. As for the iPad - a lot of the clients I work with all use them. I've tinkered from time to time and they're useful, but I have a Samsung netbook which can do more and has better battery life and isn't much smaller than the iPad length and width-wise. I use a free program called TeamViewer to manage all of my computers - works with my iPhone, too.

NJ finally got really lenient on their inspections...so I'm not going to complain for fear that the inspection stations may go back to being run by Nazi's. :peek:

Keep an eye out in the Classified section on here or browse Craigslist for a bench seat. They usually don't sell for much since most prefer bucket seats.

Nothing wrong with a 2WD MJ. I daily drive a 2WD 92, although I would like to convert it to 4WD before this next winter.

Your "old man" topper looks like a factory longbed Leer cap. Also looks to be in pretty good shape...

I got the entire package for between $500 and $600. I don't recall what the exact number was, but I remember it was listed for $600 and I talked the seller down some, but I just don't remember what he finally agreed on. It came with the engine, transmission, complete engine wiring harness, and the PCM. It was claimed that the assembly had 116K miles on it, but I have no way to verify that. Someone once told me that the PCMs on the ZJ's store the mileage, but I found that not to be the case this weekend when I swapped the PCM for the one on my 5.9L ZJ. I've got a spare 5.9L engine/trans/tranfer case/PCM/wiring that I can make you a nice deal on...just gotta drive up to NJ ;)

Sorry - didn't mean to insinuate that YOU or ALL members of local FDs are hypocrites - just a couple of the ones in my area. Bottom line is that the Owner should have never let anyone else drive his vehicle, especially someone who has a history of being an alcoholic. I can't say I blame him, though, as I've let a couple of my friends borrow my XJ for a couple of days so they could get to and from work, although I would completely expect them to pay for my vehicle if they were to destroy it. I'm sure almost everyone can think of at least one person in their life that has been affected by a drunk driver. My father had to be airlifted off of the scene of an accident when he was hit by a woman trying to pass him while he was on a tractor driving from our one barn to the other. The tractor split in half and my father was found about 30 feet from the scene down the road. Didn't kill him because he's a tough son of a b*@$£, but all of the rescue workers said they have no idea how he survived. A friend of my cousin was killed a few years ago after he was hit on his motorcycle by a drunk driver. Even after the drunk driver hit him, he didn't realize what had happened and kept driving and literally ran the guy over, which is what ultimately killed him - not the initial impact.

See - that's the problem I have with this whole scenario. I play ice hockey with a bunch of guys from my local fire department. I get to hear a bunch of their stories where they messed with people because they were drunk. I have to laugh because the guys telling the stories are some of the biggest drinkers I know. They're constantly getting drunk at the local bars, getting into their cars and driving home. But when someone else does it, they think it's funny to mess with them? I can't stand hypocrites.

I agree - $1500 was way outta the ballpark. I offered him $700 and even I thought that was being generous. I planned on using the engine in my '92MJ, t-case and rear axle in my '01XJ, and sell the rest and I probably still wouldn't have broken even. I think I'll stick to buying XJs from the rich folks around here who dump them cheap because they got a ridiculous repair bill from the overpriced shops in our area and feel they aren't worth much.

It's lying in the back...completely intact with some very nice, straight cuts on the top and bottom. Drivers door was also in really good shape - only damage was to the hinges. Both passenger doors and hatch open, too. Getting to the drunk nephew wasn't an issue here.

Exactly my thinking. Even if the story was "toned" down from how it was told to me...say the guy was drunk, resisted being detained, locked himself in the truck, and attempted to drive away - busting out a window and unlocking the door is all that would need to be done. Hell, they DID bust out the rear quarter window. Truth of the matter is that the damage they did took a significant amount of time so it wasn't like the drunkard in the front seat was trying to evade the police.

I'm sure that the guy made the story a lot more tame than what it actually was. His "friend" as he stated in the ad turned out to be his nephew, who is an alcoholic, and is currently in a rehabilitation facility to fight the disease. Sounds like the kid had a rough life and his parents basically abandoned him so his Uncle was taking care of him. However, knowing the fire department that was called to the scene, I'm inclined to believe this guy's story that this was just outright abuse of authority. The town he lives in is VERY strict on drunk driving. They have to be because there aren't any other revenue-generating things in town. It's a wealthy, upscale town with minimal crime. You'll often see the cops create a road block where they slow you down from 50MPH to 10MPH through narrow cones so they can check to see if you're wearing your seat belt and if your inspection sticker is up to date. If not, they wave you to the side street where another officer issues you a ticket. Although I don't know the entire story, I'm willing to place a rather large wager that when the local FD caught wind there was a drunk driver passed out in his truck that had hit a guard rail, dozens of fire fighters went out there to witness the accident and looked for ANY reason to cut this car up. I'm sure the driver was pretty drunk and pretty belligerent and may have been uncooperative, but that is no reason to completely destroy the vehicle. I don't condone drunk driving one bit and this situation could have been a whole lot worse (i.e. he hit another car when he passed out and crossed the center line). But I also don't condone officers of the law or rescue workers going to unneccesary extremes just because they can.

I've had my topper on since the winter and I'm still not used to the blind spots. I installed 97+ XJ mirrors in hopes to gain some more surface area and help out with it, but it didn't do much. Got a set of those "blind spot" mirrors and they seems to work pretty well - might want to look into it. Loving the factory interior of that truck - with a little elbow grease you can get that looking pretty good! Even got a leather wrapper steering wheel...

Same reason people list things on CL for a $1...just a filler because they don't really have a set price in mind. I don't think he really knew what it was worth in the condition it was in. He told me some guy called after me and offered him $1500 and would take it away that day, sight unseen so maybe that's where he got the price from? He said he needed an extra $2100 to pay off the remaining balance on the new truck he got (4.7L Durango). I didn't go there expecting to pay $100 for an '01XJ, but it would have been a nice surprise! I got my '01XJ that I DD for $400 and it was running and driving and had 154K miles on the ticker. Needed a new engine, but everything else was cherry. Also got a mildly wrecked '99XJ with 146K on it for $500. Based on those two vehicles, I knew what I wanted to offer on this one...

I found this XJ up for sale on CL yesterday and it was about 20 minutes from my house so I decided to check it out. Plus, the seller listed it with no photos and a $100 price tag so I thought I'd take a look and maybe get lucky. The ad stated that his friend had borrowed the vehicle, got drunk, fell asleep at the wheel and coasted into a guard rail. Local rescue squad felt they needed to use the jaws of life to get to the passed out drunk man inside. It really was a shame. All of the doors were unlocked according to the seller and they could have just opened them up, unbuckled the occupant, and removed him from the vehicle, but instead, they thought they would teach him a lesson about drunk driving and completely destroy his vehicle. Little did they know, the Jeep wasn't even his... Prior to the rescue squad completely destroying this XJ, it only needed a front left fender, header panel, and bumper. They also used a crowbar to pry open the hood to cut the positive terminal going to the battery to shut the car off, also ruining the passenger fender and hood. This was a case of blatent misuse of authority and power. The owner of the vehicle hired a lawyer to file a suit, but the local PD and FD wouldn't give up a single name and nothing ever really came about since the owner couldn't afford to pay the lawyer to see the case through. The owner was trying to sell it because he needs to buy another vehicle to replace this one, which ultimately meant he wanted more than it was probably worth. He wanted $1500 - I offered about half (which I still thought may be too much), but the best we could do was $1000. Way too much money for a Jeep that will never see the road again and would leave me to part it out. I was mainly only interested in the axles and maybe the motor - around 90K miles on it. Interior was damn near perfect, too...

Nah, not a factory topper. I'm pretty certain the Jeep Factory-Approved topper was made by Leer. It was fiberglass and had a cutout for the cargo light. I've got one on my '92MJ SWB if you want to see some pictures.

Initially, I hit the hood latch mechanism with Kroil to really free it up. Now I use the spray-on white lithium grease during oil changes to keep it lubed up.

These looks worlds better than the HVAC ductwork...err I mean Lebaron...hood vents. I say go for it.