socal1200r

I saw someone in here mounted a set of Dodge Dakota bucket seats in their MJ. Would a bench seat from a Dakota work? I would imagine a more modern bench seat just might have a flip down armest?

Check out this thread on locking the CAD: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18415 It's what I followed when I did mine, great writeup, easy to follow, no parts needed (except top off the front diff and plugs for the CAD cover)...

Yup, I'd definitely make sure the basic package is sound, before doing any "optional" things like a lift kit, bumpers, etc. Rust is a BIG issue, rotten floor pans, leaking clutch master cylinder, leaky valve cover/blowby into the airbox, etc. I'd also recommend disabling the vacuum operated 4wd gizmo on the front axle, and locking the CAD. That way, the lever in the cab will work more effectively in getting it into and out of 4wd. It's fairly easy to do, don't need any parts, and if I could do it in less than 30 minutes, just about anyone should be able to do it, lol!

Man, wish I would've thought about removing the seat back, lol! I had to take my bench seat out a couple of times, by myself, and that thing was a biatch. Not only is it heavy, it's bulky, and the steering wheel and driveshaft hump get in the way. It can be done, but it's not a pretty sight, lol! I've got XJ buckets and full console in there now, so I don't have to deal with the bench seat anymore. But that's a great idea to remove the seat back. I'd also recommend just removing the seat belt bolts at the bottom, and leaving them on the seat, provided you have the right size torx socket. And if you can't remove the seat back, try and get someone to help you take the bench out, it'll go MUCH easier...

I've got Jeep alloys on my MJ (though not the same as yours), running 31x10.50 Firestone Destination AT's, stock ride height. There is no fender rubbing at all, and they fit nice and snug. As has already been mentioned, you'll most likely rub the stock lower controls arms at full lock. There are two obvious solutions for this. One, don't turn the steering wheel to full lock. Two, replace the lower control arms with Grand Cherokee (WJ) lower control arms. They have a slight "S" bend to them, and will clear 31's at full lock, as this picture shows: I got my WJ LCAs off eBay, for $75/pair plus S&H. Cost $100 to get them installed, but at least now there's no chance of them rubbing at all. If you have the funds, I'd recommend installing them, because they're fully boxed, and stronger than stock MJ LCAs. Consider it a long-term investment in your truck, provided you don't install a big lift kit that will require new LCAs anyway, along with a bunch of other new parts...

Got the trailer hubs back today with the longer wheel studs pressed in (cost me $65), and got the Jeep steel wheels ($20 for the pair at pick and pull) back on with 195/60-15 tires ($60 for the tires and mounting/balancing). Ended up using three wheel spacers per side ($60 for spacers), plus 1 washer per lug on the right side, in order to clear the back angle iron brace for the fender. I dropped off the hubs on Fri, and over the weekend I took a wire brush to most of the angle iron and center channel on the trailer, and put down some bedliner protectant. During this process, I noticed the welds for the two vertical braces were broken, so those will have to be replaced. I'm also going to see what it would cost to weld a 36" long piece of angle iron on the front, with u-bolts on the ends, for tie-down points for the handlebars. Technical wheel question for the group. Is the backspacing on the Jeep steel wheels I have on there now the same as the Jeep alloys in my sig pic? If so, I might go back to the pick and pull and see if I can score a pair of alloys, so all the wheels will match. If the backspacing on the alloys is deeper than the steelies, that ain't gonna work, so I'll have to leave the steelies on there for now. If the steelies stay, I'll have to clean them up, and maybe paint them silver, or use more of that bedliner stuff on them...

I removed the valve cover breather hose from the airbox, capped the airbox with a rubber cap, flipped it over towards the battery, and put a breather filter on the end. That should solve any issues of oil from the valve cover dripping onto the air filter: Can anyone post pics of this newer valve cover? If it doesn't have the forward breather that dumps into the airbox, that should definitely solve that problem. Those of us with the older style valve cover, will have to remove the breather hose from the airbox to avoid that problem.

As long as the years are compatible, all you have to do is unplug the wires from the stock gauge cluster, plug them into the new full gauge cluster (should be in the same exact places), and the tach will work fine. Doesn't matter if the donor vehicle has a different engine from yours. As I said earlier, I have an '88 MJ 4-cyl, got a full cluster from an '87 XJ 6-cyl, plugged in the wires, and the tach, speedo, fuel, and volt gauges worked fine. You have to replace the senders for the water temp and oil pressure with senders for gauges (stock senders are for idiot lights). Once you replace those senders, all the gauges will work like they're supposed to. Easy...

Now those are some air horns, lol! Plus, high up in the engine compartment like that, should keep them out of harm's way, and make for a good echo chamber! Just played the video, and the sound of the compressor spinning up drowns out the horns, but I've heard them before. Looks like you have some bedliner stuff along those upper fenders?

I have an '88 MJ with the 2.5, and swapped in the full gauge cluster from an '87 XJ with a 4.0. Check out this thread, starting on page 2, for my comments on how my gauge swap went. There's a LOT of good info in that thread, including a link to a VERY detailed gauge swap from NAXJA (North American XJ Association). viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20433&start=15 Very glad I did it, nice to see real gauges instead of idiot lights. You might want to think about replacing some of the gauge bulbs with LEDs, since you'll have it readily accessible. But make sure all the bulbs work before you button things up! Good luck

Went to the local pick and pull today, found a couple of alloys with tires on them, but decided to go with Plan B. I don't want to spend any more money than I have to in order to get this trailer home, so I found a pair of Jeep steel wheels, with the black plastic Jeep center cap, and lug nuts, and called it a day. The tires that were on the wheels wouldn't pass inspection, so I didn't get charged for them. The wheels and lugs ended up costing me about $20. I'm going to look for a set of tires, probably 195/70s, and get them mounted/balanced on the wheels. After I get the trailer home, I'll try and clean up the wheels a bit, and if I don't like how they look, I'll probably just paint them black and call it a day. Got a new 4-pin connector and 5 1/4" drop hitch with 1 7/8" ball, so after I get new tires mounted, I should be good to go...

That's what window screen mesh is good for...put a little piece on the backside of the inlet adapter, slip the hose over it, should serve as a good "pre-filter" for anything making it's way up the hose...

Looking for a pair of 15x7 Jeep alloys, like in my sig pic, to put on a single rail motorcycle trailer I'm thinking of buying. The trailer has 15" wheels on it (5x4.5), with 205/75 tires, so these Jeep wheels should fit. Would like the trailer wheels to match the ones on my MJ. Prefer to pick up in the Hampton Roads area of VA (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, Chesapeake). Free is best (lol!), but willing to buy if wheels are in good condition ($20 per wheel?). Email me directly at: socal1200r@yahoo.com, or call my cell (805-377-7600). Thanks

If it's the same one that goes around the e-brake handle in an XJ console, and secures under the console lid, be careful of what you put in there. I wouldn't put anything taller than a regular soda can, because anything taller than that and it will tip over. Plus, it's in an awkward place with a manual trans, your arm could easily knock it over.

Good discussion, both pros and cons... I just went out and measured the distance above the ground of those inlet hoses. On my Sky, it's roughly 12" above ground, and on the MJ it's about 19" above ground. As I said, I don't drive the Sky in the rain, so I'm not too worried about sucking up any significant amount of water thru that hose. On the MJ, the hose inlet sits pretty high above ground, so it shouldn't be ingesting a lot of water directly either. However, the points are well taken about vehicles in front shooting up water, and the hose being located in an area where secondary water spray could make it inside. I'm still okay with it though, because the corrugated hose has all those ridges on the inside, so the surface isn't smooth, and I still think it would take a LOT of effort for any significant amount of outside water to make it all the way up the hose, into the airbox, past the two layers of foam filter, and into the intake system. I'm sure someone could take a garden hose with a spray nozzle, turn it on, spray water into the hose inlet, which would simulate the vehicle moving, and water would get up into the airbox and eventually soak the filter. This sounds like something those guys on "Myth Busters" should experiment with, lol! I'm from the west coast, so maybe it's a southern California thing, since it doesn't rain a whole lot back there, and I've never really worried about water ingestion into the intake system. I put the hose opening under the bumper because it looked like the easiest and most direct way to connect to the bottom of the airbox. Maybe if I drilled the hole into the side of the airbox, I could've positioned the hose inlet in the grill area somewhere. I still think it's good to go as is, and I'm not tempting the fates to grenade my engine any time soon. Only time will tell...

Lol...I don't drive my Sky in the rain, or if there's standing water on the roads, so I'm not too worried about the upside down snorkel effect. But again, for water to travel from the lower bumper, up the hose, past the foam filter, and into the intake system, would take some doing, so I'm not too worried. From what I remember, even though the engine wasn't throwing codes, it seemed to run better with the "open" intake system versus the "closed" one. Since I had more money invested in the "open" system, I just went back to that one, and it's been running fine since.

Yeah, I bought that hole saw when I drilled out a section of the lower grills on my Saturn Sky, and ran some 3" flex ducting up to the dual Unis I had on the Fujita intake system. Also notice I drilled out all the little honeycombs on the grills, to let more air inside the engine compartment: I even took this setup one step farther, and ran a fully enclosed system, using smaller Uni foam filters that I squeezed into the ends of the intake tubes, then ran the flex ducting up to the tubes and clamped them over the ends: For now, I'm back to the "open" system on my Sky, like in the first picture...

The seller confirmed that the wheels are 5x4.5, so that's a good thing. I found a set of Jeep alloys on Craig's List for $80 that match my Comanche, but I'm starting to wonder if those alloys would be too wide to use on this trailer? The seller said the overall diameter of the one good wheel/tire combo is 26.5" wide, and they barely clear the trailer fenders. So if I went with the Jeep alloys, I'd have to use tires like 225/60, 195/70, or 185/75, to stay under that 26.5" OD. In looking at the trailer pic, I'm not so sure a 15x7 Jeep alloy will stay tucked inside the fender? I think I'm going to the local pick and pull tomorrow, and see what they have in 5x4.5 wheels, maybe in 15x6, hopefully with tires that keep the OD to 26" or smaller. Getting a new set of wheels/tires and the right size hitch ball is all that's preventing me from taking this trailer home. I can wire up a new connector, and check the lighting at the house, so there's hope yet...

Well, it's difficult to say if the hose alone had any performance increase, since I did it right after installing the Uni dual stage foam filter. The Uni by itself made some performance improvements, so it's hard to tell how much more, if any, the hose did. But at least the airbox has an unobstructed source of cold outside air, which is a good thing. If you have the time, I'd suggest the following. Do this hose mod first, leaving the air filter/airbox alone, and see if you notice any changes. Then swap out the filter, to either a Uni like I did, or to a pleated gauze filter like a K&N. You should definitely notice something then. But like someone mentioned in another thread, most of these "cold" air intakes are drawing in heated air from the engine compartment, which is worse than the stock airbox, which is sealed from the heat of the engine compartment. Doing these two mods with the stock airbox will give you a more free-flowing air filter, plus a direct source of cold outside air. At around $50 for these two mods, it most likely is less expensive than a cold air intake kit, and should be more effective.

Yah, that's the part that always eludes me....It usually just pisses me off... Yup, I wouldn't say that I've enjoyed working on my MJ, at least not all the time...dealing with the non-op dome lights, water leaks, annoying dash rattle, passenger window that won't roll up, etc. is FAR from enjoyment...installing the bucket seats/full console, Uni foam filter/ram air hose, and even the compact air horn were okay...

Paul (mfpdm) - thanks for the feedback. Yeah, a small trailer like that without any kind of suspension will mean the tires on the trailer, and the tires and suspension on the bike, will do all the work. Here's a pic of the trailer I'm thinking of buying: It's in fairly good shape. The punch list that I came up with are the two mismatched wheels/tires, missing trailer wiring connector, missing side lens on the left light assembly, and I'll have to get a receiver kit with a 1 7/8" ball and a drop that's more than what I already have. So if the wheel bolt pattern is fairly common, I'm going to price out a pair of either 14" or 15" wheels/tires that are no bigger than 26" in overall diameter. At least that way I could get it back to the house, and deal with the wiring and other things there. From what I can gather, it doesn't have to be inspected, because of it's GVWR and it doesn't have brakes. Registration could be an issue, since there apparently isn't any paperwork on this trailer. But for now, the long pole in the tent is figuring out the bolt pattern, so I can price out a pair of wheels/tires...

Okay, hate to ask an obvious question. Let's say the bolt pattern is 5x4 1/2. Could I run "normal" car wheels/tires on this trailer? Is there something inherently wrong with running car wheels/tires on a trailer? This trailer is fairly light, designed to carry one motorcycle, and doesn't have any suspension or brakes. So I'm thinking I should try and run the biggest wheel/tire that will fit, in order to cushion the ride some and make it better on the road. I realize the backspacing needs to be taken into account, but that should be an easy work around. For example, I know most small utility trailers come with 12" wheels. But this trailer has a 15" wheel with a 205/75 tire on one side, and it fills the wheel well very nicely. Since there's no suspension, the tire shouldn't rub against the fender at all. So once I figure out the bolt pattern, I'm going to look for a wheel/tire combo that will come close to this 205/75-15 overall diameter, either thru Craig's List or the local pick and pull. Am I on the right track, or am I heading for disappointment and frustration by looking for a pair of car wheels/tires for this trailer?

Here's one...get 2" front coil spring spacers off eBay for $40, and Chevy greaseable shackles off eBay for $50, should lift the front and back 2"...but if you're looking for anything higher than that, like Pete said, need LOTS more info as to what you intend to do with your MJ...

Thanks for that weblink! I emailed it to the seller, and asked him to measure the bolt pattern according to the diagram. I'm hoping it's a common pattern, it'll make it easier to find a pair of wheels/tires. Even if I have to buy a pair of matching wheels/tires, new wire connector, and 1 7/8 ball/hitch, I still think it'll be a good deal.

I'm thinking of buying a single-rail motorcycle trailer, but need some help with figuring out the bolt pattern on the trailer wheels. I checked out a m/c trailer I saw on the local Craig's List, and it has two mis-matched wheels. One side has a 15" wheel with a 205/75 tire, and the other side has a 16" donut spare wheel. It doesn't have any suspension or brakes, and the 15" 205/75 setup fills the wheel well nicely. This setup measured roughly 25 1/2" across, so something that size or slightly smaller would work. We measured the distance between two adjacent wheel bolts, center to center, and came up with 2 9/16". He took his tape measure to a Cherokee parked out front, and he said the distance was the same. So does that mean I'm looking for a 15x4.5 or 14x4.5, 5-lug wheel?