Garvin

With all that essentially done (didn't want to start the engine since I had jack stands under the stock LCA mount and the front was overhanging, knowing my luck I would get a nice kick and the Jeep would fall over), it was time to start on the front axle. Cut off all the factory brackets and started mocking up the front brackets. I have yet to see anyone use this style axle and get the coils straight. With me being stubborn and determined, I set out to try to do that. Measured like 20 times, cut a few times, and clearanced some areas and finally got the coils where they were going. I chopped the leaf spring perch off (part of the pumpkin) to get the bracket in where I wanted it. I don't like to cast to weld and prefer not to. Can see how the coil mount had to be clearanced some to get it on. Just cause I like pictures. :D The cardboard is a mock up of where the truss will be going. Cleaned and painted. Took forever to get 22 years of dirt and grime off of this axle... Start of the truss. Picked up a set of hubs, rotors, and factory lockout hubs for $100 and they threw in an extra factory lockout hub. Got them all painted and installed. Cleaned the rotors and installed new pads and calipers.

Got my set of front coil/shock/LCA brackets in the mail from Ballistic Fabrication. Spent a long time trying to figure out how the rear shocks were going to get mounted and just decided to make my own mounts. And just cause. I was planning on going Humvee 16.5's with 37" military MTR's but got a smoking deal on a set of 16.5" aluminum rims with a set of four 15/38.5R16.5 Ground Hawgs. Got a set of 33's on the rims for free and sold them. Basically have $100 into these tires and rims, then about another $100 in beads and mounting. Took the engine apart to fix my blow by issue, chose to change the piston rings to solve this issue. While I was in there, decided to check out the main rod bearings. :wall: :wall: :wall: Had some grooves in the crankshaft also so just decided to get a new crank and bearings. Since I was doing everything with the engine still in, decided to make more room. :wrench: Poor mans engine bar. Everything going back together. :D Remove the IronMan4x4 shackle and put the stock one back in to lower the rear. Can't really see it too well in the picture though. Cleaned and wrapped the exhaust with the heat wrap, took a lot longer than I thought it would take to clean that oil off... Looks like an engine again!

Thanks, makes life easy when I'm just going through another build thread for a local Jeep club I'm kinda in. :) If you want any other pictures, I can post up some more or explain parts in more detail. Lets see if I can catch this up to where I am now with the current parts. The Jeep will be back on the road by the end of this weekend, just stupid little stuff to go now. So back to the build! This is going to be atleast a few posts since there are a lot of pictures. Picked up a set of one ton axles (Ford Dana 60HP and Sterling 10.25) for cheap with the intentions on putting them under my '92 at a later point. They've been sitting for nearly a year at my place and finally found a use for them. Cleaned up my canopy (doesn't look like it in the pictures but you should have seen it before!) and rolled them in to start going over them. Opened them up and the fluid was CLEAN. :banana: Ripped the rear apart and found the brakes to be in great condition so I decided to roll with them (later to find out the only issue was one wheel cylinder, I'll get to that later). Cut off all the brackets and cleaned up the rear axle and painted her, all so perty now. :D Little comparison on the sizes. The small one is a Chrysler 8.25 and the large one is the 10.25, both are completely stock with stock tires. The Sterling all mocked up. The shocks are just hanging from the factory upper mounts in the pictures, more on the shock mounts later. Made a set of leaf plates because I had extra steel laying around and was cheap. If I were to do it again, I would have just bought the plates...

You are true that it will take the tire size into account but this MJ is so modified that that measurement is really of no use to me anymore. The front axle is now a Dana 60HPas well as a few inches of front stretch and trimming that I'm not sure of where to measure to on the fender. I got measurements before I trimmed from the ground and am just trying to figure out where the Jeep sits. I do know that I will have to subtract the tire size from my measurements but that is simpler than trying to find all the metal that was cut off and trying to piece the front end together.

Thanks for the info, guess I'll be picking this one up off my buddy when he gets a new one. :cheers:

Thanks for the link. Just out of curiosity, is that a direct replacement windshield for your year?

That takes it to about the end of November, when the real fun starts. I'll post up the rest when I get more time.

I took her on a shake down run about a week or two later and got water in the oil without knowing it. :wall: Didn't find the water in the oil till after I got her home, 30 something miles later...Changed the oil that night and thought everything was fine. The next day she started spitting oil bad, like 1-1.5 qt's in 20 miles. I decided to open up the PCV valve and that solved most of the spitting oil issue but now she would burn the oil instead. No where near as much but this was still a problem! Decided I could live with that issue for a month or so till school ended for the quarter and I went on winter break. Had a few rubbing issues in the rear on hard corners on the road so decided to take care of that problem. Had a little fun in the mean time since I was itching to get out! Few days later, had the Jeep just die on me on the way home from school. Alternator took a crap on me...Had a nice argument with the guy at the parts store as he said it was fine on their machine but it sure as hell wasn't charging my Jeep! He warrantied it out since the bearing had some noise to it, put the new alternator on and with a jumper box, the Jeep started right up and drove home without an issue! That same day, my fuel and oil pressure gauges just dropped, like they got disconnected. That wasn't the weird part...The coolant gauge started working, without the sensor being wired up! Not sure what ghost got into the wiring but everything worked fine again a few days later. About a week later, out of the blue, my buddy called me up and asked me if I could use a Dana 300. Oh hell yes, and for free! So that doubler project got researched a lot more. Decided I was going to stay away from that until I graduated though.

All that above brings it up to the end of September. So the beginning of Oct was the rebuild again, oh how I hate engines... Took the engine out to check everything out just to figure out that 11 or 12 of the lifters were destroyed, as well as the cam. One of the cylinders had a very bad score in it that would require quite a bit of boring to get out. I really didn't want to spend all that cash on a rebuild as I didn't have the cash at the time. So I picked up another engine that was a known good engine that I heard run. The engine I picked up was a newer TBI engine that was converted to carb already. Swapped all my goodies over to this engine and put a few coats of paint on her. The old engine ripped apart and ready for scrap. And with the AX15 attached. Got the bay at the garage on a Saturday and slapped her mostly together. Routed a bunch of lines on the top. Also put a few 45's to get the oil relocation lines that connect to the block away from the upper control arm and to get a nice straight flow as the last thing I want to do is kink an oil line. And then a few pictures of the exhaust. I told the exhaust shop that I wanted the exhaust above the frame rails since I wanted a completely flat stomach and I think they did a pretty good job. :thumbsup: After a few weeks of working on her only a few hours a week at the shop, I got her started. She was quiet. :D Got her inspected and brought her home finally.

Had to order a mini starter since the stock ones would not fit with the way the headers pointed down. Also picked up a muffler. Front end pieces back together, again. She's looking like a Jeep once again! Took a while to hunt down wiring issues for the front lights, which ended up being issues within the front wiring harness. Ended up just getting fed up and slapped on a spare front wiring harness I had and everything worked again. Also made the transfer case shifter. It's not finished in the two pictures below but you can get the idea how it will be going. Shifter in 4lo. Shifter in 2hi Shifter complete and painted, ready to go in. 2hi 4lo Picture of the mini-starter compared to stock. A buddy of mine gave me the idea of using an ammo box as a center console, then showed up one day and gave me 3! Took the largest one of the three and it fit between the seats perfectly. And after all that work, a nice poser shot of the Jeep. Dropped the Jeep off at an exhaust shop to get the exhaust bent (one of the only things I didn't do myself on this Jeep) and then took it over to a shop I used to work at for a little fine tuning and inspection. When she was there, they tried tuning the carb as much as they could just to have horrible blow by continue. Figured out one of the pistons had horrible compression and the engine got dismantled again...

Routed the winch control connector into the winch mount. Made a bracket for the oil filter relocation bracket, the part that the oil filter will be attached to. Swapped proportioning valves with a Cherokee one I had kicking around to remove the load sensing circuit. Few pics of the difference. Carburetor and lines/hoses ran for the engine. The carb sure is shiney. :yes: The oil filter relocation bracket mounted. Went from self tapping screws to grade 8 bolts, prefer to bolt where I can so if I decide to remove something, I won't need to look for new holes or get larger screws. Got everything together and started to fill the engine with fluids just to have them leak past the head gaskets in two spots...So the heads come back off, again! Just to prove a point as doing a head gasket isn't a hard job, these are all the tools I used to rip the whole top end of the engine apart. Straight edged the heads and block and everything was straight but decided to take the heads to a machine shop to get checked out just in case. Thank god I did because the heads were cracked in two spots! Hounded my buddy for giving me a bad set of heads and picked up a new set. Put new seals on the heads, lapped in the valves and put like 7 coats of paint on them. Then everything got slapped back together, again...

Wanted to get matching gears so I had to pick up a set of 3.55's for the 8.25 since I wasn't going to go down to 3.07's in the 30. Got a set of gears off my buddy to slap in. He found out the hard way that the 8.25 ring bolt are reverse thread so I had to take out two snapped bolts. Welded bolts onto them and they came out fairly easily. Slapped the gears in and checked the backlash. I love the way Chrysler axles are shimmed. :yes: The 8.25 all finished up and in. I stretched the springs by flipping them 180. Gives a few inches of stretch since the center pin in the leaf spring isn't exactly centered. Few pictures of the stretch. Spent a lot of time just trying to align the pulleys, never thought it would be this difficult to get belts straight! Used rope to get belt sizes. Ignore the spacers, they will get swapped one day (even though they've been there for over 6 months now...). Added a little bling. :D Removed the factory center retainer for the hood and these are fully functioning. Decided to take a picture of the front winch mount thickness compared to the frame, that'll stiffen her up nicely. :yes:

So this is probably going to take a few days to update her to where she is now but I'll start off. Starting from where I left off at April 26th... Got the 8.25 all cleaned up and Cherokee shock brackets cut off. Moved the leaf perches in and kept them on the top for the SOA. You can see how far they hang down as only one is cut off in the pic. Comparison between the IronMan4x4 adjustable shackles and stock. Was thinking twice about stretching the wheel base so started measuring approach and departure angles. The approach angle will be around 70 degrees with a new front bumper built and with a bobbed bed, the rear will be around 50 degrees. The rear at stock is 33 degrees so that had to be addressed...I got the shackles in and put the drive shaft in and... :wall: :wall: :wall: That was all the way in on the transfer case so...It was time to stretch the rear! Ordered a set of Sanderson block hugger headers for the Chevy 350. It's the only set of headers that would clear the frame rails. Had to clearance the alternator brackets to clear the fins on the alternator, not sure why they hit since these are just stock brackets but it was an easy modification. Also had to make all the brackets for the power steering pump as, in the stock location, the pump hit the steering box. Crappy pictures but you can get the idea.

Approximately works, I appreciate it. I have 4.5" coils which look sagged, plus a little over an inch from the coil mount, plus the axle, plus the 1.75" spacer. I can tell from the way she sits that that isn't 8" of lift so just trying to get a round about number right now.

Thanks. Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this! I'll be updating this up to date some time this week once I get a free chance from working on the Jeep and school. LOTS of things have happened in the last 7 months.

Looking for the height from the ground to the flare. If anyone could get me this measurement, I'd be greatly appreciative. I'm trying to figure out the lift height that is on my Comanche after doing a one ton axle swap and 38.5's, reason I'm looking for the ground to flare instead of the normal middle of the hub to the flare measurement. Guess I should add a bit of info about when the Jeep was stock...'86 Comanche X, 2.8L, AX5, NP207, 30/35

I saw somewhere where it was mentioned that they changed the windshield somewhere along the Cherokee line, my guess was when they redesigned in '97. My buddies windshield from is 2001 is a little pitted but isn't cracked while mine is about cracked in half and was curious if the 2001 would fit in my '86. They look the same but wanted to make sure before I go yanking mine when he gets a new one.

The 4.0 rad will not fit unless doing some cutting to the head light buckets, modifying the upper rad support and lowering the frame rails some. You will also run into clearance issues with the header panel if you put it right under the upper rad support. The other thing you will have issues with is the firewall. The firewall was changed in '87 to be pushed back slightly and was flattened out so the 4.0L would fit. You would need to get a BFG and add some love to the firewall to get everything to clearance correctly. To give an idea on the radiator, here's a pic I took while doing my build. This is an image of it with the new rad bolted in (crappy picture but only one I really have of the new rad bolted in place).

Didn't think I was going to see a thread this deep on CC. :clapping: While oil temp is important to the wear and tear on the inside of the engine, most manufacturers (hoping all at this point) take that into account with the recommended oil for the vehicle. Engine oil has a lot of wiggle room with temperature, unlike transmission fluid, which is why the heavier trucks have the transmission temp gauge. The engine oil is supposed to stay within spec to work while the engine is within the normal operating temperature. For the 4.0's, between 190 and 210 in the coolant is where the optimum temp is for the oil to be most effective. I have seen many external oil coolers (many of which are on turbo'd vehicles) but very rarely see one that's inside the radiator. Usually the radiator one is dedicated for the transmission fluid as that needs to be regulated a lot more. The "warmer" aspect of that Hesco setup is kinda of pointless, atleast the way I see it. The coolant and oil warm up about the same, if not the oil warming up faster due to all of the oil being gone through (coolant only swaps out on startup when the engine gets up to temp, then cold coolant comes in, oil gets warmed up at the same speed to temp but all of it gets warm at the same time). Unless you really plan on doing a lot of towing, I wouldn't worry about the cooling aspect. I wheeled my old Cherokee hard (first on stock 3.55's and 36's then went up to 4.56's with the same 36's) and never had an oil cooler. Never once did I have oil issues. The key aspect to all of this is to make sure your coolant system is running correctly and optimally. The coolant regulates the engine, which in turn, regulates the oil to the correct temperature. Also make sure that your oil is filled as the oil in the sump also cools down the returning oil some helping to keep it regulated better.

It sounds like a pulley or two might be a little off. Belts usually squeak when they're getting old or something is off where there is side load on the ribs on the belt. I've been working for about 7 or 8 years in the automotive field (a year at a parts store and the rest as a mechanic) and have never seen a new belt squeal because of oil added to it from the factory. I've been through god knows how many belts on my own vehicles and never had a new one that was properly aligned squeal on me. I think the parts store guy was giving you the run around on that one.

I was running 36x13.5R15 IROK's in my old Cherokee with a stock Renix 4.0 and AW4. I was running 4.56's and could easily hit 80 on the highway (tires shook like hell around 73 so I limited to that at fastest usually), could easily sling the mud also. The only issue I had with pulling out full size trucks was due to the weight difference, had enough power.

The part the gear slides into that bolts to the transfer case needs to be turned for the gears to mesh correctly. Where the gear goes in that bracket is not in the center (figured this out the hard way when I was chasing down my speedo issue). I think this is what mule13 is talking about. I'm pretty sure they kept doing this till they went to electronic in '91 as the ones I have that are electric are centered.

I'm not sure on the diff between the 231 and 242 (never owned a 242) but the shift linkage is different between transmissions. Not sure if the BA10/5 and AX15 is different though. The bracket that bolts on the AW4 is contoured different with different holes in it compared to the AX15 and the linkage bars are longer on the AW4 (the AW4 is ~1.5" longer than the AX15).

I did a Chevy 350 in mine for a few reasons. Parts for a Chevy 350 are a dime a dozen, the engine is everywhere so there is a ton of aftermarket support, the engine weighs between 20 and 40 lbs more than the 4.0L (so weight wasn't a concern). And the two important ones that made up my mind...I had the GM V6 in mine already so everything was wired up to Chevy engines and I have a ton of buddies are that Chevy guys that have tons of parts laying around. On top of all that, the adapters and mounts are all made by companies already (even though I'd make my own mounts at this point). The issue with Chevy (if you plan on atleast keeping with a stick shift) is that the Chevy transmissions won't fit unless you do some major floor work. Ford transmissions will fit though since the shifter is all the way towards the back of the trans (just like the AX15's) as the Chevy's are in the middle. The other guys have a major point also. Having the distributor in the back is a pain in the @$$. I had to cut and fold the ribs that run along the firewall just to clear for the distributor, and that cleared barely. That's with the motor moved to the farthest forward position on the Novak mounts!

The swap isn't hard to do. I did the swap from a D35 Grand Cherokee setup to a D44 Wrangler, the hardest part was from having to redrill the hole larger. If you have a D35, it's pretty much a direct swap. The load sensing valve doesn't really care what's on the other side of it but don't think the calipers would like it since it's restricting the flow to them. Most people just flat out remove the load sensing valve, whether they are upgrading to disk or not (I've removed it in both of my MJ's).