Warren99

So far other than the plates not fitting around the floor support, my biggest annoyance is with the brake and fuel lines. The UCA Mount interferes directly with every single line, and there's not one mention of this anywhere in the instructions, and I wouldn't think Cherokees have straight lines there with no bracket for the inside of the cross member. I had to bend all the lines up for temporary use. These pics are with the lines sitting how they do from factory, just not in the plastic clip bc it can't with the bracket up there.

LCA brackets are cut off! After I had the MJ part cut off, I didn't catch that the XJ part had spot welds on it, so when I tried using an air hammer to chissel in between the LCA bracket and unibody, it just push the unibody in, so I'll have to fix those but no big deal. After seeing those, we used a spot weld drill bit to drill them out. As long as you went deep enough to sever the whole spot weld, all u had to do from there was cut welds w a disc and hammer the whole bracket off at once.

I think I'll cut the plate, like ghetdjc said, the little bit of plate aint doing much, who knows how much the gusset is doing, it's one of the supports for the floor board lol.

On second thought yea I was just coming here to post that. I went out and looked at it again and the amount I'd have to cut out off the plate isn't as much as I thought.

I bought a set of long arms from rustys, not the long arm kit since I already had springs and everything, but just the long arms. They don't have "MJ" long arms by their selves, but the "XJ" long arms look exactly the same, and have the exact same part number as the ones included in the long arm kit for the Comanche. The problem: The frame tie in plates, that wrap around the outside of the unibody frame, come into contact with a support gusset thing that goes under the floor board. As far as I can tell, Cherokees don't have this extra support for some reason. So am I missing or not realizing something? Should I have called them and specifically asked for a special "MJ" version that had that one part made slightly different? If not, how important is that gusset, can I just cut a slot just big enough for the plate to slide in behind it and against the frame? Here is the gusset. The plate uses all 4 bolts on the bottom of the frame: the two the current crossmember is using, and the two in front of that which is used for a peugot crossmember. This shows all 4 bolts lined up vertically, obviously the plate needs to go up until it hits the floor, but this gusset or whatever u wanna call it is in the way. Like I said I think I will cut a slot in it for the frame stiffener to slide into, I wanna know if that happens to for some reason be a really important gusset, I wouldn't think it would be since the XJ's don't have them. \ Additional pic for context I'm aware I could also cut the new frame stiffener to fit around the gusset, but idk if that's a good idea, give me yall's thoughts. Thanks!

Ok thanks, I'll probably wait til I get the donor truck before I do much, I might check the threads on my condenser tho

Ok thank you that was very helpful. How do you typically flush a system? And for testing purposes, is it bad to run a system with low oil for a little bit?

About oil, I'm aware that the system in general needs oil, but I have no clue as to ester or mineral or PAG and what they do. I thought I heard somewhere that oil kinda sits in the compressor so unless you've had a system dry and open to the atmosphere for a while, you don't rly need to add oil. Can you clear this up any?

Oh wait, theres an 87 MJ I should be getting soon when the guy finally is ready to sell it, and it has as far as I'm aware all the working A/C parts. No clue if the A/C works on it, but I'll give it a test. If it holds pressures but doesn't blow cold because its empty, then I'm just gonna swap over as many components to mine as I can. If that doesn't work then I'll start buying new stuff.

Ok so check the condenser threads, get oring kit and replace all of them, buy new drier and expansion valve, and use UV dye to find leak. Am I missing anything?

Oh yea one more question, what about leak dyes. I'm guessing they have r12 and r134a versions, can I just charge a bottle of dye into mine or is it not going to work since its basically empty right now? Also, does it really matter if its r12 or r134a since mines empty anyways?

Yea, that will be the first thing I check when I get back around to A/C, planning on starting to install long arms later today.

I kind of hope it is a different style condenser with different connectors, because that would finally explain why everything was fine then it suddenly released pressure. I don't think I mentioned it before but right after it all leaked out, we tested it again and it seemed fine, but obviously we weren't gonna put more freon in. I was like 14 or something when I put that condenser on, and I remember those connectors being especially a pain, so maybe they are slightly different threads or I just messed them up somehow to the point where they sorta held pressure until a certain point.

How many orings are there and how hard is that to replace all of them. Also, no it is the original r12 system that came with the truck, other than the condenser which was from a 1996 cherokee.

I have no clue if the freeze 12 was "set up" the same as r12, it was just way easier to find than r12 and I assumed it was the same. My intentions are to just try and fix the r12 system if I can w minimal work and money, because I still have 2 cans of freeze 12 that haven't been used. If I can't get it to work with minimal effort and money then I'm just gonna do a r134a swap, since its so much easier and cheaper to find r134a.

I talked about this a while ago and never got back to it, but the short story is a while ago when trying to get my ac working, i had to replace one of the lines up by the blower motor and such because it had a hole worn thru. After that, we tested for pressure and it held, also held a vacuum. About halfway during the first bottle of freeze 12 it randomly burst somewhere and leaked all the freon out. Never could figure out what it was and never got back to figuring it out. Fast forward to now, I had a random thought. When I first got my comanche, the radiator and everything forward of it needed replaced bc it hit a deer. I just took the radiator and everything from my 96 XJ, including the condensor. With that condensor being from an r134a system, I wonder if thats the issue, and I'm kinda on here to ask if that might be it before I try to get those fittings off. I can't remember if the orings are on the line side, or the condensor fitting side. BUT, if those orings are the 134a style and are wrong, would that maybe burst during a first charge, or just sorta slowly leak over time kinda thing? One last thing to consider, that condensor was just kinda sitting around outside in the elements for a few days maybe weeks, it ain't like it came off the XJ and went onto the MJ. Is the condensor or any of the orings one of those ac components that cannot stay out and exposed to air for any longer than necessary?

Yea I was asking, but ok cool

I'll end up just using a combination of both then.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/543884697467646/

alright thanks!

How was that? I imagined a sawzall taking forever, and probably longer than a zis wheel on a 90 grinder.

Installing long arms soon, for cutting the lca mounts, is it safe to just use an acetylene torch to cut the majority of them off, or is that bad and at risk of warping the unibody frame or something? If I have to I'll just go through 10 cutting wheels but the torch would be easier.

oh ok thank you

Ok, what is the actual like definition of "NOS parts" and where/how do yall even find them?

Oh cool!