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Most shops go off of their software or books that give hours for a job. My guess is this one is going to be 6 or so hours by the book. It really only take about an hour if you know what your doing. Make sure they put in a decent seal like a Timken or National.

Thanks! The build was already “finished” some time ago but I’m just keeping up with the never ending saga lol

A few progress pics. Brakes are finished now. Took a few good bleeds and works great. Readjusted the rear drums also. Am still thinking about switching to rear disks but I use my parking brake a lot on the boat ramp and ones in the disk brakes just don’t hold quite as well. I’ll look into this further at some point. The last pic is my latest endeavor to fully purge any air from the cooling system. I used a Mishimoto temp probe adapter and installed it in the upper radiator hose. I open the plug to bleed out air and then installed a 1/8npt stainless plug after. Works great for getting rid of the air trapped in that pesky hose. On a side note, for those who want something quite unique in their MJ/XJ I found a full sequential shift system with paddle shifter that is a bolt on for our jeeps and runs the aw4. It is a thing of beauty but cost a small fortune (approx 2k). The steering adapter fits 5 bolt Grant or 6 bolt Sparco/Momo wheels Also moved my IAT sensor to the factory air box. This will help to slightly richer up the mixture. Noticed that it immediately improved hot starting and idle. Perhaps a slight power gain also but too hard to tell.

I had one of those sub consoles in my TJ and it was very nice. Not much bass from it but definitely rounded out the music and the console itself was great. Was looking into some sort of console setup like this

I have a good working block laying on the shelf if you need one

To say that the truetrac’s only shortfall is when a tire is in the air may be an understatement. The truetrac doesn’t know when a tire is in the air, it’s just sensing resistance. I’ve had it sit there spinning one wheel in mud or one wheel spinning on some slick rock. What I like about the truetrac is that it helps track more predictably on-road. It can help a squirly truck have a bit more traction and it’s cheap. It provides minimal more traction though off-road. It has no air or electric lines to deal with and it is easy to turn with. So there are plenty of pros but, it’s a full case swap and will require setting your backlash and preload properly. You should be able to leave your pinion depth alone unless it was out of spec to begin with. By the time you go to all that work you may regret not going with a selectable for a few hundred more. Basically you already did 90% of the work but only gained maybe 25% more traction.

The mach1 scoop takes a lot of work to get formed into the hood since it’s so long and the hood is slightly curved. Personally I recommend that you use a good seam sealer when bolting it on and stay away from cutting any hood bracing which is easy enough. Just don’t use any hard setting adhesive or filler because the hood flexes too much and will crack it.

Whatever axle you decide to use, there is not a bolt in swap. The most time consuming part of the swap is the link brackets geometry and fabrication. There are one or two crossmembers for link mounting that are commercially available for the MJ that would work. A truss on whatever axle you use will give you a platform for upper links and you’ll have to just weld on some lower link brackets. You’ll want to go with a triangulated setup to locate the axle without the use of a track bar. You could then mount coils, coil overs or air shocks with the appropriate upper and lower mounts. To do it right figure a couple grand in parts minimum and a good welder with all the rest of your typical metal working tools. And a good dose of skill and patience to top it off. Ultimately though the gain may not be worth it for you. What are you hoping to achieve with your MJ by adding a coil system for the rear?

Starting with the brake booster. The 01 xj booster is a bolt on but will require the 1/4 spacer that’s already behind our stock boosters. 01 XJ booster specs: Dual 8” diaphragms 3 3/8 square mounting pattern (same as stock) Pedal rod is the standard HO 1991+ setup but could be modified for the earlier versions with the brake light switch on the end of the rod. Master cylinder mounting studs easily accommodate the Wilwood prop valve bracket. For the 01 XJ master cylinder, the rear outlet is for the front brakes and the front outlet is for the rear brakes. M10 bubble flare for the rear fitting and M12 bubble for the front. I used adapters to adapt everything to 3/8-24 inverted flare. This MC is a 1” bore. Stock MJ was mostly 15/16. I would assume that the extra booster from the dual diaphragm setup allowed for a slightly larger MC bore to increase volume while still keeping the pressure high. Anything larger than a 1” MC will lower the line pressure and would cause the brakes to not be as effective if its all stock.

Well time to turn my attention back to the MJ after finishing the Jet Ski build. My brake booster starter to fail on me (air suction sound when letting off brakes). I’ve also never been to happy with the master cylinder that’s the wrong size. Picked up an 01 XJ booster and master cylinder along with a Wilwood combination valve and left hand bracket. Will be taking care of all the lines tomorrow. Also picked up a really nice moroso trans cooler that I will be using as a stand alone unit along with an fittings for the tranny and braided stainless -6 an lines. I’ll share pics as I go along

Enjoy! Months long project and a complete build.

I never knew an eliminator could be bought with a d44. Nice!

I’ll try to get some closeups of the latch to striker contact. I fee the latch is just catching but not fully engaging. That’s a good though about the bolts perhaps interfering on the hinge. I’m going to check that right away.

I picked up my last truetrac for about $300 on Amazon. They are made overseas and prices are all over the place. You have to have a decent amount of resistance for it to work so it’s just very subjective results depending on where you wheel. I really liked the idea of the rear TJ rubicon lockers. Gear driven lsd and air locker in one. Really nice combo I ran twice, once in a rodeo D44 I built for my YJ and later in my 05 TJ rubicon. It was said to have issues with air leaks and keeping a good seal but mine always worked with no issues

What year is the d44?

Ok I’ll throw in my $.02 I’ve had 3 Detroit Truetracs and they’ve all done very well on the street but are only a bit better than open off-road. It’s not like it’s 50% better and half way between open and locked. More like 25% better I’d say. However I do prefer them greatly on wet or slick roads as they help the rear of the truck to track much better and feel more consistent and predictable. Most of the stories we hear about actual Detroit lockers being difficult to drive are on much shorter wheelbases and manual tranny vehicles. I’d say that on a longer wheelbase vehicles like an MJ (swb or lwb) they are much more docile. Especially with an auto tranny as the torque converter keeps the shifts consistently “soft”. Unless you throw in a transgo kit like I’m about to do

Not that I can see. It has zero vertical play and lines up dead center with the striker. It never leaks either. I went through this whole Jeep finding any spots that would leak and getting them also fixed. I can go through a car was now or monsoon downpour leak free

Here are some pics. I had to weld on a large fender washer to reinforce the striker area. Having a similar issue with the hood. The center of it is about 3/8” higher than the header panel. Upon closer inspection the drivers door only sticks out about 1/8” from the cab but that is with the striker all the time easy towards the cab and you have to slaw it to get it to latch. When you open the door handle it “pops” open

I’ll take some picture shortly. The door rubbers were new 3 years ago and they are still pretty thick but have definitely compressed from when they were new. So here is exactly what’s happening: I installed the hoolihans off-road door hinge peace plates when I was stateside last year. Welded them in and put nos hinges on at the same time. Shimmed the door and got all the gaps spot on. The door sits perfect in the jamb from what I can tell. Zero wind noise either which was hard to get right. My problem was that my door stuck out too far from the cab only at the back of the door. The from lines up great with the fender. I proceeded to move the door striker inwards and get it shimmed properly to latch. The door moved in slightly but not much. Now you have to slam the door to get it to latch. If you close it lightly the door just “bounces” off of the door frame. It closed well before but the hinges were going out so I replaced them. Passenger side is good but needs a shim or two on the bottom hinge to better align the door.

Just FYI, I used the newer plate and fin evaporator from the 97+ XJs and retrofit it into the hvac box with great success. It’s a better cooling core than the tube and fin style. Also, team Cherokee is closing out new tube and fin evaporators

Is there any sort of write up regarding alignin the doors on here? Hadn’t come across a specific post yet. I got my dire centered just fine in the hole but need to get it to close tighter to the cab. I moved the striker inwards (toward the cab) as far as it would go but that didn’t help close the door tighter and just made it harder to latch. It is otherwise very well aligned in the opening and the front is nicely aligned depth-wise. Just need the back of the door to go closer to the cab by maybe 1/4-3/8”

Here’s mine. This is a Mach 1 hood scoop grafted in. It’s a pretty squared off scoop and looks good with the body lines.

For the most part you can swap with gauge clusters from the same or similar years. 91 and up is what I’m most familiar with and the gauge clusters are interchangeable with XJ 91-95. Pre 91 was the Renix years and this site is full of Renix experts who can say for sure but I believe they also swap across the years 90 and earlier.

Also, do you have the little rubber vent hose connected to the motor?

Fastenal has them but they are also in the hardware section of pretty much any auto parts store. Just keep in mind that it’s best to use a screw/bolt with a flat shoulder. Anything with a angled shoulder can crack the plastic lens very easily. I’d start by finding the best fitting fastener and then find the appropriate sized nut/clip. Socket head bolts worked well for me. Most parts stores refer to the clips as “speed nuts”