AZJeff

I have them in my MJ. Their products are good to go.

Ah...I have never seen a nickle copper line before. Now I know.

I notice one thing that nobody has mentioned: in your picture where the master cylinder was shown, the brake lines seem to be made from copper. Are they? If they ARE made from copper, that is NOT a good choice for hydraulic brake lines. They should be made from a steel alloy.

That's a beautiful MJ. I wonder what the cost to ship it back to the US would be? It's a shame you have to give that up, as it looks like the work was a labor of love. I assume you are going to be in Micronesia long enough that taking it with you is not cost-effective.

I use socket head cap screws in place of the normal OEM hex head Bolts. They are normally built to ASTM std. 574, which is better than grade 8 SAE.

I have put CSF rads in both my MJ and my previous XJ's, and found them to be the best, most durable solution. The plastic tanked rads don't seen to survive here in the Arizona heat very long, even if you are religious about keeping the coolant clean and fresh, as I am.

Good suggestions in the entire write-up, but I have a proposed BETTER solution than just the self-adhesive foam around the cable track: wrap the foam ENTIRELY around the track, and add a small "tie-wrap" (wire tie) to keep the foam secure to the track. Here in AZ, the heat causes the foam to come loose of the track and then fall off in the door. The tie wrap is added security.

It would not surprise me if the center of that PCB (printed circuit board) is attached with something like double stick foam tape (or an industrial equivalent.) A PCB that is only supported/attached at the edges/corners can flex up and down like an old oil can in the middle, leading to solder fatigue cracks. When I worked for Motorola, they made PCM's for Ford, and they were worried about PCB flexure as I described. To deal with this, Ford insisted that the early PCM's be "potted," which essentially encapsulated the PCB in epoxy. Needless to say, a potted PCB is unrepairable, and Ford quickly changed to supporting the PCB more evenly. I agree that looking for a problem with the PCM is the LAST thing to consider. Those devices are surprising reliable. If you become absolutely convinced the PCM is misbehaving, there are places that can test/repair them, but I don't know if they can deal with a Renix PCM.

Clean the gasket surface with a rotary sand disk or a rotary Scotchbrite pad. Then use a straightedge to check for any raised surfaces where the numbers are stampeD. If there are, dress them down CAREFULLY with a file. Use blue RTV sealant on the gasket on both sides when reinstalling.

Ebay is your friend here.

I am an old guy, and the first cars I drove were from the 1960's and tended to be hand-me-down Ford products from the family. Fords in those days did use the "starter relay bus-bar" approach, but on the other hand, they used mostly water-resistant connectors. Fords were FULL of 'bullet' connectors back from the late-50's until the late 80's. Why AMC didn't use this approach with their connectors back then is a mystery, unless it was just pure economics. It's not like bullet connectors were new or proprietary in 1984 when the XJ was introduced.

Correct. In my photo above, you will notice my custom-made drop brackets not only drop the sway bar mount about 1 inch lower from the frame, but they also move the centerline of the sway bar mounting clamp forward about 1.5 inches as well. I had to do this in order to get the sway bar links to be essentially perpendicular to the ground when the Jeep is at normal ride height with my 3.5 inch lift.

Given that the AMC-era connectors were such a piss-power excuse for completing electrical circuits, I would go out of my way to replace that junk with something better (unless you are attempting a "pure" restoration of your MJ/XJ.) I cannot beleive the connectors that were chosen, even in the period when the MJ/XJ was designed (the mid-1980's). There were SO MANY better connectors that had been in use for MANY years by other auto makers at that point. It's almost like the AMC electrical design team tried to surpass British Leyland in choosing the most worthless interconnect systems for the elecrtrical wiring.

Others have talked about the expansion process, but I will address your other questions: You will need to acquire an evaporator and a compressor intended for use with R134a, if that is the refrigerant you have chosen. R134a is not as efficient as the old R12, and so components were resized when the switch over was made. Likewise, your receiver/drier will need to be R134a sized. You cannnot use hydraulic hoses for refrigerant lines. The refrigerant molecules are MUCH smaller than oil molecules, and will litterally escape through hoses that don't have the proper barrier layer in them as would a true refrigerant hose. There are shops out there that will make custom refrigerant hoses, you will just need to search for one.

That's a good alternative, if you actually have crimp tools. If you don't (like me), I just solder/heatshrink the connector pigtails into the wiring. The old Molex "Econo-Latch" connector is PERFECT for this role for interior lighting connectors, as it's cheap and simple, as well as being polarized. Too bad it requires a lugging tool to attach the contacts to the wires correctly.

As an "old school" ME (FEA did not come along until I was in management, so I only know the theory, and have never actually used it), here is my take: If you have interior hat sections that are reusable, by all means, reuse them (with appropriate plug welds as shown in photos elsewhere in this thread.) If your interior hat sections are trashed (or missing) and you want to achieve OEM stiffness (or better), plating the sides of the uniframe will do more to improve the moment of inertia of the "frame" of an MJ that those silly hat sections would ever do. And yes, we can be friend, both profession career wise and otherwise. Don't you LOVE it when engineers start arguing the best way to do something?

Unless you are trying to restore your MJ to factory condition, ditch those weird proprietary connectors and go buy something on Amazon. Given that the application is an interior electrical connector, the need for environmental sealing (waterproofing) is non-existent, so a bunch of stuff is out there for cheap. Here is a good example of something you can use: https://www.amazon.com/MUYI-Waterproof-Connector-1-5mm-Terminal/dp/B01A6LTK44/ref=psdc_15729341_t1_B01F54PFLE

While I agree that (as a retired engineer), the 'designed it that way for a reason' is a good logic, keep in mind that the XJ did NOT have this added "hat section" welded to the top of the floor pan. They only relied on just the lower "hat section" that forms the uniframe with the floor pan for that vehicle. Putting on my mechanical engineer hat here, I suspect the issue has to do with the fact that the MJ lacks a roof that extends all the way to the rear of the vehicle, and the transition point from the cab to the "pickup truck frame" section is a critical point in the chassis stiffness, and adding this hat section added some stiffness. HOWEVER.......The size of those hat sections, and thus the amounted of added stiffness they provide, is NOT significant (compared to the lower uniframe hat sections), so I do not know if their loss would be monumental. One can duplicate the added stiffness of those hat sections in a variety of other ways, not the least of which is plating the sides of the uniframe on the bottom of the floor pan. My point is that the loss of the upper hat sections is not SUPER critical, but if you feel you need to add stiffness, there are other ways to do that that might actually be BETTER (but were not done by Jeep for economic reasons.)

Now that I have heard the ZJ is superior to the original MJ/XJ box, this interests me too. I would be interested to hear more of the sucess of those who dropped in a ZJ box in their machine.

I learned my lesson when I went through multiple reman’d steering boxes from AutoZone for my old F150. They tended to be short lived. I got lots of practice changing boxes in that truck. When my MJ needed a box (the PO had adjusted the box in a manner that trashed the box), I bought a reman’d unit from AC Delco via Rock Auto. I figured that Delco ought to know how to reman a Saginaw box, since they are/were both divisions of General Motors. Thus far, I have been happy with it.

The angle between the sway bar link and the end of the sway bar is supposed to be pretty close to 90 degrees when the vehicle is sitting at normal ride height. On a lifted MJ/XJ, you might have trouble getting there without moving the sway bar brackets as well as getting longer links when the lift gets over about 3 inches. My MJ with a 3.5" lift has longer links AND relocating brackets for the sway bar mounts that push the sway bar mount down and forward to restore that 90 degree angle as shown in the picture.

That's a nice looking truck!!

Can you jack it up so all the wheels can turn by hand, and then have some helpers turn those while you fiddle with the linkage?

I am glad you got it out., and I will admit, I find that plug quite amazing. I have seen allen plugs, and hex head plugs, but never an eight-pointed plug. (Notice carefully it's NOT a "Torx" shape, which has curved tips of the "points" of the star shape. Maybe one of our "seasoned" Jeepers can comment if this was ever a common type of plug.

I have been down this road with SEVERAL vehicles, so here is my $0.02: 1. Eagle is correct in that a thermostat controls the MINIMUM temperature the engine will see when warmed up, NOT the maximum temperature. 2. The maximum temperature is governed by radiator size and/or air flow rate across the rad. That is, of course, a function of the size/number of fans being used. 3. If you want the fan to come on at a lower temperature, you either need to select a different temperature sensor to fit the Renix sized port. Otherwise, putting a temperature sensor in-line on the UPPER radiator hose is the best way to control when an electric fan turns on. WHy the upper hose? Because that is the temperature of the HOTTEST water going to the radiator, and you are trying to control the HOTTEST coolant temperature.