AZJeff

I have never seen an NP231 with a Torx headed plug. It's a Allen type (hex socket) that may be bunged up by previous "repairs". Start by cleaning the crud and corrosion from in the hex hole, and use a pick or the like to clean the corners of the hex. Then you can do a trial and error search for the best SAE or metric allen socket to fit it.

The best method is the ball joint press. the other methods of drilling or burning out the rubber and then hammering out the remaining steel sleeve is far more tedious. Autozone will loan a ball joint press for “free”

Thanks for the tip. Looking at reviews of the Remflex part on Amazon, other Jeepers are saying the same thing about it being the best. They pricey, but "buy once, cry once"

After my "0331" head calamity, I have now found that one of the OEM cast iron manifolds won't seat properly on the new cylinder head near the #6 exhaust port, and thus I have an exhaust leak until the engine REALLY warms up (like about one hour of running or more.) So.....I bought new manifolds, but I am unsure what type of gasket to use. The OEM type gasket is a composite of embossed stainless steel and some sort of fiber material, with the stainless steel around the exhaust ports, and fiber around the intake ports. Another gasket I have laying around from extras when I replaced the head is a Fel-Pro one that is made completely of some sort of fiber type material. So....based on experience, which type is more durable/reliable? I know my new cylinder head from Clearwater is flat/true in the manifold area, and I assume the new manifolds are equally flat, so I am not trying to overcome some warpage. Inputs/suggestions welcome.....

For rear (and front) axles, Jeep has always said that 80w90 is the "normal" lubricant, and if towing (or other severe use conditions), 75w140 is recommended. Here in AZ, where temperatures can get danged hot, I use 75w140 all the time in both my front and rear diffs.

Make sure you get tubing that fits tightly over the hard tubing. Lots of the stuff used for vacuum lines at the auto parts store have an ID that is too big. I found this out when replumbing the vacuum on my 1991 F-150 truck.

They have special paint that can be used on plastic trim. I STRONGLY recommend you use that. Using "regular" spray paint might cause some weird stuff to happen to your plastic, and ruin it. The stuff I use is from Colorbond, and can be found on Amazon.

A LOT of the reason there is a mix of fastener types between metric and SAE on older Jeeps has to do with the history of the pieces used in them. For example, the axles and engines date back to the AMC period, specifically into the 1960's. In the 1960's, ALL domestic vehicles used SAE fasteners. As time went on, the industry began transfer to using metric fasteners, particularly in the late 1980's and beyond. BUT.....if they were using a part or subsystem that was a legacy item from the earlier models with SAE threaded fasteners, there was no real economic reason to retool the part to switch to metric fasteners. That legacy stuff stayed SAE, and only newly design parts and subsystems got metric stuff. Jeep wasn't the only one who did this. My old 1991 F150 was SAE all over the engine and rear axle, but metric in the transmission and PART of the body. And one other thing: AMC bought LOTS of parts from other auto makers. Whatever THAT maker used for a given part might be SAE or metric, depending on a bunch of factors. The AW-4 transmission is a good example: it was designed/manufactured in Japan, where metric fasteners have been commonplace for along time. That is why the threads on all AW-4 fastners are metric. (It's also why the one stater bolt holding on a starter for a 4.0 married to an AW-4 is SAE and one is metric. The one threaded into the trans is metric. The one threaded into the starter (an older US design) is SAE.) It can be fun to figure this stuff out, so the only solution is a full set of sockets and wrenches in both SAE and metric.

I found out my 2014JK has a fuel guage sender that is virtually identical to the one in my wife's KJ, and very similar to the one in the Dakota fuel pump/sender assembly I use in my MJ. I wonder if the real reason they work better now is that the consistency of the production of the senders and guages is better now due to automated calibration methods. I know when I worked in the electronics industry, we had shifted from manually "trimming" resistor networks that were embedded on ceramic substrates to using lasers to do so, as they were FAR more precise that someone with the industrial equivalent of a Dremel tool and a diamond cutter.

See those two sort of bronze colored hex head plugs on the back case half at the top of the photo above? Those are the drain and fill plugs. I would be wise to remove both and clean their threads before refilling.

Perhaps. The one in my wife’s 2004 KJ is still a wiper across a thick film resistor trace, so that’s “old school” I will investigate what sort of sender my 2014JK uses....

Older vehicles have notoriously inaccurate and inconsistent fuel gauges. I have seen cars that read “1/8” and were fully empty. I have also owned cars that had 4 gallons left from a 20 gallon tank when it reached “E” However, the one in my Wife’s KJ is pretty good, and the one in my JK is almost exact. I think that have improved calibration procedures in the past 20 years.

Any decent fastener supply shop should have them. Amazon will have them if you like. You can also try W.W.Grainger. They are on line and have a store in Des Moines.

Christmas tree clips are available in bulk on Amazon. I have a bunch of various sizes as spares to deal with the numerous issues that show up with them breaking here in the Arizona heat. the type that Jeep used on the MJ have a cruciform cross section, and are more fragile than the common type on Amazon. If you replace one, do them all, since the old design sucks.

There are shipping services listed on eBay Motors for those persons who buy vehicles across the country. Many of them are used to dealing with vehicles in non-running condition. It's not going to be cheap. The prices you have been quoted don't seem to be grossly out of line.

The "new" Cherokee Latitude (and other sub-models) is VASTLY different in mechanical layout than the older Cherokee that was produced up until 2001. Unless you are willing to take on a VERY complex conversion, don't even think about using parts from that vehicle to upgrade your MJ. Pete M is givng you the best advice on how to modernize the driveline in your MJ.

Nice work, but one comment: sealing up boxed sections of a frame is a VERY bad idea. Moisture that is inside the frame at time of welding can now just sit there and go to work creating rust. This is one of the big issues that plagued early unibody cars. It's MUCH better to have vent holes, and plenty of them. Ideally, they should be at least 1/2 inch in diameter, and located on bottom surfaces where water can run out.. Just make sure you locate them where wheel splash won't force road dirt mixed with water into those vent holes. I know this sounds very counter-intuitive, but you will have FAR less rust on frame with plenty of open holes for air circulation that you will on one that is all sealed up.

Just about any engine that will physically fit into the engine compartment is a candidate for conversion. However.....the further your alternative engine is from the original one(s) for the MJ, the more money you will spend getting the conversion to function correctly. For example, the new (fake) Cherokees you suggested are designed to be front wheel drive first and foremost, with all wheel drive being the option. That means the engine/trans is really a FWD setup. That would make a conversion of an MJ using this engine.....challenging to say the least. Your best bet is to find a decent used engine from a junkyard XJ or MJ, and install that. It is the closest to "plug and play" as you can get.

Sand blasting (or better yet, bead blasting) would clean that up quite well. then coat it with a paint that is tolerant of constant exposure to gasoline.

The following tools make this job easier (but not totally painless): automatic centerpunch to create a correct starting point SHARP drills starting at about 1/8” or less drilling up in size at about 1/8 inch increments until you get to about the correct tap size a clean sharp tap of the appropriate size to match the biggest sized hole you drilled PATIENCE I just retapped all of my trans crossmember bolt holes using these guidelines with no broken taps or drills.

I never have heard of bad experiences with Moog, and always thought of them as a "Tier One" aftermarket supplier of suspension parts. Please give us a summary of why you think Moog isn't so good.

I have successfully spray painted interior stuff in place, using that previously recommended SEM Color Coat. You need to do it in a garage or the like, where there is no breeze. You also need to cover stuff nearby with old sheets or other lightweight drop cloth materials. The SEM paint dries very quickly, so it's not like the airborne droplets remain sticky for very long.

Thanks. It's odd that when I shop for this on Amazon, it says it does not fit my MJ. I guess you cleared that up.

Are the wiper linkage bushings on the MJ's different than those for XJ"s? And are there more than one type of bushing that was used over the various model years of MJ/XJ? I am having trouble finding bushings for my wiper linkage at the usual on-line sites.

Thanks for finding that table. I knew it was out there, but had no idea I had already been shown this in response to a similar question before. Chalk it up to age. Yeah, that's my excuse.