500 MJ

I've never heard of gas tanks rusting from the inside. Maybe if it sat for a long time and had no gas in it then it could have rusted, but if you have steel surrounded by gas, it shouldnt rust!!! I have heard of gas tanks rusting at the seem they are welded together at. I had one do that in an XJ of mine. At any cost it didnt look like you had fun with that. Oh and about the grinding and gas... Take it from me, its not a good idea. (I was actually welding when the fumes flashed me, I had my gloves and mask on so I didnt get any injuries other than some small burns but I learned my lesson :smart: , Thank God it was only a flash!) :dunce:

Just another Ohio resident... ;)

1/2 on the truck and 1/2 invested so that you can spend it on the truck in 10 years... :brows:

That looks just like mine when I got it

For those of us with non disco front ends that we swapped in, how do we get our 4wd lights to work?

The real money is in Copper at scrap yards :brows:

What did the '98 trans and t-case come from?

Ok, this really made me mad. I had an XJ with what I thought was the rear main leaking on it. It got worse and worse and then I finally replaced the seal. Drove it down the road and it still leaked. I got to looking and the oil was actually coming from the standoff that oil filter sits on. I guess that in MJ/XJ applications it is turned to face the hood and in Wranglers it faces down... Anyway... It was leaking bad and I ended up taking it off and getting 3 new O rings from the parts store for $1.74 and put them on and it was solved. THAT PISSED ME OFF. I couldnt beleive that after I had taken the whole bottom side of my engine apart and spent money on a new rear main and oil-pan gasket + got oil all over my stuff that all I had to do was this little 15 minute fix. OOOOOO I was Mad! :mad: So, check it out. There is only one bolt that holds it all together on mine and it was so covered in oil that it took forever to find in under the filter. Those O rings on mine were shot and cracked, and so much easier to replace than the rear main. EDIT: Also when mine leaked it ran down to the bottom tip of the bellhousing, making it look like the rear main.

Good point, my mind only operates on 6 cyl mode ;)

Well it sounds like you got the axle that is most common, and most hated on all of our MJ's. Dana 35s are known to be a very weak axle. As long as you keep the Jeep on the Pavement as a daily driver, it shouldnt give you any problems. The minute you take it offroad though, chances are that its evil side will show through...

Also, yes you can make spring packs to bolt on SUA. This eliminates having to reweld your spring perches. Beware though that some guys on this site have problems with taking out the main bolts for their leaf spring bushings. When I pulled mine, they came out just fine (i guess I got lucky) but some guys have to cut them to get them off. Pete just did a big project on one of his MJ's that involved messing with the rear springs. Here is the link, its on pages 3 and 4 http://www.comancheclub.com/forums/view ... 6&start=45 For spacers up front, Some guys, I know many back home get pieces of pipe and weld up their own spacers, all you need is something that the coil will rest on and fit in nicely when it is compressed to the body. Once they weld these spacers up then they weld them to the body to make sure they won't wander on them. You can buy them as well from many offroad sites or even ask around on here, I'm sure someone has some. Any time you change the geometry of your front end you should at least allign your Jeep. This is really easy on Jeeps. Just loosen the Tie rod clamps and start turning the connecting rod with a pipe wrench. Before you do this though, you should adjust your steering wheel so it will be straight again. You can adjust this by loosening and tuning the joint that connects the pitman arm to the ?drag link?. Once your steering wheel is straight then you get your wheels to be at equal distances from the front of them to the back of them. Just take your time and be patient with this. I like to get my the fronts of my wheels about 1/16 inch farther apart than my the rears of my wheels... Thats just the way I was told to do it by some friends ( the same guys that make their own spacers) A front driveshaft from an XJ should work just fine for you and you shouldnt have to change the angles for your front end pinion. The rear driveshaft can be cut down to accomodate your new length once you get the t-case in. Thats what I did for mine. You will need new shocks all around for a 3 inch lift. The only place I was able to find them for mine was from Rusty's offroad and they ran me $30 a piece. Some guys here don't like Rusty's, but they have never done me wrong. I don't know much about disco axles, I have a nondisco so I don't have to worry about it. Have fun

Easy way to get your ratio that takes less than 5 mins. Jack up one of your rear tires off the ground. Put a peice of tape on your tire and on your fender for a reference, next mark your driveshaft/yoke with respect to your rearend for another reference. Now have someone go under the jeep and someone spin the wheel that is in the air and count how many turns of the single jacked up wheel it will take to spin the driveshaft one complete turn. (You must have one wheel blocked or on the ground so it can't spin) This will give you your gear ratio. Common Jeep ratios include: 3.07, 3.55, 3.73, 4.10 and the list goes on. Your math won't be exact but it will get you close to one of these numbers :thumbsup:

I got mine today Pete, thanks again. Your check went in the mail this morning.

Also, if the track bar up front is good, you should be able to redrill the mounting hole on the front axle to compensate for the lift :brows: saves$$$ in the long run and even if your track bar is bad you can go buy a stock one for much cheaper than an adjustable one like I did on mine and use the redrilled hole to mount it to. Just realize that you can only redrill the hole once... Lift coils are one way to go, sometimes you can find some used ones for it. Other areas to look for are in the Junkyards at other Jeeps with different coils, who knows what you might find... You can also put a spacer in the top of the stock ones and be just fine

I just did the 4wd swap on mine this summer. I got a dana 30 and 8.25 from a local yard for $300. They are geared at 3.55. I figured that these axles would suffice for the mild off-road trips I will take with my MJ and it sounds like they would do your Son just fine as well. They are fairly common to be found in XJ's (the case with mine) and fairly cheap as well. Finding out what your son has for a rearend would be my first step though because you don't want to take a decent and high-geared rearend out of the truck... Also, if you have leafs lying around, it may be easier to make some new packs and forego the whole SOA idea. I kept mine at SUA and I love it. I am wondering what year your son's truck is, as this will give some info on the transmission is has in it. I'm not a 4cyl guy, so I don't know what t-cases will bolt to which transmissions... Best of luck and I hope it is an experience you and your Son enjoy. I thank my Dad often for getting me into Jeeps!

Be careful with the letters on the front, some have nuts and some have tape on them for backing. Also, your Chrome front trim pieces... do you have a whole chrome front end on the Jeep. I am looking for one for mine and will gladly trade the black front end that is on my Jeep. It was bought 5 years ago from the Jeep dealership and just has some mild fading on the 8 slot grille... :brows:

I have always just used needle nose pliers and screwdrivers. Needle nose vice grips might be useful as well...the trick i found is to pull on the cable from the back and one by one depress a finger through the hole. Once you get them all through you can pull it. You should be able to rotate the cable to get the ones in the back to come to the front... When it comes to taking the adjusting nut off of the bracket that bolts onto the box, they are usually rusted right on here in Michigan. So, I take a dremel under the Jeep and slice one side of the nut open. Then I can get a screwdriver in there and pry it open. This saves the threads, (for the most part) so I can go clean them up and put a new nut on. Have Fun. When It came to these, I just went and bought new cables from Mopar and called myself good for the next 10 years.

When I took the box off of my truck and tried to drive it around the fuel pump never would work... They do share a ground and in order to get it to work you have to get a jumper from the main harness to the frame to ground it. The fuel pump ground is one of the larger two wires in the harness where it connects to the "tailight/box harness"... I think mine was black or brown

Here's my weekend: http://www.lsprorally.com And the best part is that it is Free :driving:

Yah, I plan on keeping this truck for a LONG TIME. Next year I'm going all out with a basecoat/clearcoat royal blue metallic on the body and will then be getting a true Rhino lining along the rockers and in the bed. Put that with the new chrome grille and aluminum bedbox and the new bumpers I plan on fabbing myself and you can see why the little things like those '86 badges would make a difference. I only want them if they are in good shape as of now, if a pair in good shape is hard to find I guess I'll take what I can get. If you can and wouldnt mind getting me a pair I'd really appriciate it. I can have some cash to you quickly. They shouldn't be that much...? I'm in no rush, paint won't go on for about 6 months or so. So, don't make a trip to the yard just for these, pick em up when you are there next. Thanks In advance, Brent

Nooooo, there are '86 decals on that truck and they are painted over.... I am looking for a pair for mine. :brows:

Yah Baby!!!

I tapped the AX-15 handle off of my shifter at the joint that it joins to the trans at and tapped on the BA-10 shifter handle, this way its not like driving a mack truck all the time. It takes a little pursuasion, but give it time and and lots of good whacks with prying in between and it will come off. The trans didn't cause any problems with my floorpan. The YJ T-case clocking did, I had to weld a bubble in the floor for it to fit up into.

I don't see why it wouldn't, an engine is an engine. I put an '89 AX-15 from a YJ 258 I6 in my MJ with a 4.0. The only thing to watch for is that the mounts will probably be different between the two chassis. Some slight fabrication work took care of this for me.

And if you don't want to do all of this, you can buy sping packs from rusty's offroad. They now make a 4inch spring pack for lifting MJ's. It was a little too high when I got it and installed it so I simply took the bottom leaf out and it now sits great after I put some weight in the back to settle them. Also, what you are wanting to do is called a spring over axle or SOA.