jkchr1s

Double check your grounds. A bad ground will cause all sorts of electrical gremlins with headlights and turn signals.

This may sound crazy, but check your spark plugs. I had an unknown engine I installed that was running hot intermittently like this and cylinder #1's plug looked very different than the others. Turns out I had a cracked head, cracked piston, and failed head gasket where it was pushing exhaust gasses in to the coolant. It seemed like it could never be "burped" no matter what I did. The engine ran seemingly well otherwise. Hopefully this isn't the case with yours, but it could be something else to look in to if it feels like it keeps getting air pockets for no reason. Potentially a head gasket issue?

Oh and I forgot to mention, don't actually use hydraulic hose for AC... I found an AC line with the correct fitting on one side and just had them crimp the hard line fitting on to the new AC line. I believe you'll run in to leaks if you use hydraulic hose.

I ran in to a similar situation with my TJ after doing a V8 swap. I ended up buying a generic hose off Amazon and having a local shop splice the original fitting that was impossible to find on one end and using the fitting that worked on the other. It seemed impossible to find a shop that dealt with AC fittings... but I ended up using a hydraulic shop. Look around locally for hydraulic shops as they have the tools and fittings to crimp the rubber hose on to the metal fittings. They were also knowledgeable about where to get hard to find A/C line fittings.

Does it crank up and run at all? If it does, I would double check the timing. If it won't run at all, try pulling the distributor out and rotate it 180 degrees as ghetdjc stated.

Yeah the guy I bought it from said it was in a minor accident in the front, but it wasn't a bad wreck. The front bumper is pushed in on the driver's side and the driver's side panel has a crumple right at where it meets the door. I crawled up under it before I bought it and looked at the frame as best I could and it seemed to look good to me, but I'll take a second look at it before I put too much more money in it. I'm starting to think it wasn't so minor to see those crumples now that I'm seeing the floor and adding that together with the drivers quarter panel and behind passenger door. The doors absolutely do not shut correctly, but the body has 277k so I figured it was just worn our bushings. You have to lift up on the driver's door and hold it just in the right spot to get it to latch properly. The pins on both side of the cab for the door latch have cracks around them from the doors improperly closing. Is that signs of rust on the back side of cab? It's hard to know if it drives straight at this point because the front passenger universal joint on the axle was absolutely shot. I pulled the intermediate shaft, replaced the ujoint, and put it back in, and now it's leaking gear oil. Don't want to drive it much like that, and from what I've seen, I need to disassemble the front diff and replace some seals in there. Which brings me to... Seeing how it has 277k on the body, my plan was to buy a wrecked ODB-2 XJ and swap the engine, trans, axles, and interior... but now I'm kinda scratching my head wondering if it's worth the trouble with this body. I bought it thinking it just needed some body panels and an engine rebuild. I've already done new brakes all around, WJ master cylinder/booster, new brake distribution block, power steering pump, cap, rotor, wires, plugs... and after changing the oil and running it bit here and there it quit smoking but developed a nice low end knock. With 277k on the clock, once I did an engine rebuild I'm willing to bet the AW-4 will let loose and I'll need to rebuild the trans. I should have known better, but the body itself just has some surface rust, and it's what I thought was in pretty decent shape for a 33 year old truck. Certainly looked the best out of others I'd looked at in the area for the price. I've been shopping for donor XJs, but I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't be shopping for a better MJ chassis to start with. Thanks everyone for the input, now I need to get her back up on jack stands and really look over the frame, firewall, and make sure this is the chassis I want to pour my time and money in to.

@Pete M Here's some more pics... as far as I can tell the frame itself is okay. What do you think? Put some new carpet down after fixing the rust and forget about those dents? It's still bugging the crap out of me... how in the world do you dent it from the inside around the bellhousing area?

Ok, I'll take some more pics tomorrow when it's daylight. Thanks!

The doors don't close very well, but I assumed it was because the bushings were worn out... you have to kind of pick up on the door to get it to fully close. Where the pin goes on the side of the cab for the door latch, each side has a crack towards the inside of the cab that flexes if you move the pin around. The driver's side front bumper is pushed Where in the front frame area do you want to see?

Hey guys, I just picked up a 87 4.0 4x4 shortbed MJ and was tearing out the carpet (it was stinky and disgusting) and to check the floor pans for rust. I saw some concerning dents around where the bellhousing/trans that are dented downwards facing the ground. I initially thought the previous owner had the front driveshaft break loose and dent up from the bottom, but the dents are bulging the wrong way for that to have happened. Are these stress marks from a collision? Does this mean the subframe is twisted? I don't know how you'd dent from the inside of the cab downwards... The rest of the body is in pretty good shape, I bought it because it only has some surface rust. There are 2 small dents (one on the driver's side front quarter panel, another behind the passenger door towards the bed. At first glance, I thought they were just dents that I could easily fix. But now I'm wondering if it's because maybe the whole thing is twisted. Are these dents cause for concern as far as the subframe goes? I intended to do a full restoration on this truck, but now I'm starting to worry that the subframe may be bad. Thanks! Chris