JZLAJeep

Nice work! I've noticed this too. I have owned three 5-speed XJs and they have been '94, '95, and '96. 5-speed XJs are fairly rare anyway, but they do seem to be rarer after '97. I've seen a few in ads, including an ad for a '97 two-door, 5-speed XJ once but the guy wanted what I thought was an outrageous price for what was otherwise a base model XJ with fried paint and some body damage. Apparently he got his asking price though.

I take it you are keeping the closed system and keeping the two factory "Ys" and connecting into them? Before buying any specialty hose, I'd just buy 3/4" and 5/8" hose from the auto parts store make connections where you have to. The hose will bend and loop some without kinking. Or, this will be a good time to convert your system to an open system and get rid of the heater control valve which simplifies the hoses. There is a lot of information out there on the topic, including the link that keeps the old radiator. I recently made the closed to open conversion with a new radiator and overflow bottle and simplified the hoses to the firewall so there is one 3/4" hose and one 5/8" hose, just like Jeep did in and after 1997.

I contacted the seller, asked about the "engine runs but needs work" and about the interior since there are no interior pictures. I received the following: "Interior is pretty good and it is rust free. "I rebuilt the engine 2 years ago bc it was smoking like it wasn't burning fuel good enough. Thinkin' it was tired, I replaced literally everything. It is wet sleeve so I replaced the pistons, rings, & cylinders as a set. Everything to do it is online since that engine was installed in a number of vehicles in Europe including Jeep Cherokees there. "New copper core radiator. Remanufactured turbo. Clutch kit complete with slave cylinder. Professional rebuild of the fuel pump & injectors (Spokane Pump). Rebuilt alternator...List goes on. "Started it and it ran exactly as before. And then it leaked coolant from somewhere. I tightened the various hose clamps. Still couldn't find the leak. Figuring it might be the newly installed head gasket, I bought a new one and was going to do that over but instead concentrated on the smoking and hard starting. Figuring it was old fuel, I installed a brand new fuel tank! New fuel... same problem."

I'll be in Coeur d'Alene at the beginning of August for work. Hmm...

So basically it's a preference thing. Which is fine, was just wondering.

Sounds like you just need to cap the intake manifold in two places and cap the vacuum lines. You can buy EGR delete kits or just do it yourself like we did. You can see what we did here:

We are grateful that @eaglescout526 gave us a pair of these a few years ago. They are on our Comanche. Seems that you guys prefer these over the plastic rain guards (link)? Curious why.

Those were the old motor mounts that I took off. They would have looked the same when new. Our record for replacing one was about 20 minutes. If the O-rings on the oil filter housing were original, then I'm sure they were leaking. That's another repair that all of our old Jeeps need if original. The rubber O-rings don't last 30-40 years.

It's been a few years since we've done this, but I'm sure we put the bolt back in the other direction. We may have had to cut the bolt so that it didn't hit the oil filter. Like I say, it's been a few years. It's been our experience that the motor mounts do need to be replaced periodically. The rubber gets brittle and breaks after a while. Just replaced the motor mounts on our newly acquired '97 a couple weekends ago. This is what I took out:

Did you put the motor mount bolt back through the other direction so you don't have to do that again next time?

Yes, like that. And they do wear out so need to check them from time to time. We've installed poly motor mounts before, but if you want to stay OEM, you can get stock motor mounts at any parts store.

1979 Datsun 510 hatchback. 2.0L, I4 RWD, 5 speed. No AC in Phoenix... It was "grapefruit" yellow, but otherwise looked like the photo below. For a while I had the wiper hose pointed forward out of the grille and could spray people, which wasn't necessarily unwanted in the heat of a Phoenix summer... In hindsight, it was a fun around town car.

We had our MJ windshield replaced at Safelite. I asked them to use the 97+ rubber gasket and they were happy to install that instead of messing with the aluminum trim. I highly recommend this upgrade. Cost was ~$180 a couple years back, probably more now. As far as mirror, the MJ mirror fit. Even if yours doesn't it's pretty easy to get a replacement from a junkyard or Amazon.

Nice!

Wow you did an awesome job! This shouldn't be your last time!