DirtyComanche

On the tailshaft intermediate housing (big cone on the back of the tcase). It's fairly obvious when you get under there - there's a bunch of lines running to the vacuum switch on the back of the tcase too, but otherwise there isn't much else to confuse it with.

Nah, turns out it's retardedly easy once you get your hand in from the right angle. My cable had almost no slack, you couldn't pull the cluster out more than an inch... But if you go in from beside the ECM you can just give 'er a pinch. Onwards... Now to pull the HVAC apart without wrecking it. Last time I used a sledgehammer. It was fast, but I broke a few things.

Alright, mine's the nylon type... I'll see what I can do, but I really can't get in there more than anything. Should there be enough slack in the cable to pull the cluster out to undo it? Mine definatly has no slack... I guess I could undo it from the tcase, that has to be done eventually anyways.

How does a guy get the mechanical speedometer drive cable to unhook from the gauge cluster easily and without breaking anything? The last time I did it, I seem to recall I broke it. It's kinda tight in there, and I think I'm going to need it again...

Steal one from the boneyard, and try it. They so rarely go bad that the chances of you getting a bad one are, well, low. Probably as high as getting a bad 'new' one.

It's probably the emissions one, gets ya a free O2 sensor.

I can salvage it. I can even make it better than it ever was. But I wonder if it is worth it. I'll admit I am partial to the box stylin' of the XJ. For similar reasons, I like MJs. I'd prefer building a MJ in general. Hell, I've already got one that could use some love. But I really felt I needed the SUV instead of a truck for what I wanted. I've talked about doing full frame replacements before. Albiet only for a MJ. Looking at it now, I am very comfortable that I could do it to a MJ and have decent results. The XJ would be a similar process, but I forsee a few more issues. If I go to the effort of cutting it up that much, I will want to change a bunch of other things. I have a rear end that is half built (well, more like 1/4), the intention was actually to use it in this project at some point down the road (I made no mentions of what I'd be doing with the axles yet). You're going to think :nuts: . It's a Hi-pinion D60. Which probably would get me some sort of award for the intention of running 33s or 35s. But, I had no intention of running it with leaf springs in the rear. I also had no intention to keep the front 30, or the 5-link that goes with it. I'll admit it is a very decent suspension setup, and probably could do what I wanted in only a slightly modified form. The problem is that my desire to fix the uniframe will lead me to wanting to do all of the other upgrades at once. As this would only make sense (if I'm going to need a new rear x-member, and a bunch of new brackets, it's best to do them when it is easy). This will consume a lot of time, and necessitate having both of my axles ready to go. Now, how I would fix this (if I do). I think I first need to get the body to a position that it will stay reasonably rigid when the floor is removed. When I say the floor is removed, I mean all of it. And with it the uniframe rails. I'd have to pull the hatch first, and just get it out of the way. Then the remaining interior - which is just the dash, along with all the remaining wiring. And that would be all the wiring. The trick there would be to not screw any of it up. Anyways, I'd need to tack some of my surplus 1x1x.120 HSS in an X brace in the rear and middle of the body, my weld in rockers will already do a fair amount to keep the A and B pillars in position. The C pillar (hatch area) might want to move, and I have few thoughts on how to fix this other than to do some more work on the rear wheel wells before I attempt removing the body. Then I'll just have to cut all of the floor/uniframe off, or at least away from the body, all the way up to the firewall. Then hopefully I can lift the body off and throw it on my trailer (good place to store it, basically). Then, it's just a matter of removing the driveline parts that I'd like to keep (engine, trans, tcase), and rolling the remaining mess outside to steal what little measurements I need, and then send it away for scrap. Then I can get to work on a new frame. 2x4x.120 HSS would be my choice. The shape is relatively easy providing you don't try to copy the factory floor (hence why I'd not save it with the body). Stick drivelin e back in, re-attach body, etc... It'd need a lot more planning to do it that way. But I'm sure it would be unique, if nothing else.

Well. I think the project died yesterday. I'm actually kinda annoyed about it. It was coming out pretty nice (or so I thought) and would probably have worked well for what I wanted. But, I decided to fix a rust hole in the floor, and removed a bunch of the floor in the process, and yeah, the uniframe is kinda rusted up pretty bad. Not like poke a screwdriver through bad, or even near death bad, but bad enough that I remember why I wanted to build a buggy, or put a frame under a MJ, or generally not work on vehicles. So, it's decision time. I've already burned up half of my time off, and got nothing done. I did a bunch of research today into ubuilt vehicles and the perils of registering them in the fine people's republic of BC. I might be building my own SUV, using the driveline from this XJ and the same general dimensions for the body. Yeah. We'll see how this goes. So, nobody hold their breath for more updates.

There's also a heat mark on them, uniformly on every tooth. I'm really not sure about that. I want to know what caused this though. I'd say way too little backlash (lack of lube). But I think backlash being too tight would cause the same thing on the other side. The other side is peachy though. I'm kinda preplexed.

Not really, actually. There's a bit of $#!&, but that's normal with gears when they get broken in. All that you see there is dirt, it got in after I pulled the cover. Those teeth have been wiped with a rag, and only have a light trace of oil on them still... But that's the issue. The teeth are brinnelled. It's dun'. They should be shiney, almost polished, in appearance. The other side of them is correct...

So, I had this D44 lying around. It used to be in the front of my MJ. I had no plans to use it again, so I figured I'd sell it. Couldn't find a buyer for the whole thing, but a guy wanted the gears and spool out of it. He offered me enough that I didn't care if I threw the housing in the scrap bin. So, popped the cover to pull the gears out. Image Not Found Image Not Found Yup. Great.

Lots of guys use it and say it was great, so I guess it works... Never used it myself. Probably never will.

It's some crap that cleans out carbon buildup. Most auto-parts stores sell it.

...time?

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:D post one letter at a time. eventually you'll have us all scratching our heads trying to piece words together (face it, that's what it is with you anyways j/k :roll: ;) ) and you'll get to the post count :D How...

Time for a new water pump.

So, apparently I need to do some major whoring? I used to post so much...

Jeepforum put their member price up too. And it's a crappy forum. I dunno if this forum will turn out to be a good one. Comancheclub is a really good one because we all have a lot in common - comanches. With the cherokee (and having ZJ/WJ/etc derivatives) I don't think there's as much of a 'brotherhood'. I'll give it a try, if it's meh I'll move on. I can only handle so much of driving through puddles and 'I just finished my 2" BB and 30s!'. BTW, I'm 2drx4 on there.

www.cherokeetalk.com I signed up a while ago, just becuase I wanted to establish my resident a$$hole status at an early stage.

Amusingly enough, my prices have dropped somewhat. Diesel is a little cheaper than 87 for the first time in a while. It's still freaking high though.