DirtyComanche

Houston eh? From Vernon myself... We've got a couple from this corner of the country on here. Most of the stuff for the front half of an XJ bolts up. Rear end is totally different. Oh, you'll probably find this website is the BEST source of information on MJs and products that work with them.

Apparently not. :nuts:

It's 200lbs here, 300lbs there, the next thing you know your truck weighs about 6500lbs.

Dunno where my handy dandy book went. Anybody know the formula for calculating spring rates (leaf springs)? Better yet, anybody know the rate of the stock MJ rear springs? And maybe with the extra main leaf mod... Okay, nobody will know that.

205s are heavy. Really heavy. The 203/205 combo weighs over 200lbs IIRC. A NP231 with SYE weighs 66lbs.

241s have their place too.

I'm pretty sure that was him. Good to see you're doing something though.

The tranny cooler lines in these trucks blow. I never fixed mine. But you can just use tranny hose and hose clamps if nothing else. Use 2 clamps for connection, or flare the ends. Oh, the whole swapping to an open system 'fad' is really not a great mod. If your closed system parts are in good shape, it'll cool just as efficently, if not more... If you're having over-heating issues, I'd suggest flushing the cooling system, replacing the pressure bottle, and replacing any old/nasty hoses. If people have been running straight water in your engine, you might not be able to fix it...

Needing a SYE shouldn't be a question. If you wheel you need a SYE.

In summary, if the pattern looks like that, it's trash.

The 231/242 outputs are way weak. You'll break a D35 before one goes, but not much else. Hence hack'n'tap SYEs are a huge waste of money, IMHO.

5-links in the rear suck.

I don't know anything about lifts. But you need different steering. Well, it'll work. I ran STOCK steering at 6.5". It was really sweet. I mean, at full droop the tires faced each other and you had no direction control. At full bump they faced out and it was even worse. And the angles were all screwy. And it really didn't steer that well while flexing either. But, you can flip the TR/DL and get it a little better, along with a ZJ pitman arm if you're cheap. Or get a kit to fix it. Or just make the stuff you need.

So, I did a toyota gear set... Which was the biggest PITA I've seen in a long time. Pattern was good, backlash was good... Just needed to swap out the setup bearings for the real ones. Took it apart, popped off the setup bearings. Put the pinion in the freezer and the new bearings in the oven. They jsut dropped right on. Sweet. Re-set backlash. Run a pattern to be sure. It looked like this: Image Not Found Image Not Found Sweet. Apparently crappy SKF bearings aren't even close to timkens. Now it get's to come back apart.

It doesn't matter what the CPS does at temperature if it doesn't work cold. Pull the plug, put the ol' analog ohm meter on it and see how bad it is. All mine did the infinitive ohm thing when failed. If it's within the hot spec when cold, it SHOULD work. Then put it on the Mv setting and bump the starter over by jumping the ignition relay. See if it makes a signal. Failing that, maybe look at a few other things... How wet is wet?

Somewhat. If it tears through the sheetmetal you're in just as bad of shape. But the sheetmetal is less likely to get crushed in like that with an interior cage. My cage is already welded to the roof though. Somewhat decreasing the risk of that.

There's an event that runs ever year out here, it was last weekend. I was on invite as a spotter. One of the yota guys rolled on the first night... Aftermath: Image Not Found As you can see, his cage design is in many ways like mine. At least on the roof there. What happened was he rolled onto a log which went between the bars and crushed in the roof. He wasn't wearing a 5-point, and if he was he most likely would have taken it in the head. As it was he got really lucky and got off with some brusing. Popped the roof back up and wheeled it the next day. Anyways, I'm going to add some more tube to mine.

You can make it work rather easily. In one form or another. But yeah, the stock output shaft is a waste of time. They go snappy snappy when you use the skinny skinny.

I always ran without. I found the handling in all situations to be acceptable. I could have made it roll, but I don't drive like that. What was scary was when the UCA bushings exploded.

D44 axleshafts are 30 spline.

I don't have an accent! It's everyone else!

The Canadian dollar matched the US this morning... Fell to a close at 99.96 or something. So, no more jokes about our dollar. And I think maybe I should order some parts while they're comparatively cheap.

What's it out of? CJ ones are crap. Unless toy want to change the axleshafts right away. The MJ/SJ ones are decent. The ring/pinion is strong. The stock carrier is alright. The stock axleshafts are pretty good too (D44 sized). But the axle tubes are weak and need to be trussed for hard use. At least weld them to the housing (like on an 8.8 ). There's a decent aftermarket for them too.

My experience is such that anybody who worked for a jeep dealership knows less about jeeps than anybody else. He might mean it's the last year of it being an AMC jeep. In which case I'll give him that. Even if guys like to debate the 87/88 thing.

It doesn't do much either way. Disconnected it is closed, allowing the normal cold air in. IIRC. I thgrew it out WAY back.