DirtyComanche

Harness was probably swapped. Welcome to owning something that's 30+ years old. I'd check your fuel pressure. Do you have a ballast resistor? You shouldn't, sorta, maybe, hard to say if they swapped the harness and put one in or not. I guess there was also a recall to add one. If you have one, bypass it and take it for a boot and see if the issue goes away. If it does, failing fuel pump, plugged filter, or corroding connectors/wiring are the issue. Failing that, get an actual fuel pressure tester. I hear you can borrow/rent them from lots of parts stores.

Maybe. You still want the rotor in the right place or the disty winds up rotated to a potentially undesirable location. In the case of my XJ #1 and #6 plug wire were too short because of what they had done, but you could get it to go together, so I left it alone until other issues forced me to address it. I wish I had simply fixed it when I first got the stupid thing.

Does the trailer have brakes? You have a brake controller? It should be well within tow capacity, make sure it's loaded correctly and you have a proper receiver and hitch, but you should figure out the weight to make sure.

My XJ came that way. Not because they were trying to make anything better, but because they put the distributor so that the #5 post was hooked to #1 spark plug.

It's not fixed if you've cut the locating tab off the distributor.

Is a 20 thou gap what's called for? OP's is wrong for sure though. Off a tooth maybe, or he needs to mod it so he can spin it to the right place.

The o-ring groove probably is spec'd wrong enough to not work part of the time. If they put a plastic/teflon backup ring in there as well then it would be fine, I bet. You might have got away with it by just swelling the o-ring in some diesel/kerosene/naptha first, then installing it with vaseline.

Next question... any idea if you can tell what version of firmware is on these things based on the markings? This chip has a sticker: B0107E. On the on the one that got wet it's B1143F. Serial number? I'd assume whatever version of firmware was flashed to the ROM would have had a sticker or other marker to go with it. It would seem unlikely they would only mark the housing via the part number of the whole assembly. I'm not sure if this ECM is actually an 89/90 like they claimed.

Nippon-Chemicon KMC I believe. I think the black scuzzy stuff was nasty old flux, or something, that they then soaked with whatever they used for conformal coating. I managed to clean it off reasonably with heptane and put lacquer over the areas I cleaned. There was a bunch of fuzz from the Q-Tips that got stuck in it, but eh, that's not a big deal. Man does the forum ever dither that.

The photos are detailed but the forum dithers them pretty hard. I could upload to imgur but eh. I think they dropped the soldering iron, twice. It's like it's burned, but definitely not arc burns. Or it might just be some sort of dirt/crud. I'll try cleaning it when I get to work, then I'll put some lacquer over it. I suspect the trace they bodged was what caused it to fail. Still waiting for a fuel pump, then I'll see which of the three I have works best.

Here's a Cardone "remanufactured" one taken apart. Pretty disappointed with the complete lack of fawks that was subject to. They did change the caps though. I'll take it to work and clean the corrosion off and touch up the coating I guess.

There's no emblems on the hood...

Move. They will take your whole truck instead.

I think it is just the conformal coating that was giving the illusion that they're bulged. I think I'll clean the corrosion off it and seal it back up (I think I've got some stuff at work for that) and see if it still chooches. I'm tempted to actually put a drain hole in the case at the same time, the connector is in absolutely no way waterproof (or even water resistant), so if moisture can get in it's better to give it an easy way out. Maybe. I got the "new" (random junkyard spare I had) ECM to play nicely by reindexing the distributor... And figuring out that the fuel pump is on its way out.

Like I said, it's pretty typical 80s PCB. Big traces. You can see corrosion on the back side. I thought the caps were swollen but it might be the conformal coating. I think it's been wet before based on the amount of corrosion in the case. Anyway, I ordered that Cardone one to cover my butt. No luck on the yards here having one. I don't know if the one I swapped in is screwed, or if something else went wrong. I guess I could clean this ECM and put it back in too. It bucks bad sometimes when hot, part or full throttle. TPS is adjusted right, and seems to be fine through the full sweep. I'm going to throw new plugs in it and see if I have a cap and rotor (I should), wires are new. If I have a spare cap I'll check the indexing of it, didn't do it before because everything ran fine and I didn't have an old cap to cut up. If that doesn't help I'll throw a new O2 sensor in it and then try reseating the CPS or swap it out. CTS and IAT are both reading correctly.

I'll grab a couple later. It's your typical 80s PCB though, so lots of meat to solder too.

Has anyone bought any of the remanufactured ECMs for the Renix? IE: https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=26928&cc=1179996&pt=2896&jsn=11503 https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=322131&cc=1179996&pt=2896 I got my ECM rather wet, and wound up pulling it apart to try to get it dry. The capacitors look pretty swollen, but not leaking, and there's some existing corrosion on the board along with some failure of the lacquer or conformal coating they put on it. I'm not sure if the ECM will function after I dry it out either, but it might, it was still somewhat working before I realized it was full of water. Either way, I'd like to find another spare. Anyone bought one and had success with it? Has anyone changed the caps in their own? Curious if it might improve how things run.

Tons of half ton Dodges will have aftermarket wheels on them with the massive hub bore that will work. 16" isn't as common as 17", but they're out there. I was going to machine the center out on a set of factory Dodge wheels for my MJ but found a set of brand spanking new in box aftermarket wheels for not much money and went that route. Edit, the Ford axles are lug centric. The hub bore doesn't matter as long as it goes over the front hub. A guy could just hog a set of factory Dodge wheels over with a die grinder if he wanted.

The FSJ part or the RuffStuff part?

Off to ask the FSJ crowd because I want to know if I have a brain tumor or not.

Not those. Those go on the drag link end at the tie rod/drag link interface. The ones from the OEM, assuming I'm not suffering from the Mandela effect, went between the tie rod ends and the steering knuckle and stopped the tie rod from being able to roll. They aren't an insert inside the tie rod either, but rather a bushing that just got sandwiched outside of the grease boot. Or so I recall it, but our memories aren't real soooo...

Some of the full size jeeps used an elastomeric bushing under the tie rod ends to prevent the tie rod from rolling as much. It used to be something guys used to help make the inverted-T steering more responsive. Does anyone remember what the P/N was? I believe it was a dealer only part too.

Also, this sensor is normally called an IAT (Intake Air Temperature) sensor. You will get more results with that. MAT will get search corrected to MAP normally, which is a very different sensor.

Yeah, they're one of the most simple sensors, along with the CTS. Pretty reliable, it's just a thermistor, and it's not being used to limit current, short of mechanical damage or being massively overheated they should just keep doing what they do. The P/Ns I dredged up a few years ago should work with anything that crosses to them, and I believe the AC-Delco (not GM) 213-190 is that P/N. Most of these types of sensors have the same temperature/resistance coefficient as it's a product of the materials used to make them, which is a very standard composition. See this thread:

The advantage of the two keys was you could go outside and start it in the winter, but still be able to lock the door (and get back in later). Personally I preferred the worn out ignition cylinder for that, just start it and remove the key. That way you weren't messing around with keys on carabiners or anything. Anyway, the key thing is a fight on an early XJ. The lock cylinder for the tailgate is NLA the last I looked, and good luck getting the parts to rekey them.