adam518

Yes. The slip yoke is designed to allow for in and out movement as the axle travels up and down, effectively making the length between the back of the trans and the pinion yoke closer and farther apart. You have to have something that can allow for the change in distance. If you have a sye, there is no slip yoke. Therefore, the length of the driveshaft has to allow for the difference. A sye requires a cv driveshaft.

OK...Both axles out and taken down to where they can be disassembled completely, stripped, regeared and reassembled. My only experience with a rear solid axle was with my XJ, which has the Chrysler 8.25 and uses c-clips. I assumed that the D44 axles would slide out easy once the retainer plate was removed...geese was I wrong. I read to flip the drum and barely install the lug nuts onto the ends of the wheel studs, giving you enough room to jerk the drum and essentially use the drum as a slide hammer...no dice. I ended up installing my old spare tire, which won't be needed anyway, and beat the living crud out of the back of it to free the axles. All is well now. The last pic is of my newly straightened bumper. Once removed, it was in much worse shape than I thought. I was afraid that it was beyond repair. Knox Custom Chrome straightened it out for $100 and they had it fixed in 1 day. I had them straighten, grind & repair, but not refinish the bumper. I am undecided whether to powder coat or paint it. It will probably be painted to make touch-ups easier down the road.

I'll check that out. The ZJ motor came from a jy. It still has the yellow marker on the valve cover saying it is out of a 1998 Grand Cherokee and the mileage. It's funny, but this little truck seems really strong. I also have a '97 XJ that my wife bought new. It is a 4.0L AW4 with 4.56 gears on 33's. The MJ currently has 3.07 gears and 28" tall tires. The MJ has tons better acceleration even with the taller gearing. I know it's lighter, but there has to be more to it. The best I can figure is that the AW4 is a power hog. I've read they aren't overly efficient, but geese, my MJ feels like a hot rod compared to the XJ. The AX15 has a deeper 1st gear, but the MJ feels stronger at pretty much any rpm and any gear. I've done some seat of the pants comparisons at highway speed with the XJ in drive (1:1) and the MJ in 4th (1:1) and the MJ wins hands-down. Tonight I got the rear suspension removed. It went pretty smooth except for one bolt. The front leaf spring bolt on the driver's side seized in the bushing. The nut was easy enough to get off but the bolt wouldn't come out because it was married to the inner sleeve of the bushing. I had to cut the head and tip off the bolt and spread the leaf spring pocket slightly to get the spring out. Now that I have both axles out, it's time to regear. Since this truck is only going to be on 32's, I had planned all along to run 4.10's, but what the heck, too much gear is better than not enough...I am going 4.56. 4.56 gears should give me a little better crawl ratio and besides the MJ will not see long drives at anything of 65-70 mph anyway. Since I forgot to take pics of my progress, here's a couple pics of my XJ...hope XJ's are tolerated here.

Thanks. As far as I can tell, it is the original paint, but it has faded to almost flat black. When I first brought it home, it had a pinstripe that was so deteriorated that it looked like morse code.

Tonight I was able to remove the rear bumper and loosen, but not remove, the leaf spring bolts. I didn't have enough time to properly remove the rear axle, so I left the bolts in the end of the springs. After getting my bumper off, it looks worse than I thought, but I still think it can be repaired. The end caps & top plastic pieces are good, it just needs a lot of straightening.

Well...I finally began disassembly of my '91 this weekend. I bought it back in September and have been driving it a few days a week and fixing small things along the way while I accumulated most the parts I needed for my build. Here is what I am starting with: 1991 2wd, 4.0L, AX-15, short bed. No real options except the 4.0 & air conditioning. Standard column, bench seat, no cruise, no delay wiper. Basic, plain interior. The po had a buddy parting out a long bed MJ that had a D44. He talked him out of it, so it already has a decent rear axle. The po bought it on the cheap from a guy who let it overheat. The original motor was toast. He swapped in a jy 4.0 from a 1998 Grand Cherokee. The truck has approximately 185K miles, but the block has right at 120k. It has almost no rust (the po repaired the floor & did a good job), the body is straight and will only require minor work to make it perfect. Everything works, it runs great, tracks & stops straight, ac blows icy cold...now what better than to tear it all apart. Here's my plan: convert to 4wd regear axles to 4.56 4.5" of lift, spring under 32x11.50 tires TJ Ravine wheels (hyper black) '97 front header panel & fender swap replace bench with bucket seats & add a center console repaint (leaning towards a medium gray/silver metallic) replace windshield with '97 up style & install new rear slider Basically, I am hoping my truck will look similar to Rymanrph's rescue green truck, except in silver. I'll run a little more lift and 32's, but it is still the basic look I am shooting for. Also, to keep it somewhat simple, I plan to use the original interior for the most part, but I have already removed everything but the dash and re-dyed all of the pieces. Parts aquired for suspension/drivetrain: Hell Creek 4.5" rear springs Rubicon Express 4.5" front coils Rubicon Express LCA's Rock Krawler UCA's Rock Krawler adjustable trac bar Bilstein 5100 front & rear shocks Novak transfer case shifter cable kit JB Conversions sye kit '96 hi-pinion XJ front axle (297 u-joints) '94 XJ AX15, bellhousing & 231 transfer case Advance Adapters clutch slave cylinder & braided line I'm sure there more but that is all I can think of at the moment. This weekend, I cleaned it up, pulled it into my warehouse at work, removed the front suspension and basically got everything organized to move forward. I am somewhat limited as far as how much time I can spend on this project at a time. I have a 4 year old and a two year old and they keep me pretty busy. I should be able to wrench an hour or two every evening after work, but that's about it for now. Unfortunately, I don't have the space needed to do the work at home. Here it is for now:

It was the tach. I went to pull-a-part this morning & picked up a tach out of a '94 XJ. It now works as it should. On a side note, the Knoxville P-A-P has a 1987 MJ on the lot since 12-27. It is a 2wd. 6 cyl Sport Truck. The rear axle is gone. I took the headliner, tailgate latch, visor hardware and a few other bits.

Thanks. I went to the pull-a-part on Saturday to pick up another tach, but they were closed. I'll try again this weekend. Auto & manual shouldn't make a difference. I do assume 4 cyl & 6 cyl tachs are calibrated differently. It shouldn't be an issue for me, mine is a 4.0 and it seems that 90% of the XJ's I come across are 4.0's also.

My '97 XJ has: Polk 6 1/2" component woofers & tweeters mounted in Q-Form kick panels. Polk 6 1/2" two ways in the front doors. Polk 5 1/4" component woofers & tweeters mounted in rear overhead soundbar. Blaupunkt 8" sub under driver's seat. Polk 10" sub in custom box made to fit in cubby area in the rear storage compartment. The head unit powers the door speakers. I have an Alpine 4 channel amp that powers both sets of components. The Blaupunkt sub has it's own amp made into the enclosure & I have an Alpine sub amp that powers the 10". It plays very loud and very clean. It may not impress the thump thump rap crowd, but it plays the classic rock, heavy metal & jazz that I listen to accurately at levels well beyond my threshold of pain. I am just starting a '91 MJ build. I plan to do something a little less involved. I'll probably get the same 6 1/2's for the doors. I have a nice set of Kenwood 4x6's that will fit nice in the factory rear spots. If the bass needs filling out, I may add 10" sub later.

Original speaker is 5 1/4", but larger speakers will fit. I have these 6 1/2" speakers in my XJ: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_107DB651S/Polk-Audio-db651s.html?tp=95&avf=N&nvpair=FFBrand%7cPolk+Audio I did not have to enlarge the opening...I only had to drill new mounting holes and they fit fine.

Nope...it's an AX15.

Hey guys. I posted this also at the cherokeeforum, but am still looking for answers. Hopefully, someone has had a similar issue and can point me in the right direction. The tachometer on my '91 MJ seems to be having issues. A couple of weeks ago, I was driving on the interstate at a steady 2200 rpm and noticed the needle would drop to 1500 or so for a minute or two and then pop back up to where it was supposed to be. It did that a few times and then seemed to work as it should. This weekend I was driving and noticed that at highway speed, my tach showed about 750 when it should have been more like 1500. I pushed the clutch in and let the motor settle to idle and the tach dropped all the way to zero. Even though the needle is off, it does go up and down as I rev the motor. It has never completely quit, it just reads wrong. I pulled the gauges & checked all of the connections. I torqued down all of the screws on the back of the cluster that go through the printed circuit into the back of the gauges. I removed, cleaned & reattached the connector at the pcm. I removed, cleaned and reattached the grounds at the block, rear tail lamp, etc. The tachometer does function. The needle raises and falls with rpm, it just reads off by approx. 750 rpm. It sits on or just above zero at idle, but rises immediately if I give it some gas. When I start the Jeep, it shoots up to about 1000-1200 for a second or two and then settles back down to zero. I am stumped. Also, I have no other gauge issues aside from my fuel gauge reading 3/4 when full. All other lights, gauges, switches function as normal. Any ideas?

Thanks for the input. I think I will hold out for a correct MJ bar.

Hey Guys. I am starting a '91 project and happened across this roll bar. I can get it for right at $100, but it's a couple of hundred miles for me. I have a friend who can pick it up and deliver it for free, but is the price fair? Also, does anyone know what it is out of? It looks a little different from the factory ones that I have seen, but I am no expert. This is my first MJ. Thanks

roger... thanks for the advise

That being the case, would it just be more simple to get a complete column?

Thanks...that's great news. I've looked at a few XJ's in the junkyard with delay and you are right, the box just plugs in in-line. It looks like the turn signal switch has a two wire connector...any idea where it plugs in at the base of the column.

I have a '91 with a standard non tilt column. It has no cruise and no delay wipers. While I don't care whether or not my MJ has tilt, cruise would be nice and delay wipers would be great. I see that replacement cruise/delay arms are relatively cheap new, about $25. Also, I don't mind scrounging for a delay module and cruise components at the pull-a-part . My question is this: If I locate all of the necessary cruise & delay components, will I be able to swap out the turn signal arm and simply plug it in? I suppose I could pull a column from an XJ with cruise & delay, but it seems like more trouble than necessary since I don't care if it has tilt. Any advice is appreciated.

Use interior spray dye. It works great. You should be able to get black at most any auto parts store. Clean the old parts to remove any dirt or previously applied dressings such as Armor All or Sun Of A Gun. I use rubbing alcohol. It cleans well and evaporates fast. Clean it several times to make sure it is perfectly clean and then spray the dye. Similar to painting, 90% of the quality of your results will come back to surface preparation.

I picked up a nice '96 front axle this weekend at the K-Town Pull-A-Part. I think it was overlooked because it was in a '94. I noticed it had the larger u-joints and after inspecting a little bit closer could see where it had 96 Cherokee marked on the axle. I suppose whoever owned the Jeep before swapped in a '96 unit from a jy. ...one step closer to 4x4.

No problem. Just hoping to help.

Just studied my 97 XJ FSM...here we go... Orange wire is M1 circuit. It should get constant hot. Center large gauge white wire is M2 circuit. It grounds if door ajar switch goes to ground. The circuit also ties into headlamp switch, so if you turn knob completely to left, it will illuminate the overhead lamp. The two small gauge white wires are the Z1 circuit and should go to constant ground. When you press either of the reading lamp buttons, the reading lamp switch closes and completes the circuit, turning on that particular reading lamp. It makes sense based on your pic. Orange power is supplied to both sides. The large white switched ground is for the dome light & the two separate grounds complete the smaller reading lamp circuits. You may want to mock it up and test it first, but that is how I understand it.

Here's my RigidCo FbW2. Their website totally stinks, but you can see the bumpers they make here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rigid/collections/ The bumper was $460 + $40 extra to have the fog light insert upgrade. Terry will also make them with a brush guard if you wish...not sure how much more that is. I did a lot of research before ordering a bumper, but settled on the RigidCo because of the mounting system. It is really well done and strong as heck.