aemsee

I have been wanting a 242 t-case so that my truck is easier to drive in the winter months up here in CNY. Not finding a 21 spline anywhere, mjeff sent a 21 spline input to me to use in a 23 spline case I had (for cost of shipping. great guy, great club). Spent a sunday tearing down the 242, checking everything, changing some seals and bearings and installing the 21 input. Upon reassembly, the extension housing wouldn't tighten down over the pump. :dunno:(good reason for NOT using air tools to assmeble stuff) . After taking it apart and reassembling it two more times I realized that the bearing on the 21 spline input wasn't installed as deep as the 23 spline input. This was what was keeping the output shaft assy too high. No problem. Quick trip to the press seated the bearing deeper. Reassemble......NOOOO...now it is too deep :doh: . Since it is a blind hole I needed to "invent" a puller to bring it back out 3/8 of an inch. That only took about an hour! :wall: . Finally, success. Bearing proper depth and case successfully glued together. . That was two weeks ago. Today I went to work to install it. Pulled the 231, no problem. Go to install the 242 and it darn near slid off the trans jack :eek: ! Reposition it and jack her up. Get it lined up, wiggle it a bit and slide it on. But then it stops short , by about 1/2 an inch or so :hmm: . Try to draw it down with the nuts, no dice. Thinking the input seal housing was a tad larger, out comes the case. Nope, seal housing is the same.....OH NOOO....input shaft to trans output shaft depth is wrong :fs1: . Must be two different length outputs. :ack: Back in goes the old 231. Now I have a total of about 12 hours in to the rebuild and attempted installation. God I love my jeeps! Oh, to top it off, the speedo didn't work after putting the 231 back in.

What is up with the camber? Usually a camber issue with a dana means bent axle or knuckles. Did you reuse the old knuckles after the swap?

Why didn't you just use the factory switches on the door.

Well, at least he didn't say you just won a million dollars in their lottery.

That is nice. How is his sense of humor? Tell him you found a 5 inch lift kit and some 33's for it :D

Did this ever get resolved? I just finished rebuilding a 242 for my 'manche. Did you use the entire shifter assy for the 242, or just the gate? Sounds like a problem with the length of an arm on the pivot assy. Also, make sure the adjusting rod isn't bent.

Wife is doing a three day yard sale, so needed to keep busy. Decided to put in the rockers I bought last year. These were supposed to be made for a Comanche. Yeah, right. Had to cut them in half and then slice out the bottom section. Apparently who ever made them did not realize that MJ rockers taper toward the front. No biggie, they were still cheaper than buying flat steel and fabbing them up. here are my rockers to start with. I used a saber saw with some good metal blades. Zipped right through them. Here they are cut out. Here are a couple of shots of the drivers side patched in with rivets. Was going to weld them in but couldn't find my welding helmet :dunno: . Have to finish up another day. Pass side is in as well, but forgot to take pics. Here she is in the back yard with my company "car".

What was the total for this rebuild? Don't usually hear of .030 bore jobs being done to the lowly 2.5. There is the chance that he needed to custom grind the rings for the .030 pistons to set proper end gap. How does she run other than the oil usage (when the plugs aren't fouling out) ?

Eagle, on the 4.0 and 2.5 there are actual valve stem seals. They are pushed on to the valve guide and are stationary. Some of the early motors also used a deflector on the exhaust valve in addition to the seal. A worn guide will allow the seals to leak as excessive side clearance will damage the seal.

You only need to make one stop for all your wants, just have to make sure Wildman isn't home at the time :D . (for a small fee I can lure him out of town with tales of MJ's for sale)

First, I think you mean valve 'guides' not valve seats. You don't knurl valve seats. Find someone else to do the leak down test. Less than 40% could mean 39%. That is totally unacceptable. Do you see blue smoke on start up, especially after sitting over night? That is a classic valve seal sign. Valve seals won't cause a leakdown problem. What are you using for oil? Hopefully you did not put in synthetic at first. It has been said that it can keep rings from seating properly. What type of work was done on the block, and how many miles were on it? Hopefully the shop did bore out-of-round and taper measurements on it. What did they use for rings? Did they do the assembly, or did you? Do the plugs appear to be oil fouled or gas fouled? There are so many variables it could be from a number of things. I guess if the shop is willing to do the valve seals N/C, I would let them do them and go from there. Keep all your documents as it may end up being a legal issue in the end. Also ask them if they have a spec sheet from when they did the work on your engine.

Has anyone ever used these? Hate to spend $60 on a piece of sheet metal that I need to rework to fit. They look mighty "flat" from the picture.

Please elaborate. Why is it "junk"? Have you experienced hardware failure, or just electrons? Sam, what about switching the rear bolt pattern so that you can run 5 on 5 wheels? Then you wouldn't need all of those silverstars you are hoarding and could sell me a couple! :brows:

You have a loss of vacuum to the heater control head. Defrost is the default position for safety. Follow the vacuum lines from the engine to the firewall and down to the vacuum canister.

or the disconnect swaybar.

Three soldiers two bunkers away from me in Vietnam were killed by NVA infiltrators because the guy who was supposed to be awake and on watch was high on Mary Jane. Don't EVER try to tell me weed hasn't ever killed anybody. Weed didn't kill him, his own stupidity did. That is like saying guns kill people. It is just too bad he took others with him. Not advocating, just making a point.

Nice write-up. A couple of times I had to use a large pipe wrench on the head of the screw to break it loose. That wrench with the 3 foot handle found many uses working on Jeeps!

Whats wrong with the stop sign? everyone I've known with a stop sign swiped it off a pole.

like everything but the stop sign. :no:

I still have my wheel cylinder hone :D

if ya only knew the half of it. I'll be putting scrap tags on those. total waste.

we lost 15 in our business zone here in NY. I know most of the guys that are out of jobs. I'll surely be getting the axe again any day now.

Did your dealer make the cut?

thats just a babe. My truck is 22 yrs old....my car is 36 yrs old.

you definitly don't have a 30rh in the xj. That would be a 3spd mopar tranny. And those don't have removeable bellhousings. The jeep has an AW4 (aisin-warner 4spd). That won't easily mate to the 5.9