NotMatt

Just as an FYI, in case you didn't already know this... the AX-15 from a YJ is different from the AX-15 in a comanche or XJ. The output housing that the transfer case bolts to is different, clocking the transfer case up further than on an XJ/MJ. You'll probably find that you'll have to beat on the floor pan of the XJ to make the t-case fit after you install a YJ AX-15. You can remedy this by swapping the output adapter off the back of the trans. It's kind of a pain, and involves taking the shifter apart and removing some bolts that hold the whole assembly in place. It's been a long time since I did it. It sounds like you already have the trans apart somewhat, so now would be the time to do it. As far as gaskets go, I used RTV when I swapped the tail housing and it's still leak free years later.

Nice catch, Matt!! Lol, been there, done that... put a 93 AW4 into an 87 XJ that originally had a BA10, and.... no starty, no worky. Took a little bit of head-scratching to figure it out.

If you have a BA10 that means you have a RENIX motor (87-90), and thus you need an 87-90 flexplate. Reason-being that the CPS style is different from RENIX to HO 4.0's, and the flexplate is what has the "windows" in it that the CPS reads. Make sure you remove the pilot bushing for the BA10 from the crank when doing this swap too. Finally, I have the flexplate that you need, but no torque converter... and I'm sure shipping is a pain. You should be able to find both parts locally at any parts store.

False alarm, just the gauge being wonky. I put a mechanical gauge on it and all is good. I put a new sender on it and cut the old connector off and crimped a new one on and it's still being funny, so I guess it's my gauge or cluster. Indeed it most likely is, because I forgot that about the time I did the rear main seal I put a new cluster in with a tach. So, when I have some time I'll probably dig out my old cluster that has gauges but no tach and swap the oil pressure gauge component into my tach cluster, if I can. Or I'll just put the mechanical gauge on permanent and skip the cluster gauge.

Just put a brand new regular WIX filter on and filled it with 10w-30 Penzoil.

Yes, we'll see. Crossing my fingers that it's just an electrical issue with the gauge or sending unit or wiring in between. After googling around a little bit, I found this thread where the OP talks about the oil filter gasket blowing out and the engine stalling right after startup with the problem possibly being a stuck pressure relief valve.... mine is definitely running ok, but that doesn't mean it's not just "kind of" sticky and not fully stuck closed. I'll update this thread tonight when I test it out with a mech. gauge.

So here's the history, 89 4.0L, AW4. Originally had dummy lights, swapped in a tach cluster with gauges and a brand new oil pressure sender (correct one for gauge, not a new dummy light one). After the swap, everything was hunky-dory. About 60 lbs cold pressure, and the gauge would drop to about 30 idling when hot and bump up to 50 or so while driving. Life was good. I had the front axle out for a 4wd swap and so I went ahead and pulled the pan and replaced the rear main seal since it was convenient. Silly me though, I didn't bother to remove and inspect the oil pump. Now everything is back together. At first things were the same as before as far as oil pressure goes. I drove it to work today and after getting about halfway there I noticed that the oil pressure gauge is pegged all the way to the right while idling. While driving or if I blip the throttle up a bit, it drops slightly and wanders around way above the 80lb mark, then pegs all the way to the right again once back to idle. I'm dreading the idea of finding that the pressure relief spring in the pump is sticking and I have to pull the pan again. Anyone ever had that problem and do the symptoms I described point to that being the issue? I supposed tonight I will see if I can dig out a mechanical gauge from the parts pile to put on there. That would at least tell me whether it's an actual oil pressure excess or just a electrical issue with the gauge or sender. Thoughts?

Alright, so I've been making progress but haven't been taking too many pics. Picked some goodies up from Rockridge 4wd on Friday. Bilstein 5100 shocks and some RE brake lines. Spent friday night getting those installed and a few things buttoned up after swapping in the 4wd tranny and transfer case. Got 'em all installed and got the brakes bled. And a parting shot after getting her on the road tonight. I spent today getting the exhaust buttoned up, getting the bed cleaned out and putting some rear shocks on. I put a flowmaster 40 series on and replaced some beat up portions of the tailpipe and put some high heat black on everything. I'm driving her around in front wheel drive right now cause I still need to get a rear driveline built. I have some 1" lift shackles for the rear on order that should be here next week, but I'm not sure if I will put them on or not...

I only know 4.0 stuff, not sure on 2.5's with AX5, but... 4.0 with AW4 or AX-15 5spd are the same. 4.0 with BA10 5spd is shorter because the trans is shorter overall.

More progress last night, got the radiator installed and the front-end all put back together, and put some canyons with worn out 33's on last night. Not sure if I want to stick with 33's when I buy new tires or trim the fenders a bit and run 35's. I really like the look of the canyons with stock fender flares all the way around, and 33's would be less of a hassle on 3.55 gears right now. I ordered some 1" lift shackles for the rear yesterday afternoon to level things out.

Sitting on its own wheels now! The front is about an inch higher than the back, but I'm hoping it will level out after getting a radiator and coolant on the front and the springs settling a bit. I'm going to drive it as is for now and put a lift shackle on the rear later if it still needs leveling out. The caster is at 6 degrees. I need to trim a little off the end threads on my trackbar so I can adjust the body end in a little bit more to pull the axle back to the driver's side, then I need some shocks and brake lines to finish up the front.

Here's a few pics of the long arm install. Still mostly mocked up, I have the arms pulled back out now and need to box in the upper mounts on the lower links and then paint. I have new hardware to go in, then I can put the coils in and get the trackbar all hooked up and see how she sits at ride height. The actual ride height with the coils in ended up sitting quite a bit higher than I had it mocked up at for some reason (maybe I didn't measure something right), so I'm glad I left plenty of room to adjust the castor in the upper arms. When I test fit the springs, it was sitting exactly at 0 degrees compared to my 6 degrees at mocked-up ride height without the coils. So much to do still. :eek:

Final product... the crossmember is done! That was a lot of work! Just need to get four more 7/16 bolts and metal lock nuts tonight after work for the removeable center section, and then I can get it painted and mounted up and welded onto the frame.

More progress on the crossmember tonight. Unfortunately, my garage isn't insulated and I have neighbors close so I can cut and grind all night. Coupled with the fact that I just work slow in general (a few beers'll do that, lol) and I haven't made as much progress as I'd like... but I'm not on any kind of schedule, so oh well. Here's the control arm mounts finished.... And here's after I sliced it in three so I can make the center piece removeable a'la Clayton style. You can see the 3/8" thick by 2" wide material in the background that I will use for the plates on each end. I managed the light my sweatshirt on fire with the sparks while i was doing the cutting too... so focused on cutting each section straight and true, didn't notice all the sparks were burning a hole right through until I smelled the burning material lol. :roll: Still need to box in the ends of the crossmember, that will happen tomorrow after work. I should have the front end all done and sitting on it's own weight this weekend, hopefully. The square exhaust flange is going to be right in the way of the passenger side plates for the removeable center section, but my plan is to cut and extend the B-pipe by a few inches and move it back. There's enough straight material before the cat (smaller aftermarket one) that I should be able to do that. If not, we don't have emissions tests here so I will just remove the cat and replace with a piece of 2.25"

Here's my thinking... assuming it is clean and the connections are tight and waterproof, there really isn't any benefit to removing it. However, if you want to spend the time to solder and heatshrink all of those wires, it would certainly give you some more peace of mind to know that you'll never have to deal with it again. Just make sure you take your time and do a good job on the splicing, and make sure you verify every wire connection... don't want to cross anything. I had to do something similar in my wrangler... it's strictly off road, and does not have fenders any more, and I was worried about the ECM sitting right on the firewall, so I extended each of the wires for the ECM about 6 inches so that I could mount the ECM inside the kick panel where the e-brake pedal used to be. It was a time-consuming project... of course I did two splices for every wire, and you'd only be doing one per wire to get rid of the C101... but still....

I was a little hungover from St. Patty's day yesterday, but I managed to get some work done. Got the crossmember mocked up in it's final location, got one factory control arm mount cut off the frame, and one lower link done. Man, I hate cutting those factory control arm mounts off. All I have to do it with is a grinder and a cutoff wheel. At least one is done, I'll do the other one tonight and start on the other link. The angle is definitely too much on the control arm mount on my crossmember, so I'll break the tacks and cut down the one side some more. Pieces for the links... One link finished...

Here's my start to the crossmember.... 3/16" wall 2" by 4". I just tacked the control arm mounts on for now because I'm not sure if I put too much angle on them. Will have to see once I get the links built. Picked up my material for that... 2" DOM, 1/4" wall. Should be pretty bulletproof. :D I still have to cut the crossmember into three pieces and make the center section removeable. I'm going to built it Clayton style so the sides will get welded to the frame and the center section can dropout if the tranny has to come out for any reason. The control arm mounts will be boxed in further, and the end of the crossmember is going to get plated in and tied into the plate some more.

Interesting problem. I've heard of this being common on the HO motors but never heard of people experiencing issues like this on RENIX motors. As far as the ballast resistor is concerned, I have removed it and spliced the wires together on every renix-era 4.0 I've ever owned... my understanding is that the resistor was added to reduce fuel pump "noise", excessive whine from the pump. If you look on an 87-era rig they don't even have one. Seems like just another item that can cause problems and complicate troubleshooting.

Yep, I normally drive manual transmission rigs... my Wrangler has an AX-15, my Powerstroke has a ZF-5, my old dodge had an NV4500, etc etc. But I love the AW4, one of the best light duty automatics out there... I love the way they shift and "feel" in general.

Here's a little video of starting her up after I got the motor all buttoned back up... Worked on the long arms tonight. I got these for free from a friend who took them off his XJ. They're RE superflex shortarms that the previous owner cut and sleeved to make a ghetto long-arm kit. It was not a very good setup, he sleeved them with 1.75" .120 wall HREW, which wasn't a tight fit over the stock tube material. I went ahead and tore them all apart, and disassembled the RE superflex joints so I don't ruin the poly when I weld the new sleeve material on. Here is after cutting off the old sleeve material and cleaning up all the old paint and rust. I will use 2" diameter 1/4" wall DOM for the links. The ends of the RE arms fit perfectly inside it. I cleaned all the paint off the ends, the link material will be notched so it can slide all the way down to the superflex housing and then be plug welded as well. These should be pretty stout. I also layed out the stock crossmember and took some measurements and brainstormed. I think I have a pretty good plan for that, but it will have to wait until I have some more time to work on it.

Some more updates... Figured out my belt shredding problem, lol. Bad harmonic balancer: Good harmonic balancer: The old one had come apart apart 1/8" and the rubber was starting to come out. Also finished up fixing cracked exhaust manifold. I had to swap a spare intake manifold on too, because one of the power steering pump mount bosses was broken off the front of the one that came in the truck. Made myself a nice custom EGR blockoff plate, and welded up the EGR tube hole in the manifold. Put new motor mounts in, new fuel injector O-rings, new valve cover gasket, new oil filter adapter O-rings. I have a rear main seal and pan gasket ready to go in as well. Thursday night my new RE 5.5" coils, drop pitman arm, Extreme Duty trackbar and bracket came in from Jeff @ RockRidge4wd. Delivered right to his shop and I went and picked them up... nice for me, no extra shipping. :D AAAANDDD... here is some tech. Creaky, noisy trackbar because of loose trackbar bolts drives me NUTS! Every XJ or MJ I've ever owned has had this problem, whether it was the stock trackbar bracket or aftermarket... so, easy solution, weld the trackbar bracket right to the frame. This SOAB ain't coming loose now. I guess if I ever wanted to swap parts, I'd have to order a new bracket... but so what, small price to pay for something I don't plan on doing cause the RE trackbar is the bees knees. And my spare door key I had made... Kinda cool, I didn't expect it to have the AMC logo right on it when the guy handed it to me. :D

Just brainstorming here... can the HO fuel rail be swapped onto the renix intake manifold? I think the injector O-rings are the same, but I'm not sure about the mounting bolt holes lining up. If you're making custom lines it won't matter the difference in return and supply line locations.

Pull the door panel off and then put the window crank back on halfway. Roll the window down a ways and then spray some lube (wd-40, pb-blaster, kroil, etc) down the sides where the window rides in the track. Next, dig around in the bottom of the door and find a flexible metal sheath that's got one end open and just laying in the bottom. Pull this up and hold onto it, spray lube inside it and fill it completely until it starts pouring out in your hand... then roll the window up and down a bunch. This will get the lube inside the whole assembly. Enjoy easier to roll down and up windows. This works for power windows too.

I know I always hate to hear "throw more money at it"... but you really need to replace the control arm bushings. I had similar problems, replaced trackbar, ball joints, tie rod ends, u-joints, etc and made sure it was aligned and still had some wobbles at 60mph on my old XJ. Replacing the control arm bushings was the one trick that finally fixed it. I replaced all of them, both lowers and uppers, and the trackbar bushing at the axle end with polyurethane ones from Energy Suspension and it was like night and day.

This has NEVER worked for me... not sure what I'm doing differently than everyone else who claims to have had success with this trick, but I always end up just making a mess. I'm telling you, the weld around the inside will make it practically fall out. I've done this numerous times and never accidentally welded the spacer to the crankshaft. Take your time, steady hand. You don't have to weld it all the way around, just get most of it.