Minuit

I use KiCAD for all of my circuit-related work. It's a "proper" electronics CAD package, and free as well. For simple wiring diagrams like you'd see on a vehicle, the nice thing is that you can add annotations and stuff right to the schematic in the editor, and it has a lot of pre made schematic symbols so you don't need to draw those either (you can also download them or make your own). You can also take that schematic and export it directly into a printed circuit board editor.

That's an 87-90 style. You're good to go.

1987 through 1990 clusters use the "nylon" style of speedometer cable connection. If yours is truly from an 88, then it will be plug and play after installing the senders. The problem comes when trying to swap an 84-86 cluster into an 87-90 vehicle or vice versa.

The sense of adventure is the best part of it. You never know what you're going to find these days. I built one truck out of junkyard parts, and I'm working on another. These days I've seen almost everything, but when I was a kid the adventure used to be so much better. The shiny paint on my truck and the tires date this picture to early 2014. The inventory actually went about a quarter mile or so behind the camera. That's a yard about 30 minutes from my house. The owner passed on a couple of years ago and the new owners are no where near as chill. Apparently you now have to be escorted to enter the yard, and the prices haven't come down any either.

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I think I recall the later (97+?) version of this being made of a more sturdy material, and I almost think I remember them being still available at some point.

Ok folks, this is a big one. I am seeking a good condition pair of the following seats, Charcoal color only, this style only. These are standard on 1988 through 1992 XJ Limited (possibly optional on some years of Laredo), and optional on 1993 and 1994 XJ Country. I will pay handsomely for the right example in the right condition in the right place. Seats from ZJs and later model XJs may look similar, but they aren't what I need. I do not need the frames, foam, or power bases - only the upholstery. I can show you how to disassemble the seats. If you are willing to remove the covers from the seats and ship only the covers, I will pay you what you wanted for the complete seat plus any extra for your time to remove the covers. I would rather pay shipping than drive long distance for these. To my knowledge, these were largely only offered in 4 door XJs, and that is fine. Part numbers exist for the two door seats, but I've never seen them in person. I do not necessarily need a driver and a passenger set. Two passenger sides is ok, as is two driver sides (unlikely as it may be). I don't care, as long as the upholstery is in good shape. As of right now, I need to assemble the full set of upholstery. That's two backrest covers, two butt cushion covers, and two headrest covers. I'm open to trades as well. I have a lot of stuff, including some rare stuff. The better the condition, the more I'm willing to pay you. Some wear is ok up to a point, but there can not be any tears. If you have a complete seat, I do not care about anything except the condition of the upholstery. Even better if the cushions are collapsed and very uncomfortable, as long as the leather is ok. I am willing to be patient on this. I've been waiting for six years for the right set to appear so far, so a little more can't hurt.

You still have cables to deal with on the floor shifter. At the bare minimum, the shift cable itself runs from the shifter, to the driver side of the transmission tunnel (the hole may or may not be already there - it was on my 91), then around to the transmission. For a column shifter, the hole for the cable is located in the very top left of the firewall. If you want to do it right, there is also a park interlock cable that runs from the shifter to the left side of the steering column. I can't say for sure, but I give it a 99.99% chance that there is no provision for this on the manual transmission column in his truck. This will result in being able to shift the trans out of park without the ignition being turned on, and being able to take the key out with the transmission in gear. This is all handled inside the column on a column-shift column. I like the floor shifter and bucket seats a million times better, but it's a toss up if it's any easier than swapping to a column shifter.

Good idea. Just because you can see voltage on a multimeter (that puts so little load on a circuit it might as well be zero) doesn't mean the circuit can carry current. And if the voltage at the plug is 10.8V with no load, I can imagine the current carrying ability of this circuit isn't very good to begin with. 10.8V at the washer plug is very low. Makes me think you've got one or many bad connections between the battery and the pump. What is the battery voltage with the ignition and wipers on? Was this reading with the engine on or off?

Nice V8 engine noises dubbed over the disappointing truth.

Damn! 9 XJs! I need to go to the junkyards where you guys are... ours are dry as a bone for Jeeps older than 2000 anymore.

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Minuit put out a build thread update? Holy $#!&! Getting Jealous: April-May 2019 I have long complained about the 9" drum brakes equipped to Dana 35s after 1989. I've been fighting with them since almost day one, and I've never gotten both sides to stay operational for longer than a month. The last straw was in late June, when I decided to try to get the right rear adjuster working... again. It lasted for about 3 stops, at which point the 4 year old aftermarket wheel cylinder thanked me for my dedication by filling my drum with brake fluid. I had been spending more time on the 89 recently (and it had brake problems of its own), and I think this is what payback looks like. As much as the stock drum brakes suck on the c-clip D35, there is a bolt-on disc brake option available in the utterly ubiquitous ZJ. This system is virtually identical to the Ford Explorer's rear disc brakes, and some parts interchange. This swap is only "bolt-on" on c-clip Dana 35 axles! The very next day, I beelined it to the junkyard at opening time, and came back with this cast of characters: You're looking at the following: - A pair of brake backing plates from a ZJ D35, with the ZJ's parking brake cables still attached. Included is some completely worn out parking brake hardware. The ZJ parking brake cables will fit an MJ, but they'll be too short to route them as factory. The ZJ parking brake cables have brackets on them that should be removed as they have no place to go on the MJ. - A pair of brake rotors from a different ZJ. Not side specific. These appear to have been replaced shortly before the ZJ they were on was junked. - A pair of brake calipers from two other, different ZJs. These are unrebuilt original calipers. Make sure the bleeder moves and the calipers can be retracted before buying them. Installed in the calipers are the slide pins and boots. If your calipers have torn boots, don't worry. The slide assemblies including boots can be replaced separately. As long as the caliper moves and the bleeder opens, the caliper is good. - A full set of brake pads with about 75% of the material left. Don't worry, I won't run them for long. I just needed a full set of parts to debug with. - Also attached to the calipers, two rear soft lines. For our purposes, these are not side-specific. They have brackets on them to attach to the ZJ's coil spring mounts, but you'll want to remove them. That bracket is the only difference between the driver and passenger side lines. The next step is to remove the drum backing plates. The drum brakes can be removed complete, so I didn't waste any time taking them apart. The only "high stakes" or unusual thing that needs to be done in this build is to pull the axle shafts. To do so, the diff cover must come off and this 1/4" 12-point bolt needs to come out: If you break this, I don't really know what to tell you. Mine came out easily as did the one on the junkyard ZJ I pulled the backing plates from. After the cross pin is out, just push each axle in, take the c-clips out, and pull back out. We have to remove the shafts anyway, because disc brake D35s also had longer wheel studs. I can't say for sure if it's an absolute necessity to install the longer studs, but the factory did it for a reason. You'll need 10 wheel studs for a ZJ with disc brakes - make sure they don't sell you the ones for drum brakes. If you have any anger built up, now is the time. Anyway, once the brake line is disconnected and the shaft is out of the way, the drum brake backing plate comes off with 4 nuts. The ZJ disc brake backing plate is a direct fit: This would be a really good time to change out your wheel bearings or axle seals. Will I regret not changing my axle seals? We'll see. As a side note, I did not install the parking brake assembly at the time, as the truck is an auto and I did not buy the new parts. This was a one-day swap, remember. With the backing plates installed, the axle shafts can be reinstalled and the brake parts can be put back together just like any other vehicle. The original brake line can be reused, if you can get yours to come off. For me, one of the lines got stuck, so I ended up making new lines: Not the prettiest, but this D35 won't be in here much longer. Didn't I say that about 5 years ago? So, how do the disc brakes work? A million times better than the drums ever did, and much more consistently. I did not delete the proportioning valve or upgrade to the 95+ booster, both of which I have seen people on this forum claim are a "must" for a disc brake swap. I actually had to un-do an adjustment I made to the LSPV a year or two back to increase rear brake pressure - the adjustment immediately caused premature rear lockup with the discs. Braking immediately happens as soon as you push the pedal. All in all, it feels like it should have in the beginning. Next up was a question that had bugged me for quite some time: The heater control valve - we've all cut one out and tossed it in the garbage, but did it really have a purpose? To get to the bottom of this (and before I spend $50 on a new valve), we need to realize what it is: a selectable heater core bypass. So, on two consecutive days with very, very similar weather, I tested this on the drive to and from work. On the first day, I drove to work with the A/C on, with my heater control valve delete in place - full flow of coolant to the heater core at all times. On the highway, the A/C vent temperature stabilized at between 47 and 48 degrees on Normal, fan speed 2. After getting home, I did this: .. and then drove to work the next day. A/C vent temps stabilized after about 5 minutes of highway driving at just over 43 degrees! So, it would appear that for my truck with my A/C system, coolant flow through the heater core does make a measurable difference. So, it became clear that I would be putting the heater control valve back in. I'm an A/C junkie, and a 3-7 degree difference is worth fighting for in my book. So here's where I admit I did something stupid. When I had the whole interior out, I tied the heater control valve vacuum line back... inside the truck. The very worst possible situation. I didn't remember exactly where I had tied it back, and I damn sure wasn't going to tear the entire heater box out to find it, so I had to go feeling for it. I did eventually find it... but getting it back through the firewall would be a job in itself. Fortunately, I had some brake line left over from the disc conversion, so I used it and some 20 gauge wire to make an ad-hoc fish tape. I shoved the brake line (with the wire taped to the far end) through the on the engine bay side just above the A/C pipes... ... cut the elbow off of the line so it wouldn't rip a giant hole in my evaporator gasket, taped it to the brake line, and pulled it back through. I make this sound easy. It was not. Anyway, after spending a fair chunk of change on the correct heater hoses to put the valve back in (and then having to cut them to fit, which was annoying), I was left with a rarity... someone actually putting a heater control valve back in a Jeep. Dare to be different, I guess. All Breeds Jeep Show Preparations - June-July 2019 It became clear that I was going to the show in York, PA in this truck, and I had some work to do to get it fit for the 750 mile trip each way. I pride myself on having a truck that isn't a complete junk heap and is actually fit to drive, and I wasn't going to have a breakdown along the way, so I took the pre-trip preparations seriously. I deleted the "extra" wiring I added to make the electric fan switchable, as I did not feel it was needed. I picked up this "fog lights only" switch bezel a while ago, so on it went: As a side note, that chalky looking switch is no more than three or four years old. Disappointing. This wiring for the ballast resistor was looking a little scabby: The connectors are just single-pin 1/4" quick disconnects in plastic housings. Utterly ubiquitous - I put a couple of new ones in with my next radio parts order and put them on: This $#!& was not gonna fly anymore: I hold this build to high standards of electrical connections, and for me to have this $#!&show of a radio harness in my truck in 2019 is not acceptable. I've got more than enough wire here to do away with this mess of butt connectors entirely, so, by golly, I'm gonna do it! The '88-'96 radio connector is a 13-pin AMP MIC Mark II connector. The pins are AMP part number 172773-1, and they crimp just fine with standard open-barrel crimping tools. This probably isn't very helpful to anyone else, but I use a Metripack 150 male pin to de-pin these connectors. Much better. I also took the opportunity to de-complicate the speaker wire situation. Previously, I used a relatively complicated jumper harness to pass the signals to the amplifier without disturbing the factory wiring, and then going back to the original connector - about a 10-foot long harness if you laid it out. A much cleaner, more elegant solution to do the same thing but with less wiring is this: The speaker signals pass through entirely factory wiring until they reach the green 2-pin Metripack 150 connectors that connect to each door harness. That plug used to go to the speakers, but now it goes to the woofer-tweeter crossover at each side. The woofer signal plugs into the other end of the factory connector, and the tweeter signal goes to each tweeter. A much simpler solution. My only regret is that I only had blue and white 18AWG wire to build the harness with, so I have multiple circuits using the same wire. Still, I built it so that it can only be plugged in correctly - which is something that any good wiring harness design needs to adhere to. My tailpipe had gotten a little too short for comfort, so enter a new one: The tailpipe itself fit perfectly with no issues... however, this truck has had plenty of exhaust work done by people that don't have the level of pickiness that I do. Instead of getting the correct muffler for the truck, they just slapped whatever they had on it. So, when I tried to line the tailpipe up with the muffler, I got this: The muffler they put in is a center inlet, offset outlet muffler. The muffler that should be on this truck is an offset inlet, center outlet muffler - so when you try to line up the correct parts, they aren't even close! This is somewhat of a perspective trick - the tailpipe is long enough to reach the muffler, but the muffler's outlet pipe was a solid two inches away from where it needed to be to line up with the tailpipe. One VERY LOUD MY EARS ARE STILL RINGING drive to the parts store later, followed by a muffler installation in the parking lot: Hey, that's a lot better. How does it fit in the front? Ugh. Those "band" exhaust clamps are never a good sign. All of the exhaust pipes on this system are supposed to slip over one another. Guess I'm going to have to replace the cat too, if I want a system that clamps together like it should. Anyway, all of this made the exhaust significantly quieter. Not perfect, since that stupid band clamp doesn't seal completely, but better. This truck is due for the rest of the exhaust to be replaced soon anyway, so I'll deal with that if and when we get there. It does look a hell of a lot better now, actually having a tailpipe. No way in hell was I going to drive 1500 miles with no cruise control. Thankfully, I own a '91 Jeep and adding cruise control is easy! Well, sort of. The cruise control actuator lives here. Its position is marked by three punched divots in the inner fender. Drill those out to 1/8" and run self tappers in, and you're golden. Two of them are easy to get to, but the third requires removing the PDC, coolant bottle, and battery unless you own a right angle drill. This was a good opportunity to clean this area of the engine bay, so I did. Yuck. That's better. The connector should be poking out of the harness in approximately this area - it's one of those Chrysler proprietary connectors. I decided to experiment with a base+clear paintjob on the bracket. It looks alright, but I'm not a huge fan of the rattle-can clear coat I used. To separate the actuator and bracket, remove those two nuts and undo a bowtie clip. The vacuum harness should have a tee in it right where the actuator lives - pull the cap off of it, and connect the actuator where the cap was. Here it is fully installed: Now, the hard bit: installing the stalk. I've been putting this off, but it has to be done. This will be a lot easier if you don't have a tilt column. This connector is what you're aiming at, down at the base of the column. Unfortunately, you have to thread that wire through the steering column to get to it. Oh boy, here we go again: I decided to pull the steering wheel and lock plate off to make it easier to route the oversized connector on my stalk through the column. I tear into these GM steering columns regularly and have all the tools needed to service them, so your mileage may vary. It still wasn't much fun, but I eventually did get it. Installing the actuator and the stalk is all you have to do on a '91. Sure enough, it works perfectly right away. Controls are identical to the GM system of the era. At some point, the fuel pump wires came out of their loom and scraped on the driveshaft. I cut out all of the chafed wires, soldered them back together, and loomed the harness up: I need to find out what is supposed to retain all of this stuff. What I think are the clips for the fuel lines and wire harness have long since broken off. Zipties are a little bit unprofessional. That scabby looking original coolant bottle was practically opaque, so I went to the Bay of E and came back with this new one: Nice. I'll let you know how long it takes for it to look ugly again. And then, the day before I was supposed to leave arrived. I spent the afternoon doing a complete check on every system of the truck, changed the oil, and looked everything over. I had the truck idling with the A/C on, and then I heard it... taktaktakatakatakataka A very faint tapping noise, and only with the A/C on. That unsettled me just enough to investigate further - sure enough, it was coming from the NOS A/C compressor I put on just a few short months before. I do not take risks with A/C, especially right before a 1500 mile trip, and I was NOT going to miss this trip. So - the obvious solution: I call every parts store within an hour's drive asking for an A/C compressor. And, as it turns out, a parts store in Franklin could get one by 4 PM! (this is about 1:30) I use the time in between to recover the refrigerant and drain the oil out of the compressor looking for metal - fortunately, I found none - so a compressor hotswap was possible. Fast forward some fairly boring A/C work (I was not taking pics, as I was trying to get done as quickly as possible. At about 8 PM, I had this: So then I went to bed, and slept terribly... because I never sleep well the night before Jeep-related events. Anyway, 5 AM the next day came, and I was off! The truck was an absolute pleasure to drive the entire way. No mechanical failures of any kind happened, and the truck was as smooth as a cloud and as quiet as your granddad's Buick. The only interesting thing that happened on the entire drive was that a trucker tried to merge into me once. In most old vehicles, extended highway driving involves suffering. In this truck, it just isn't. All of the sound deadening, stereo amplification, and attention to detail ensures that. At the 450 mile mark, I stopped and checked all of the fluids. No issues! Right before getting into Pennsylvania, I stopped for gas and to look at some scenery: ...and after 12 hours of driving, I made it and entered my truck in the 2019 All Breeds Jeep Show: \ We won the club participation award: (I'm third from left in the maroon shirt) Someone drove their Jeep further than me! I hear that it was a much newer model, so we all know who the real winner is. Going to the show was easily in the top 3 things I've done with this truck, and everything involved in getting there was absolutely worth it. I'd REALLY love to make this a recurring thing. Can't forget the D44 I brought home with me, either. And maybe someday @Pete M will come get his sweet Comanche marked bedliner. I really do love it in the mean time, though. Daily Driver, for real: August 2019 - Present After the show, not much exciting happened. I went back to work in Nashville from August to December, and drove the truck for the majority of that as long as the roads weren't salted. I did decide to install the original valve cover again, now painted in a nice shade of silver: I never was 100% happy with the 97+ valve cover. Its gasket relies on pins built into the head bolts for alignment, which my older engine just doesn't have. As a result, I never could get it to stop leaking, and after a while I decided I liked the classic cast aluminum look better anyway. In October, the auxiliary fan died on me, resulting in the temperature gauge moving off of its normal spot when sitting in traffic with the A/C on. My junkyard spare failed me, so I bought a new one: Yes, I peeled that cheap looking sticker off right away. I also started wondering if I'd like a leather wrapped steering wheel (spoiler alert: yes) - a search for a good OEM one in black predictably resulted in nothing, so I tried out one that had been reupholstered: I'm pretty happy with it. It's not perfect, and it's not an exact match for the OE pattern, but looks nice and is very comfortable in the hand. Next up: time for me to break stuff! I've had a ZJ steering box sitting around for a while. I swapped it in. I may be producing a full writeup on this later, but the important points are these: - This job sucks alone. It really sucks alone. - The gearbox must be adjusted according to the FSM procedure, which is NOT what you see on Jeep forums. There is more to it than what you see online. - The quicker ratio, combined with proper adjustment, GREATLY improves steering responsiveness and tightness. It steers almost like a real car now, not some junky old farm truck. I did not take pictures, because it was a dirty job, and hoisting a 40 pound box above your head without help isn't exactly conducive to picture taking. I also took the opportunity to replace the intermediate shaft. In the process of this, I broke the fuel line. Fortunately, an upgrade exists, in the form of the fuel line from a '95 ZJ: This is a steel braided line, and of a much more durable construction than factory. It fits right up, and there aren't even any o-rings to replace. Looks sporty too. I then drove to Missouri and back to meet @jeepdude89 and return with a care package for this truck's older, sometimes forgotten, brother: Next, I set out to do something I laid the foundation for literally years ago: add power mirrors. I've even had the switch in my truck and plugged in for the last few months or so. Here We Go Again! I decided to take a chance and buy some cheap mirrors from Amazon. Unfortunately for me, this truck can smell when an aftermarket part is near. It immediately rejected the Chinese junk with extreme prejudice - the passenger mirror (the only one I had installed at that point) stopped adjusting vertically pretty much right away. Fine, truck, you win. I'll regroup and come back with more expensive parts. I at least took the opportunity to improve the passenger side power window's dreadful performance. In almost all cases of "my window rolls up slow" or "my window is very hard to crank up", the problem is easily fixed. These window regulators almost never fail in the traditional sense. The window mechanism in our trucks is a worm drive "snake" looking thing. The only real failure point is this snake or the gear that drives it (connected either to the motor or to the crank handle) stripping out, so if your window will roll up and down completely without any skipping or grinding, you do not have to replace the regulator! Sometimes, rust and dried grease accumulates in the channel of the "snake" and binds it up. Sometimes, it just needs some lubrication. That would seem to be the case with my passenger side power regulator, as the snake on this 26 year old used regulator looks almost as good as it does on my NOS one: Shooting some white lithium grease along the full length of this snake, as well as into the hose it retracts into, more than doubled the speed of the window. If the regulator is dirty or corroded, it would be good to remove the hose and clean the snake more thoroughly, but this one didn't need that. I'll go into more detail on a worse-condition regulator in the build for my '89 pretty soon. One potential source of door rattles is the window motor and regulator assembly touching the door. From the factory, there is a block of foam on each side of the motor and some jute padding along the top. Both were gone on mine, so I used some closed cell weatherstripping foam to replicate it: I robbed the steering stabilizer off of this truck to replace the completely dead one in the '89, so naturally I had to get this truck a better one: I've always wanted to try out Old Man Emu shocks on this truck. This isn't really what I meant, but hey. This truck has never gotten death wobble, but I do tend to go with the "Jeep put the steering stabilizer in for a reason" side of that particular argument, and it honestly seems to make the steering feel a little tighter too. Another silly, meaningless claim to fame: I own the very last MeanLemons 62mm HO throttle body. Initial impressions: throttle response to "tip-in" is greatly increased. It feels much punchier at low throttle. I can't say if it's making the engine more powerful, but it definitely feels like it. The unit is nicely put together and the butterfly was adjusted perfectly. I would recommend Neal's products, but you can't buy this anymore. Sucks to be you! Stay tuned for next time! I have some pretty exciting stuff in the works, including some truly custom work. Here's a couple of hints:

Yes, you're absolutely right. If they want to delete all of my pics, they could with the press of a button. I have my own photo hosting that I use for things other than CC. I need to stop being lazy and move my linked pictures on CC over.

I have used imgur since 2012. However, you never know when an image host will pull a Photobucket.

Every day. They aren't rare, I have 2 of them in my driveway! In the wild (and not counting Jeep gatherings), not many at all. A single digit number in the last year, for sure. I did see a really clean red HO longbed in Tullahoma, TN a couple of weeks ago as I was coming home from a junkyard. The ones I used to see regularly around town, I haven't seen at all recently. I'm even starting to see less 97+ XJs, and clean 96- XJs are starting to get downright uncommon

Yeah... I'm gonna need about 300 of those, thanks.

That isn't an 89 cluster. It is a '91 cluster at the very oldest.

Yeah, you have to make sure that nothing interferes with the airbag system on a '94 and down XJ

Correct.

I saw one (but only one) on the RHD '95 I saw in the junkyard yesterday. It was on the right side of the vehicle, and there was a matching rectangular cutout in the air dam. It was fairly small, about the rough size of the factory tow hooks.

Good stuff!

If you do happen to come across a set, please do let me know. I'd really appreciate it.

Yes, all of those headrests are interchangeable.