90PioSport99

Matt, I have heard on some occasions the later half of the 1986 model year was ready for the 4.0. I have never seen this with my own eyes but on XJs anyway, I have heard it to be true. At any rate as long as you're willing to redo the front supports, it shouldn't be too bad. Keep us posted on how you do. Good luck! -Collin

That looks fantastic man.

Great work Nathan, MJs should've rolled off the factory line like that.

Good to know, what gauge wire did you use and did you just use the center terminal and top for each of the different fans?

Oh yeah, I know there are stock ones available I have two of the old straight blade designs and one of the new 97+ designs as well. Upon your advise I will just run it through a relay for sure. Thanks guys.

All the way through with bolt and nut on outside of frame rail. Duh. Thanks for pointing that out.

Jeff, So did you get rid of the welded nut completely or just tap it out to a bigger size? If you got rid of it, how did you fish a nut up in there?

Well when I took my rear bumper off about 2 months ago I snapped off 3 bolts on one side and 4 on the other. Does anyone have an easy method of fixing this? There's no way to get a drill up in there, I had a guy that's building me a bumper try air chiseling the weld nuts off to no avail. If I got the weld nuts off I'm still not sure how I would've gotten in there with a wrench. If I took the bed off would it allow me access through the top? What have you guys done about this? Thanks, Collin

Well my MJ didn't come with an auxillary fan from the factory and I'm looking to add one. I don't care if I have the stock method of it turning on by itself although I suppose it would be nice. Does anyone know how easy it is to do the stock wiring? I've got the sensor that screws into the radiator from one of my XJs but aside from that it looked like it goes all the way back to a fusible link, and I have no patience to mess with that. Has anyone done one before completely plug and play? If not I'm thinking just run it through a relay and a switch and be done with it. And also, since I'm doing this I think I may go dual electric, as long as I run them both through relays, it shouldn't overload anything right? Let me know what you guys think. Thanks, Collin

I'm sorry but that's physically impossible. There is a huge difference with the strikers. We all know what Comanche strikers look like, this is what 97+ XJ ones look like. The only reason I know this is because I put 1998 doors on my 1990 and had to change the striker to the new hoop design. All you have to do is undo the old striker and run a bolt through the top hole of the new striker into the existing hole. A trick taught to many by Kejtar on NAXJA. I'm not saying you're incorrect, but your buddy must've been hiding some info from you because it is not a direct swap. Something had to have been changed.

Well on the fitment issue, to fit ZJ disks to an 8.25 all you have to do is ream out the center hole ID about 1/16" maybe a little more. The bearing retainer bolt pattern is identical and usually doesn't require any modification. On a side note-be careful raiding junkyards at night, I know most don't have dogs anymore, but I'm good enough friends with some of the guys at my local ones to know, when people break in, the guys aren't afraid to use guns.

I got the header panel on ebay for like $60 shipped because it had been patched in a small area. The grille and bezels were $50 from the junkyard. And the fenders were like $75 each from ebay I think. Fenders aftermarket, everything else is oem. Thanks! I know exactly which one you're talking about, says Rubicon on the fenders, Liberty light bar, etc. I've got pics of it but I'm too lazy to host them right now. I'm still debating on color, but leaning towards white.

Here's some daylight pics with a white grille and headlight bezel set I had laying around. I was trying to decide if I like the white or not, and was almost thinking about spraying it that color tonight, but I just like darker colors too much. It may go the same green as my 99 XJ is, I can't decide.

Yeah I don't dig them quite as much as the wider LTBs, but at the time, it was just what I needed.

Well ya know...the price was right so I'm not complaining. $350 for a set of LTBs that looked almost brand new. I don't care if they're tractor tires or not they will dig like a sombitch. And...they won't be on all year, because pretty soon I'm going to dig up a set of All Terrains for onroad Not yet, but I'm not in a huge hurry, as long as I'm good for Labor Day we'll be all set.

Well, I decided to rob the 97+ header panel and fenders off of my 1990 XJ today to put on the MJ. Turned out absolutely smokin' I think. I'm also trying to figure out what color I want to paint it. I don't like red as much on MJs because it seems like everyone's and their mother's (well I dunno how many mothers have MJs) is red. I'm trying to decide whether to go all black, OD, or some exotic color. Anyway, let me know what you guys think of it. Sorry about the dark pics, I'll take more in the daylight tomorrow.

Those arms are positively beefy! Very nice work.

Por-15 is a protective coating that you can paint over rust. Once it's is coated it will more or less stop the rust from spreading or causing more damage, I believe it more or less "seals it in". I have used it on my Comanche so far to make the bed cap and plan to use it on my XJs floorpans. Por-15 is the answer after you get the new sheetmetal in so you don't get rust again, but you still need the new metal. Here's my bedcap, the stuff looks great and is damn near bombproof if you prep it right.

There is a select part of 1986 I've heard that they got ready for the 4.0L and it will fit directly if the mounts are changed. Is this true at all?

Heheh junk

Oh yeah, I've already got this speaker bar in my XJ right now. I'll just rob it from there, because it's going to get an integrated one instead. Thanks again man!

Fair enough, that's what I will do then. b*@$£ of it is though, I just had my MJs headliner recovered, so I don't really want to fiberglass over it, but I will just put the older style bar up for a while and see how I like it. Thanks Jeepco.

I believe they started putting them in Cherokees as early as 1994 as an option. Then I believe in 1998 they started integrating them into the headliner, which is a really cool look. I can take some pics of my 1999 later on today and show you what I mean. Jeepco, good to see that it worked for you, that means I could for sure use the external one, what do you think about the integrated type though? Have you seen them before?

Ok, I tried searching, I know I've seen this done and I think it was by one of you guys on here. I basically want to use an XJ speaker bar in my MJ, this would gain me a center dome light and speakers back in since I run doorless now. I will have an extra external speaker bar soon (like the 96- XJs had) so I could go that route. What I would really like to do is more or less just chop the back half of a 97+ headliner that has the molded in speakers in it, and put that in an MJ. Now, obviously XJs and MJs are the same width. But...does anyone see any problems with this?

If you're going to do it, I'd go ahead and just swap the whole harness. Also if you're going to do the column it will be easiest to remove the dash from both vehicles and swap column support brackets, because the Chrysler column has a different mounting system. The doors do have the same latch system though, that didn't change until 97.