I've been randomly fixing various issues with our Cherokee and one is that the PO removed the pins from the front door check straps; I found a few at the local pic-n-pull today and was simply going to pull the straps our of the doors and stick the pins in... and, nothing doing! I couldn't pull them far enough out to align them with the brackets. They're under some serious spring tension for some reason. I may take one loose to see if I can release the tension but I'm posting this before I do that. Any suggestions? I hate floppy doors....

 

What year is your xj and what year is the one you pulled the parts from?

 

it's a '96, I only picked up the pins from the pic-n-pull. The check straps are original to the truck, just under what I think is a lot of tension and very difficult to pull out. The inside handle that I replaced went on quite easily.