gearheadette

Moving from Bartlesville, OK to Glen Burnie, MD. Have a 88 4.0l I get 22 MPG for highway. I will be towing a open trailer that i am renting from Uhaul.

heres the link for the trailer http://www.uhaul.com/guide/index.asp...pentrailer-5x9

I will be hauling my small snap-on tool box, a full sized weight machine, matresses, and my little stuff all in all about 1000lbs high balling it.

What do you think my MPG will be? do you think my jeep can handle it?

As soon as i fix the driveshaft,ujoint,and yoke I will be doing a oil change, trans flush and coolant flush (2 flushes are due to leaks i fixed)

anything else I might need to do? any suggestions would be appreciated, I have never towed this far before. I have towed bigger though, so its not like I dont know how to drive while towing, when i worked for a yamaha dealership i used their 04 dogde ram 1500, 4wd hemi (i know its not a real hemi) to haul jet boats which were 1 1/2 times the size and twice the weight that i am towing now.

so any comments or help would be appreciated. right now making calculations to make sure i have enough money.

LimitedXJAddict

I took our 90 XJ with 180K miles on it from Tacoma, WA to Clarkesville, TN... towing a 2,000 lb uhual behind the whole way. We averaged about 19-20 MPG... but we also didn't go over 55 alot of the time... stupid uhual... :P

gearheadette

Thanks, but i need to know if there is anything that i havent thought of that i should do to prepare the jeep for the long haul that i havent already listed.

vbxjeeper

I've heard of some guys using trans coolers

caddydaddy1027

Im also preppin a trip from In. to Fl. have you changed ur plugs,wires,cap or rotor lately?

gearheadette

yes less than 10k ago, and i am taking extra money just in case i need parts

BlueXJ

Do a fluid change BUT NO FLUSH for the tranny. It is a bad idea. You may flush out the build-up that is getting you by. I would only consider a flush if I was willing to rebuild the tranny if I flushed out stuff that I needed to keep the tranny functioning.
A tranny cooler as mentioned above by vbxjeeper would also be a great idea. It will do 2 things, keep tranny cooler and increase the amount of circulating dextron III or IV in the system.

gearheadette

I thought it had a cooler stock on it??? I can see the oil lines coming from the tranny to the front by the radiator (cant see very well under there).
is a oil change on this similar to one on a manual trans?? will i have to take the oil pan off to drain it? is the oil filter in the pan?? i have never done one on a jeep.

BlueXJ

Those lines run to the radiator for standard cooling but an auxillary cooler taps into one of those lines to add additional cooling like a small radiator which mounts in front of the regular radiator.

COSXJFAN

You can buy a Torque Flow universal trans cooler at AZ for around $25.00. I have one and it has worked great so far. It's pretty easy to install. I agree with Blue...NO FLUSH!! I've heard bad things about flushes on high mileage trannys!! If you need help with the cooler install, PM me and I can walk you through it, it's gravy, HTH!!

BlueXJ

Mine is a Hayden but it was easy to install. I have heard bad things about Hayden but mine has been great and it came from O'Reilley's.

LimitedXJAddict

Sorry, was in a ruch to get out the door yesterday... I changed the front and rear diff oil, the transfercase got a fluid change, oil change, air filter, but I didn't touch the transmission. If your transmission is running fine and the fluid looks good on the stick I don't usually change it because the viscosity changes as the transmission wears and fresh fluid can sometimes cause a transmission to start slipping that wasn't before. Also, I had to manually downshift the AT to give a better advantage for hills.

BlueXJ

Limited does yours have a switch which is the Power/Comfort one to the right of the steering column. That should be switched to power for towing. It changes your shift points and firms them as well.

LimitedXJAddict

That switch lives in the power spot, I did a comparison test and power setting gave about 3 MPG more then comfort. The thing on the trip was I was well over what I should have been towing... I had 2000 lbs in a trailer rated for 1800, and the trailer weighed 920 lbs. SO I had almost 3k behind the jeep, my wife, my daughter, our cat, and about 300 lbs of junk in the jeep. Plus the trailer axle would get mad at me after being on the highway for a few hours, and put more strain on the drivetrain.

BlueXJ

WOW a lot of weight on an XJ. How much room to stop that with XJ brakes?? 2 miles LOL!!!