darp

Hi Dave, Thanks for your thoughts. When I first found out bell housing had loosened up, assumed that pilot bushing would be bad, hence pulled tranny out. The pilot bushing was fine, but replaced it and clutch. Flywheel was fine, no hard spots or signs of overheating.

Symptoms wise, never any issues at speed shifting up under power, never. But very rarely decelerating and putting into a lower gear down a hill have felt some shudders. 99.9% it is from a stop. Bent shaft would cause vibration all the time and less when jeep is at a stop. I have never had a clutch go bad in this XJ even though 240K on it, but in other vehicles have and shuddering is similar. I will jack up on trans that is a good test. 10 years ago that was my first guess a bad trans mount but looked at them today, not only look good, style is such very tough to break.

U-Joints are original, never gave had a car go so far without any problems with u joints, my old 53 ****** 4x4 Wagon would go thru them in 50K miles.

This has been to hell and back, just about everything underneath is dented scraped etc, had mechanic tell me in 20 years he "had never seen a car that was so torn up underneath , where has this been?" and that was 10 years ago. It will buzz down a freeway at 75mph smooth as silk and 99% of time pull away from a stop smoothly. Maybe some weird binding forward and back when engine shifts, and engines do shift a fair amount on braking.

Factory bellhousing, I bot in 2000 with 63k and it was like new, no mechanical problems for another 60K, so hard to see how tranny had ever been out.

Thanks

PatHenry

Doing a bit of looking around the consensus seems to be motor mounts, flywheel or oil on the disc are usual causes.

If it were me, I'd get the motor mounts squared away, get the pass through bolt tight and snug and see if adjusting the clutching helps (in other words, more/less gas etc). If it gets worse or you get ambitious, then pull the tranny and replace everything including flywheel.

I do not think oil on the disc is happening - the P.O. of my 95 used an automatic's spacer plate top half (leaving the bottom totally exposed) for 2 years/30k. The entire inside of the bellhousing was coated with oil and I never had any issue with shaking/chattering..
Premature TOB failure on the othert hand...

PatHenry

The mounts can look fine, but what often happens is that they separate, so you really have to pry on them to determine if they're intact. With the weight of the tranny on them they will look really nice visually, not so much when you lift the tranny up and only half the mount goes with it.. lol.

Thinking of the tranny mount - I definitely loosened mine when doing the motor mount - if you didn't do this it may have contributed to your difficulty getting the bolt aligned.

darp

I disconnected the tranny mount, and used a wrecker 6 foot crowbar on it just to get as close as I did. On the PolyU mounts forget the brand but was bright red, they are like 5 times stiffer than a rubber mount. On that Youtube others commented they has same problem. And he had to hand winch the engine to get his to fit. Some aftermarket parts just do not fit and in this case you can not grind it to fit.

PatHenry

That's definitely a good idea - post up any video that you get, even if it's obvious what's wrong so we can see the results.

Good luck brother!

darp

Ok Do have good video from many angles, but not sure still what is causing the shuddering??/ Any thoughts?

I see considerable forward and back movement, and upward movement, not just rotational.

Loose bell housing bolts just do not seem apparent here as cause.

darp

Did jack up on both trans and oil pan since, see no issues.

darp

My action cam, died, returned it, have order for new one, Walmart has 720 Vivitar ones for $22 closeout, get it tomorrow, will try more video tests. I am getting the big shuttering as video shows, just hard to pinpoint why.

papablista

Mounts look sloppy, also the two #12 e-torx bolts can be replaced with 3/8 x 16 x 1 3/4 in grade 5 or 8 hex heads.

darp

The drv side is polyurethane, pretty much indestructible. There is big shudder as video shows, but do not see any defect in the mounts. Next step is close up in slomo of each mount, waiting for new action cam to do that.

The front of transfer case seems to be especially shuddering, will slomo that.

Thanks

papablista

If the mounts are good it could possibly be a warped pressure plate /clutch setup .
P.S after I used a cut-off tool om my e-torx bolts and pulled my engine I was able to take out the remaining pieces with just my fingers no tools needed, Hopefully you have a little to grab onto. If not it shouldn't be too much trouble with an easy out. I would also put a dab of anti seize on the new bolts. I'm putting it on every thing that touches aluminum .

darp

You got me thinking, maybe I can get that broken piece with a rare earth super magnet (1/4) cylinder or superglue a rod to it to remove the bolt, it looks clean in hole.

Thanks