your scanner should read the xj. obdII was made standard after 1995. you should be able to see genaric codes with no issue, you may not be able to read as much as a dealer scanner can though. just depends on what the capabilities of you scanner are. as long as a CEL is on you will be able to see the generic code for it (misfire cyl 1,2,3..... evap leak..... etc.) you chould also be able to clear the code with the scanner as well.

 

Sounds like a bad vacuum leak to me man u pulled the intake off start there. U can also use the old trick of carb/brake clean on mounting surfaces aka around intake to head if the idle goes up then u found ur leak

 

My son had recently done a new exhaust manifold on his 87 XJ and had a rough time getting the intake to seat right because he upgraded his Renix to an H.O. exhaust manifold. He mentioned to me last night that my intake probably wasn't seated right and that was probably what was causing the vacuum leak. I was just so pissed in general that the thing was giving me fits after all of my work, that I wasn't listening. I really don't understand that the motor would even run at all with such a big vacuum leak as an intake seated on the exhaust instead of the head. The more and more I think about it, that is exactly what I'm thinking happened. I've worked on Military jets for almost 30 years and mistakes during maintenance cause 90% of the maintenance...LOL.

The good news is that if the intake not being properly seated is the problem, that is an easy one to fix!!

 

Hopefully its something easy like that mistakes happen we all do it lol especially when u only have a few hours to get stuff done and your rushing i have done it many times on my race car lol good luck man hope u figure it out tonight

 

Tomorrow is my pay day and I worked some overtime this pay period so I bought Great White a set of new Rough Country 6.5" front coils. These along with the 2" lift spacers and Rough Country upper and lower control arms with Currie Johnny Joints, I am buying from Alex, round out GW's front 8" lift. I know the math says 8.5", but I also know there isn't a winch and front winch bumper out there that doesn't sag your front suspension down just a little bit. I'm figuring with 8" lift that 35" tires will fit just fine. If they rub, then I will get out the Sawsall and grinder and work my magic until they don't rub anymore.

 

So you guys have the big picture of what Great Whites suspension will consist of, here you go:

(Front): RC 6.5" coils, 2" coil spacers, RC adjustable upper and lower control arms with Currie Johnny joints, RC 4" drop brackets, Rusty's Offraod HD track bar with HD dropped frame mount, Rusty's Offroad extended braided steel brake lines, Rusty's Offroad or RC shocks.

(Rear): Rusty's Offroad 4.5" leaf springs, RC 2" lshackles, RC 1.5" lift from shackle relocation brackets, Rusty's Offroad extended steel braided brake line.

This should net me a pretty much level 8" lift all the way around so I will be ready for the 35" mudders I'm planning for Great White.

 

Oh and of course the rear will either have my delapitated old Rusty's Offroad shocks or some new RC shocks just like the front.

 

your not worried about your drivelines being to short at that height? I know i dont have alot of slip left on my sye with front ds in the rear.

 

So Buck, I'm curious as to what you're thinking about when it comes to your COG. In my head, I see a taller jeep. So I'm curious as to how she's gonna handle, especially since you've rolled once already at two inches lower !!

 

hey Buck, just a quick little check, disconnect your throttle cable from the throttle body, as i had a similar issue when i put a new intake on my Trans Am, the cable was to short. if this is the case it will slightly hold the TB open enough to cause high idle. the glowing exhaust manifold means you are running lean as ****, so pull your spark plugs and see which one (or ones) are powder white.

also, the distributor can be the cause, but if you didnt remove it then it is unlikly. now for the trouble shooting, unplug the TPS and IAC sensor from the TB, then hook up the battery (oh yea, disconnect the battery for 10 min) and start it up. this should force it to stay in open loop and show you if one of those are busted. next to do is to scan the computer, if your scanner does not work, i have one that will scan OBDII equip vehicles.

on a side note, non of the OBD I sensors should work even if they plug in to the harness, they are based off different fuel and voltage charts.

 

Nah, not worried about drive lines being too short. In fact the OEM V-8 ZJ front auto tranny drive line I have on the rear now is too long. The thing has been bottoming out on my old Jeep and it destroyed my rear gears. They sound like they are about to eat themselves when I drive down the road at highway speed and pinion is all over the place. Two pinion seals later it is still leaking like a sive because I believe the DS bottomed out and and pushed the pinion hard a bunch of times while 4wheeling. I'm hoping I will get away with just getting a new rebuild kit and having a shop here in town set my gears up again without having to replace the RnP, also.

 

It will be fine. I have stock rims at 5" backspacing with 1.5" spacers at all 4 corners now. I'm planning on getting black steelies with 3.75" backspacing. I know it's hell on bearings but if it feels too tippy I can throw the wheel spacers back on in effect making my stance wider.

A lot of guys are running the RC 6.5" coils. If I decide I don't like being at 8" I can always ditch the spacers and put on shorter shackles or springs and go back to 6.5" lift and just whaller out the fenders. Life is all about choices.

 

Okay, so the high idle issue has been solved and fixed. It was a very simple oversite on my part. The first thing I did last night was jack the Jeep up and get under there with a bright light. The manifold was butted up to the head top and bottom and front and rear. So, I sat scratching my head for a minute. Then, I decided since the book called for 23 ft. lbs. torque for the intake bolts and 17 ft. lbs. for the two exhaust manifold bolts, that I was going to go through the torque sequence on the intake again and torque it to 30 ft. lbs. What I discovered as I was going through and torqueing "ALL" of the intake bolts was that I had completely missed 3 of them the first time around. 2 bottom bolts and 1 of the top bolts. One of the bottom bolts and the top loose bolts were on the same intake port. So, after "re-torqueing" the intake manifold bolts, I started the Jeep up and it idled right down and purred like a kitten. I discovered a couple other issues in the process. I found out I had a water leak at the T-stat housing. I'm guessing when I pulled the motor out of the other jeep that the cherry picker chain must have hit against it and tweaked/cracked it. It was leaking right by the bottom bolt. that water neck is just aluminum so it's really not that surprising. Good thing I had the spare T-stat housing from the other motor!! The other thing I noticed was, when running, there was a racket coming form the bellhousing area. I went under and took a look. The flywheel was rubbing on bent inspection cover sheet metal, so I fixed that. So, with all of these things fixed I decided it was time to go for a little test drive. Well, that didn't happen because I found out my transfer case linkage got all out of adjustment while I had the tranny lowered down for the engine install. Back up the jack went. I got underneath and straightened out and adjusted the TC kinkage so that it was in fact in the gear that was indicated by the shifter. Now, it was test drive time again. I decided to run the shifter through all of the gears a couple of times before moving. The tranny was a little low on fluid as I figured it would be after having the cooler lines off and the torque converter out. I dumped a quart of Dexron IV in it and tried it again. This time it was actually going into all of the gears. So, out of the garage we went. The first thing I realized is that this Jeep has amazing brakes compared to my old Jeep. I about went through the windshield at the first stop sign...lol. The next thing was that it was low on PS fluid. It made funny noises whenever I turned the wheel. So, back to the house for a top off of PS fluid and a few steering wheel cycles to "de-air" and an oil level check. I topped off the engine oil level as well. I took it around the block again and this time the steering was quiet. Everything worked great! I think I'm gonna put a quart of that "Mystery" oil or some Lucas oil additive to see if it will quiet the engine a little bit. Remember, now this motor has over 200K on it but it still runs great. Just a little noisey. A little more noisey than I remember it being in the other jeep but, still runs great. So, I'm pretty happy about last nightsw events.

I realized as I was looking at the new Jeep sitting outside in my old Jeeps spot next to my truck. It just feels too weird calling this little white Jeep Great White. I've decided until I get the lift, axles, armor and tires on the new Jeep that I will call it Little White. Then I will call it Great White once it looks like a Great White Jeep...LOL. It really felt good to walk out to my truck this morning as I was leaving for work and to see the new white Jeep out there. The crappy old Jeep is hidden inside the garage now. So the wife is happy too that we don't look like Hill Bill White Trash with my crappy old beat up jeep half torn apart in the driveway anymore...LOL. So, tonight the new Jeep gets a really good wash job and the interior cleaned out. Then, the stereo out of my old Jeep needs to go as the PO snagged his stereo out before he sold it to me. This 96 Jeep is a Country so it has the OEM sound bar up above in the back. I've heard about these things but I've never seen one before. It's actually pretty cool. Better than trying to cut, cram and make good speakers fit inside the hatch.

 

congrats on getting it up and running. cant wait to see where you go with it next!

 

I forgot about this pic I snapped of the engine bay all done just before I went for the test drive. It's a good final pic for the engine installation chapter of Project Great White. In this picture it was totally running and driveable.