Glad to be among the small group of people with a manual XJ! I've been waiting on a machine shop to bore my Miata's engine block and rebuild the head for some time now, so I haven't been able to row my own gears in months. It's good to be in control of that again!

Testing manual and full time mode will be coming soon. The next step is getting my front driveshaft balanced. I've had the shorter manual driveshaft installed for a while now (it barely fit with the auto), and after I put it on I noticed increased vibrations above 70 mph, which is a common speed for traffic in NC. So I'll have a local shop check the balance or otherwise get me going with a better driveshaft. I've bought several driveshafts from online shops now and I will try not to do that again. It's just something that can't seem to be built worth a crap in the generic aftermarket anymore, so I want to have the ability to look someone in the eye if/when I have to deliver a complaint.

I've gotten the interior all back together. In my last post, an attentive eye would have noticed the lack of key interlock and shift cables for the auto transmission. They're all gone! I cut the shift cable in two to get the grommet off of it and shoved that back in the firewall with a bolt temporarily sealing it - that'll be the wire pass through for any future upgrades like fog lights or electric fan controls.

I also grabbed some heavy vinyl flooring material to act as a bit of sound deadening, as the manual definitely has more gear whine than the auto. I trimmed it to fit around the shifters...



... and slipped it under the carpet.



I had been thinking I was going to run the XJ manual tunnel plate thing with an adapter to suit the TJ inner body shift boot, but I wanted to do something the easy way for once. Since no one is prying on the bottom front of the console, losing one mounting screw isn't a big deal. The console is stiff enough that I would say even prying on the thing wouldn't make a normal person think "this is broken!". So yeah, while you could make it work with an XJ unit, I'd recommend just getting the TJ plate for anyone doing a swap. The only reason I'd make an adapter plate is if I already had the XJ plate bolted into the Jeep.

It's ugly and cracked, but I went ahead and threw in the shift boot and bezel I got from the '97 donor.



I'd like to eventually swap in the older style '96 down shift boot that was also used on early years of the TJ Wrangler, but I have bigger fish to fry for now. I was working on a custom bezel to adapt it to the '97+ console a few months back, but haven't worked on it for quite some time.



It's disappointing to see how much Chrysler cheaped out on the rubbers and plastics they used through the 90's. This piece is older than the '97 part I have installed and in way better shape, it's basically new in comparison.

Here it is installed around the automatic shifter.

 

I've put a few hundred miles on the swap now, and the driving experience keeps improving. There are a few issues to iron out.

During the time I was doing the manual swap, we got our first overnight freeze. That rushed me through finalizing the flush, and gave me a bit of a panic moment.





But this test was done with a final citric acid flush being done. Since this is a chemical test, I got to wondering about the chemistry and accidentally got comforted by AI.



I flushed the block out with a hose and poured in new coolant, and doomscrolled looking at what I'd end up doing while replacing the head. I was going to give it a few days to settle down, and for a while it wasn't burping air out of the system. But now it seems to be holding pressure, so I'm assuming the engine is fine and not looking into it further.

That pile of metal goo I found in the bottom of the bucket? Well, talk about being overdramatic. This is what it dried to. That's far less intimidating and makes me feel better about the state of my block.



Replacing the water pump meant moving the power steering pump out of the way. And that lead to moving the hoses from their happy spot, and a new leak.



I used some of the old transmission cooler rubber hose to replace the return line, and some stronger hose clamps. One leak down.

With so much space up front I'm considering if I should add in a power steering cooler. I considered using the massive Hayden 678 trans cooler for this purpose, but it seems a bit overkill. It's removed and on the shelf for now.

On to the next leak...

I've poked my head under the Jeep a few times to check on the transmission. I found some clear oily fluid seeping from between the bellhousing and the transmission case, down the lower spine rib of the transmission. Like with the head gasket test, my mind jumped to the worst thing possible, and that the front bearing retainer plate was leaking. I decided to be patient and see if it was a one time drip, or would continue. Today I poked my head under again, and found drops of fluid in other places like the crossmember and around the slave cylinder. I did a taste test and now I'm pretty confident it's the slave cylinder leaking.

That slave cylinder popped apart during the install and leaked fluid everywhere. I'm going to first attempt disassembling and reassembling it to see if a seal has dirt or is just a bit out of place. If that doesn't work, we'll go from there. I'm just glad I might not need to separate the engine and transmission again!



I wired up the reverse lights and swapped in some LED bulbs while I was at it.



For my efforts I got a cracked taillight housing.



The streaks from a dirty lens do a good job of comparing the relative brightness.



Got a few more things I want to get done, but as much as possible I'm going to try to do the bare minimum and just enjoy this thing for a while. My driveshaft is at a local shop getting rebalanced, and soon I'll have 4x4 again and can finally give feedback on the 242/AX15 combo.

 

Holy smokes, that black coolant that came out is startling. I guess flushing with that stuff works! Definitely nice getting that crap out. Fingers crossed the system stays clean for a bit.

Congrats on the 5 speed swap! That's a cool project. Always been a "maybe someday" thing for me. Pretty exciting to see another one completed.

 

I don't understand why people keep saying they moved the power steering pump out of the way to do it.
I didn't on my '00.
And if it made the job any harder I didn't even realize it.
I wish I had a wider shot so you could see.

 

I'll be honest, I didn't think that much about it. It only takes a few minutes to remove. I'd rather find the leak on a subpar hose while I'm working on other things, so it worked out well.

Anyways, the leaks. Well, my diagnostic skills aren't all there, and apparently neither are my taste buds. I did some more poking around and found that sure enough, my coolant levels were dropping. I shoved my phone behind the cylinder head and thankfully, the freeze plug on the back of the head looks fine. I went to top off the coolant after dark and saw a glint of coolant on the hood. Well, a hose was leaking. Somehow the first sign I saw of this was coolant on the bottom of my transmission. Then I saw the puddle on the AC bracket.

I drained the coolant and replaced the upper rad hose and short section of heater hose to the shutoff valve. No more leaks. I pushed the overflow hose on tighter and the cooling system now seems to be working normally - it burps air, and holds pressure. Finally.

Here is the coolant I caught when replacing the hoses, compared to the very same 50/50 mix of generic Supertech coolant and distilled water in the clear bottle.



I don't know if I'll ever get clean coolant in this thing. This coolant is two weeks old. I've flushed the block, radiator, and heater core countless times with three different styles of chemical flushes and a long time with a garden hose. I cleaned behind the freeze plugs. I have a good block ground, and a good ground strap. All it wants in life is to rust out.

@Ralph77 what coolant do you run? I'm struck by how much more colorful and opaque it is. I have some Zerex G05 concentrate I had intended to put in the Jeep on the shelf, but I was hoping to get things cleaner before I ran the expensive stuff.

 

I just use the Napa Green.
Every other year I drop the lower hose.
About 2 gallons comes out.
Figure there is still a gallon or so of older coolant in there.
Napa green is on sale pretty often. $10, maybe $11, for full strength, gallon of distilled water from the dollar store, and I get the 2 gallons I need.
With the Lisle funnel and my Ext Idle switch probably about an hour start to finish.

 

Over the weekend I addressed a pretty bad flaw in the AX15/NP242 combo. AWD / Full Time 4x4 just does not like having u joint axles. At high steering angles such as parking lots and intersections, the inconsistent speed they have created a consistent surging, almost shuddering feel throughout the whole vehicle. With an automatic, the torque converter can absorb this fairly well. Having a direct clutched connection gets rid of that.

As far as I know, every other application of the NP242 on the ZJ, WJ, and KJ had CV axles. I think even some early XJs came with them. When budget was less of a concern, the CV won out for full time equipped Jeeps. Over the 17 years of production, Chrysler clearly was looking to cut costs and took the XJ from a premium small SUV to just a cheap one.

I have read all the internet conjecture out there regarding the strength of u joints vs CVs. Most of the feedback I've seen from people who actually did it are either happy with the change, or ambivalent at worst. I couldn't find anybody who broke a CV under the kind of off roading I expect to do. Pretty much everyone with a breakage said they were asking for it with the throttle pinned on 35s or larger.



I debated between a few different options - O'Reillys for ease of warranty, any of the options on Rockauto, and Amazon generic. I ended up going with the Trackmotive HDX axles off of Rockauto. For me it was a good balance of cost shipped to my door, quality, and warranty.

It's worth noting that the axles actually didn't fit at first. I had to crimp the bulge on the CV boot clamp tighter by tapping it with a hammer to get it to fit through the axle C.



A few months back I picked up this ARB diff cover for a Dana 30. It's completely unnecessary for me, but it was a deal I couldn't ignore. I almost installed it at the same time, but decided to give the old seals a few miles to prove they wouldn't leak after being disturbed.

 

So, is it smoother with the CV axles now in all modes, especially full time?

 

Oh yeah, it's way smoother. I've only driven a few miles around my house since installing them, but the sharp turn shaking is now completely gone. In my mind, CV axles are a necessity for having an AX15/NP242 combo. Why go through all the work to get what is supposed to be a seamless, smooth AWD transfer case, only to leave out the biggest refinement upgrade?

Now that I have some more time behind the wheel, I plan to make a separate thread with my thoughts on the manual swap, how the 242 and AX15 play together, and why they weren't sold together right on the dealer floor. I don't agree with most of the common wisdom out there on this combo. Most of what you can find on the forums is hearsay speculation from people that haven't actually driven it. Plus, I have a few thoughts and lessons learned on the manual swap that I didn't see in the best guides.

 

Are you worried about not having an axle tube dust shield

 

Good point. I only thought about that when looking at the two axles on the bench, and wasn't going to turn back or wait. Luckily there are some available that clip together and should be able to be installed with the axles in place, I have a set on order. I thought about designing and 3d printing something but for $13 I'll save a lot of time better spent on other projects.

 

Well, the little clip on axle dust shields don't fit. There's just not enough space between the CV boot and the axle housing C. Whenever I take the axle shafts out next, I might try to 3d print something that works, but with this being a fairly common swap I'm not too worried.

Last week, I almost got stranded at the airport. After a ROUGH return trip from seeing some friends in Europe in which our first flight got delayed so much we missed our connecting flight, and having to take two extra flights that almost stranded us in Newark, I got back to the Jeep in the airport parking lot at 1am in 25* weather, and the key would not turn the ignition cylinder. This had happened once before in cold temps, and occasionally it would stick at 50*, but a bit of wiggling fixed it quickly. I had forgotten about that before I drove us to the airport for the departure... So facing that disappointment at 1am, I spent the next 30 minutes disassembling the column covers, trying to warm the cylinder with a lighter, banging on the column, jiggling the keys, everything. Finally just as I was about to give up and call a very expensive taxi ride, the key finally worked.

So that's not at all acceptable. With the ice storm apocalypse coming, I knew I needed the Jeep working without any concerns of being stranded due to something as stupid as a worn ignition key. I bought this Dorman kit 924-703. There are cheaper options but this one gives you the chance to rekey the cylinder as well - worth it in my opinion.




I had to jiggle the key for another 5 minutes to get the ignition lock cylinder to unlock again, but thankfully it was warmer out than when I was almost stranded. After that swapping the cylinder is easy work.

For now, I'm rocking the old school 2 key setup - one for entry, one for ignition. I might use the brass plates to rekey the cylinder to match my original key from the Green Jeep, but it's not that big of a deal to have two for now. I guess I need to fix those power locks.



So the snowstorm was a whole bunch of nothing to worry about, but central NC is basically shut down. I had to go grab something and of course the Jeep handled it fine. The Hankook three peak tires did better than I remembered them performing in the last snowstorm - probably because of warmer temperatures and the fact that this was heavier, granular sleet rather than actual snow. The manual transmission, 242 transfer case, and rear Truetrac diff meant I had great control.

I would have enjoyed driving it a whole lot more if I wasn't surrounded by people with bald tires rushing up behind me at every red light, praying that they would stop in time, but sitting clutch to the floor in first gear just in case.

 

Would you buy those same CV shafts again? My jeep needs balljoints and Im thinking if I will have everything apart anyway its a good time for a CV swap. I have a 242 too.
Are you limited slip in the rear only? Ive been thinking about a lunchbox but not sure if I should put it in the front or rear with the 242, or wait till I can afford an actual limited slip.

 

I'd buy the axle shafts again without concern. The way I saw it I could either get potentially better shafts from Rockauto and not have to replace them but have a more "fun" time with warranty, or get the O'Reilly shafts as commonly recommended online and pay extra for an easy exchange of a maybe less durable product. I'm not sure how different the actual CVs and shafts are, but I am not off roading hard enough to be the best durability test.

I have a rear Truetrac. Any auto locker like a lunchbox needs to only go in the rear when you have a 242. Otherwise, every time you go into full time mode, you'll lock up the front and it'll be a real handful any time you try to steer. That defeats the purpose of full time - nice, seamless traction on any surface. Only use Helicals or selectables in the front axle when you have a full time transfer case!

If you're geared at 3.73 or higher and not constantly in the rocks, using one of those Spartan helicals in the front axle (same type of diff as a Truetrac) is a no brainer in my mind becuase they're $300 or so. The 3.55 and lower ratios are only available as a Truetrac that goes for $815, otherwise I'd have one in the front axle too.

 

Yeah I wasnt quite sure how a front locker would work. First 242 Ive had, and first jeep in like 6 years, so Im a bit of a noob again lol. Seems like the 242 is pretty picky about tire size/pressure/etc being properly matched too.
I think I will do a rear lunchbox and maybe eventually Ill find a volvo limited slip or something for the front.

Definitely thinking about the CVs, I hate the ujoiont bind.
I have dealt with RA returns a few times and it was no big deal.

This jeep is all stock but I plan on doing some 2 tracks, snow, and sand/mud trails in the middle of nowhere so I want to make it as capable as possible.

Do you think the dust shields from the stock axles would work on the CV, or is something like an actual lip seal a better option?