Kymasabe

Here's the deal: I have a 1999 Cherokee XJ, 2wd, 4,0 motor, AW4 trans and Chrysler 8.25 rear. Everything works, no problems with the motor, trans or rear, all well maintained.
But, I need a truck, the Cherokee has to go.
But...I just found a Comanche for sale, is an '88, 4.0 motor, is 4WD and manual transmission.
The question is...can I cannibalize my existing XJ and move motor, trans, and rear to the Comanche without much effort ?
I'm in SW Florida, I don't need the 4WD, I'm perfectly content with 2WD so I don't need to worry about the transfer case.
Does anyone make a conversion kit for something like this? Since my '99 is OBD2, I'm guessing I'd have to move ECM, wiring harness and everything ?
Has anyone done this (successfully) before? Or am I an idiot for even considering it ?

mikebravo

Joshua White

Quite literally unbolt parts and bolt them onto the MJ from what I've read.

You'd be better served taking all of the parts from the Cherokee and moving it over imo (engine, tranny, t-case, front axle, dash, ecu, wiring, seats, basically everything)

Two reasons, one, the 4.0 of that generation for the Comanche has it's drawbacks (mainly cooling and injection system). Two, a properly converted MJ these days draws some good coin (front clip conversion and such)

I plan on taking all the important bits from my parts XJ for this exact purpose since the front clip is in decent shape.

Kymasabe

Yes, I can drive a stick, but at 51 with bad knees, it's not as easy as it used to be. Plus, my wife can't drive a stick, no matter how many time I've tried teaching her. She probably could in an emergency, she just hates them. It'd be less painful to convert the whole d@mn truck to automatic, than to teach her to drive this Comanche with a stick.

Kymasabe

You seem more confident about the swap than I do so...since you're only a couple hours away from me, how about I bring you BOTH vehicles, you can do the swap for me, and you can keep whatever's left of the XJ when it's done and all the Comanche parts that came off....as payment.

Joshua White

There are differing levels of completion with these swaps nowadays. Complete firewall mods, hvac, wiring, all that jazz, or just the simple drive-train parts and not really worrying about the integration...and everywhere in between. Obviously the more complete you get the longer and more difficult the swap becomes.

When I'm done stripping my current XJ I might be in a position to work a deal. Keep an eye on my build thread and we'll revisit it if our timelines match up.