A good deal?
 

My brother is looking at an MJ that we found sitting in the back yard of a coworker. The guy put in a battery and two front tires and when we stopped back by tonight, we heard it run and my brother rode out the road in it.

From what i gather, its an 86, has the 2.5L and a five speed. Rearend looks like the Dana 35. has the "porn Star" red interior with a bench seat. Idiot cluster, no tachometer. If i remember right it has around 150k miles on the clock.

It needs a brake line and it idles a little rough (guy says its a sensor causing it, even pointed to it, located under the exhaust manifold, and indeed the wires are all broken off) but runs smooth when driving it. He says it has a bit of the death wobble when you hit a big bump in the road or something but going down the road normally it doesn't shimmy or anything. He says the driver's ball joint is probably the source of the problem.

New shocks all around. Bed holds water so there aren't any holes, but it doesnt have a bedliner. As far as rust goes, it looks like the bits above the wheel wells on the bed and the passenger side of the bed below the taillight are it. The driver's floor looks a little lumpy so id wager its a bit rusted as well.

He wants 700 bucks. Is this a good idea?
>WILD CARD- I'm terrible at driving my stick, and it would be my brother's first vehicle

700 bucks ain't bad for a rare truck. If the rust is not terrible I would get it. 4wd???

oh, thats a big one i forgot to mention. 2wd on this MJ.

tires look tiny, i forgot to read what size they are but they are small.

my 80's XJ/MJ knowledge is a bit lacking, so ill ask, could this thing have the dreaded Peugeot tranny? or was that for a later year/different drivetrain?

Crawl under it and look at the rear frame rails for rust.If they are clean buy it if they are rusted bad walk away from it.

The ba 10/5 is not in the 2.5L models. It should be the Ax5. If anything its worth the parts. I know the taillights are worth alot with no cracks.

they look good from what i saw, they are the first thing i checked. i didn't get to fully crawl under it but from every other angle they looked OK.

Good to know. And i never would have figured they were high dollar parts. They aren't cracked or anything, too.

How hard to find are 2.5L parts? i think i heard from somewhere that you can find whole engines pretty cheap because people want to swap 4.0s into their rigs, but im not sure how true that is.

Been told here in CF that everything from the handle to the front bumper caps are almost identical. 2.5 shouldn't be a problem getting parts for. I can think of 2 places that have parts for the 2.5, rockauto and quadratec.

http://www.quadratec.com/jeep-replac....5l-engine.php

rockauto doesn't link well but they got parts

That's correct, even later model XJ's (97-01) A-pillar-forward parts will swap with a little modification. I'm working on a 2.5L MJ too but the motor's coming out for one with MPI so I might have some parts leftover if you need something.

That's a good price! I picked mine up with a locked up motor and rusted out floors and side cab for 800

Unfortunately there isnt a build sheet available for this MJ, so there's no way to know what all goodies the thing has hidden away.

Based on what i know about MJs, it has a D35. From what i saw, it looked like one, and iirc only the metric ton package, or whatever, came with the D44.

My neighbor's parts jeep happens to have the Upcountry package with a '35 in the back... Is it realistic to put the LSD rearend into this MJ?

realistically you've found one of the "lesser" of the MJ's to buy in my opinion... 86 has a small difference in the engine bay compared to 87 and up... the firewalls are different and also the radiator core support is different. So say you want to swap a 4.0 in it later... It'll require some space making at the firewall, and also to mount the proper radiator for the 4.0 you'll need to make brackets.

For the price its not too bad, id rock it for a while

we realize this, but i dont think he would be wanting to pop a 4 liter in there

this is a dub question, but do MJs ride at the same height generally as XJs?
does RWD/4WD make a difference in ride height?

I ask because my XJ is at stock height riding on 235/75/15s. I was wondering about how this MJ might sit on similar shoes.

Alright, another question. He might be getting ready to buy this thing in a week or two.

There is a parts jeep next door ive been getting parts of of. the guy says i can have whatever i want off of it. Its a '95 XJ, and im wondering if it is worth grabbing the full gauge cluster it has to eventually put on this MJ. I know it will need a speedo cable, and the oil and temp sensors, but would i/he be better off finding a full cluster from an 86 MJ/XJ?

You would need to find an older cluster. Clusters since I believe 1991 used an electronic speedometer operated by the ECM instead of a cable. Aside from I think some cable differences, a cluster from an 98-90 should work.