Did the Cherokee not come with a/c or did you not re-use the 4.0 radiator?

You put the oil cooler in the bumper right? Did you consider using the MB radiator and placing the oil cooler beside it like in the MB donor car?

The MB tack in my donor is working. What did you think it would take to put it in the Cherokee dash? Sure would like to figure out how to make all the jeep guages work with the MB motor.

I think the cruise on the pre '91 xj and mj with the mechanical speedo is independant of the engine computer and will work by simply adapting the throttle control cable from the servo to the MB throttle linkage.

What did you do for throttle linkage?

 

Try this thread for some cruise control info. OM617.931 cruise control ....possible??

 

Ben - thanks for the link.

I'm pretty confident the stock cruise on my MJ will work with the repower as I believe it to be independant of the gasser's electronics. Its my understanding in jeeps that around 1991 they switched from a mechanical speedo to an electronic speedo. The cruise with the mechanical speedo has a sensor in the speedo line under the dash that sends the speed signal to the cruise electronic control unit which activates the servo. It appears its as simple as adapting the servo throttle line to the OM617 throttle linkage and supplying vaccum to the mj's vaccum reserve.

The only tach resolution I've read about yet is to take a working tach out of the MB including the dash portion and transplant it into the MJ. I wish somebody smarter than me would figure out how to adapt the stock Jeep tach to the MB sending unit.

Have you seen anyone yet to have working a/c?

BTW, I've included your suggestion of adding the starter solenoid to the MB glowplug system into my build plan. I really appreciate your input.

 

My Cherokee is an 86 so it had the pre 4.0 style radiator, and yes it has factory a/c. I am using the Benz radiator and the only place I could fit it in interferes with the a/c compressor. I am using the Jeep unit, as the bulky Benz unit mounts low and would hit the p/s box. My compressor mounts above the IP, so I relocated the p/s pump as well with a remote res. As for the oil cooler there isn't enough room on the side of the rad so the bumper was the logical place. I should mention that I also replaced and relocated the p/s box giving me aditional room, plus I lowered the front cross brace to allow more air flow and room for the custom rad later down the road. As for the tach, I didn't get far enough along with it to see how much trouble it would be to graft in, but now I don't care about having a tach cause the red line on this motor is way higher than I will ever spin it so no wories. My Jeep has no cruise. I combined the two throttle linkages, The Jeep cable hooks into the Benz auto trans kick-down bracket and then I hooked it to the Benz cruise linkage to operate everything. It's kind of overkill, but in order to properly work the TV cable on my 700r4 it was my solution. It seems to work nice, but you wouldn't have to get so complicated as you are going with a stick.

 

FTE - Thanks for the feedback as your build thread is one that I'm drawing heavily from.

From your experience, if your cherokee had been a 4.0 and you retained the 4.0 radiator, could you have removed part of the front bracing beside the radiator and placed the MB oil cooler there?

Also had a question about your steering. You tied the front wheels together with a solid drag link and lowered the F150 steering box down for tie rod clearance. From the pictures I couldn't tell the specifics of the passenger wheel concerning how the tie rod and drag link are connected. Could you provide some more detail?

Also on your panhard bar, it appears to be modified to clear the oil pan. What exactly was the modification? Did you lower the frame mount or put a larger bend in the bar for clearance?

 

I don't think there is enough room on the side of the 4.0 rad for the oil cooler, even if you could wedge it in there the headlight would restrict air flow. On the steering, I mixed and matched parts to come up with my setup. The tie rod from the steering box ties into the rt side 6in or so from the wheel. I basically traded places with the two joints on the pas side. Instead of the steering drag going to the rt steer arm and the tie rod to the left side coming of 6in or so back, I have the steering drag hooked to the tie rod and the tie rod is now cross-over style. I never understood why Jeep had that style "inverted Y" on a solid axle, usually it is used with an independent axle. With the solid axle and the inverted Y the toe is constantly changing with ride height, I fixed that. On the track bar, yes I not only lowered the mount on the frame but made a few bends to clear the pan. If you are going to go with the F150 box, I am not sure the 4.0 rad will clear, but the gains you get for steering clearance out way rad choices. If you have the Benz unit try it, you may have a little different motor placement than I have due to the fact that you are going with the 5spd. My setup is not in the stock location. Hope that helps!

 

FTE - thanks for the response.

Make sure I follow you correctly.

The stock xj configuration has the tie rod running from the pitman arm on the steering box to the passenger wheel. The drag link to the drivers wheel ties into the tie rod toward the passenger side.

Your setup has the drag link running from wheel to wheel and the tie rod connecting to the drag link 6" from the passenger wheel?

The older solid axles I've messed with have both the tie rod and drag link terminating on the passenger wheel which stikes me as a more solid arrangement. Wonder if there is a way to modify an xj / mj front axle to create the 2 terminating points on the passenger side so that the DL and TR are not tied together?

 

You got it right, the reason I made the connection away from the right wheel is it puts the links in closer relation to the track bar mounts. Other solid axle rigs may have been leaf sprung, not using a track bar. You can mount both at the rt steering arm if you want, but sometimes it interferes with the rim. Some may not agree with my setup, but I used what I had on hand and it works just fine.

 

I'm trying to wire up my relay, but I don't have the harness for the control side.
Does anyone know which pins correspond to which colors?

 

I will get pin numbers on my relay and update my wiring diagram, give me a day or two. I will try to repost on here and on website.