The first drive has exposed a few (hopefully) minor issues. The first was the sway bar links. When I put the front end together we left the sway bar detached because the bushings on the links were shot. So I got some Moog links and got them installed. That makes a huge difference IMO with on-road handling.
Now we have 5 things we have to figure out:
- Vibration at highway speeds: When I get over about 60 mph I get a very steady and consistent vibration. We replaced all of the u-joints with the exception of the two on the transfer case side of the front driveshaft. I don’t remember these vibrations being there before putting in the front diff so I’m going to assume it has something to do with the drive shaft or the axles as when we put in the u-joints in the axles they fought us pretty hard.
- Knocking when backing up: This one we’re pretty perplexed by. It doesn’t seem to have any sort of consistency. Sometimes when backing up we hear this loud knocking sound from the back of the Jeep. Not really sure where it’s coming from. I’ve read that it could be a rear diff fluid issue but we just put Mobil 1 synthetic lube in it – the one with the weight for an LSD. So, I’m perplexed to say the least.
- Warm start idle issues: This one has really got us. We have new plugs, new coil pack, new engine. Cold start it’s fine. If I drive it somewhere for about 20 minutes, let it sit for 10 minutes then start it back up, it’ll chug around and I’m getting the misfire in cylinder 4 issue. I swapped plugs between cylinder 3 and 4 and no difference so I’m assuming it’s not a spark plug issue. Then tonight I took the ohm meter to the fuel injectors and they all read the same 13.4 ohms. The only thing I can think of is when I removed the coil pack one of the boots popped off (I, unfortunately, don’t remember which one). So I’ll investigate that some more tomorrow.
- Dash lights: I’m pretty sure this is just a blown fuse but haven’t had a chance to look into it yet.
- Knocking when turning: We noticed that it has some weird steering issues that definitely weren’t present prior to the front diff being in. However, I noticed that when you turn you can see the track bar kind of bounce around so I ordered a new Moog track bar – hopefully it’ll be here before the weekend so I can get that installed.
It had its first trailer pull yesterday, though, and that was successful. Didn’t struggle at all. So at least we’re going the right direction. Going to try and get the leaf springs in on Sunday so that all the suspension is new. Had a little break yesterday and today getting some flooring put into the basement for the wife/kids’ craft room. She’s pretty excited about that and I needed the mental break from the XJ.