Jeep 4.0 in 69 Barracuda

JohnFM3 said
So I made my second and final payment for 2 parts cherokee's this weekend. And the person I purchased them from is willing to hold on to them till after the move to the new house. Hopefully it doesnt come to that. I really hope to get them yanked over to my current house this Fri, stripped down over the weekend, and towed out by next weekend. But we will see.

Both cherokee's are from the Renix 4.0L era when GM owned jeep (1988 an 1989). 1 is a 2wd and the other is a 4wd. Though I plan on running the H.O. injection, Electronics, Harness, and ECU, the engine's head will not be swapped out for a H.O. till after fabrication and the project is road worthy.

In a 4cyl to 6 cyl conversion project I tackled on my sisters wrangler, I ended up with a second complete wiring harness. I just need to buy a ECU if I want to keep all Jeep electronics. There is the possibility of selling it all and purchasing a MegaSquirt3 ecu and building my own harness.

I will have a 2wd AW4 4sp auto tranny. Its a real bomb proof tranny which has proven itself time and time again in the trails with the 4wd version. There are threads on this forum of people installing one of the Grand Cherokee's V8 trannys which is a true dodge tranny. I may use the AW4 for trade an see what I can get out of that.

Another thing I grabbed which may be beneficial (or not), a Grand Cherokee Dana 44 with 3.73 gears. The bonus is its already setup for 4 link suspension. The draw back is it has a Aluminum Diff with steel axle tubes. Those of you who wheel would understand the issue. When off camber and side loading the axle, you run the risk of blowing the opposite carrier bearing thru the diff. I suspect that a much lighter vehicle such as a Mopar A-body (when compared to a fully off road capable ZJ or XJ) will not have much to worry about.

The last thing I have as a result of this purchase is a couple of usable drive lines now.

The best part of all this, as I noted above I have 2 engines. My 92 Wrangler is getting a replacement engine now as the one I am pulling out has well over 300K miles on it and has given up the oil pressure.

Here is a pic of my franken Jeep- an 88 XJ 4whl auto EFI originally, converted by some owner in the past to a 2whl drive carb 5 speed. On yours, I highly suggest something similar, unless you are really good with the wiring. The effort needed to make all the electronics work vs just deleted them was pretty huge. Set screws in all the injector ports, a 150 buck two barrell carb and the bullet proof 2whl drive AX-15 (which is far cheaper than the 4 wheel drive version) did make the swap much easier, obviously. The PO even went so far as to swap in the 2wheel drive front axle, which I found a bit interesting. There were lots of weird mickey rigged things about this car, but the overall cost and ease of swap made sense (it's all out of a 94 2whl XJ I think) - also, I am swapping in a wrangler D35 into my 68 Dart right now, and so far, it looks easy-peasy and great brakes!