Tonys Cherokees thread

[awg]

My braking deteriorated suddenly, so I removed the rear drums, and the LH brake linings fell off the shoes onto the road, still plenty of meat, just lost adhesion to the backing plate

I am the ultimate light braker, and usually go up to 100,000km without needing to change pads

be aware new XJ linings come "with pins" or "re-use your old pins"
The self-adjusters need these, $70 a set from the brake shop

My drums are worn beyond max spec, but my farmyard truck has good ones within spec, so I will swap them out as new ones are about $270

Almost cheaper to do a disc swap, but I had to stay on the road

Also swapped in new washer motors, rego soon

I have on hand new 2" extended brake lines, front pistons & seals, and pads, so that will be part of my continued brake overhaul, still enough front brake pad thickness left for a few more thousand km yet

I have put over 40,000km on this XJ

[awg]

I replaced my LH engine mount today.

You can see the RH one is ok, and its easy to get to

The LH one cannot be visually inspected, and always goes first on all cars I have owned, as the force acting upon it is opposite to the other one, and in the case of the XJ, is near hot manifolds

Sure enough it was all cracked

I use the McKay Brand Rubber stuff, seems ok quality, $40 shipped from within Australia

Its a bit of a bear to get out, as one must slacken the A/C mount bolts just enough to allow to head of the mount through bolt to clear the hard A/C line, and juggle the engine a bit on the jack to work that bolt out & in

2hrs, all done, seemed liked the clunking in the front is gone, at least on the test drive

I now have my hands on a King One 9500lb rope winch, which I hope to mount on the front of my XJ, probably using parts from my spare XJ, looking much the same as what Alex did

[LuluBelle]

yea the engine mounts can be a bit of fun I would rather them than the crank sensor

[awg]

A few faults repaired

I was having slow cranking problems, so while I was on the road, went to the auto electrician to load test my battery, which was a fail

Even though it was not quite 3 years old, I purchased a new one, and there seemed to be a small leak of battery acid on the bottom of the battery

slow cranking returned after a week, so I installed a new starter I purchased off a forum member just for this moment. Cranks like 24V now

I also had the re-emergence of the steering bolt issue.

I could hear a "cracking" sound emanating under DS front suspension area, and when I went to retighten the new steering box bolts, one snapped

I know why this happened. I fitted 4-1/2" bolts compared to 4" standard, and instead of loctite them in the steering box, I anti-seize them, and they backed off a bit.

It did make it super easy to remove the broken stub (unlike the last time)

I replaced all three again, and have fitted spacers and nuts to prevent the bolts backing off again

stripped the SM and another failed one down, and they both had worn brushes, with one stuck brush. Once I lubricated and freed the stuck brush and assembled, it bench tested fine. New brushes are $A30

[awg]

Done quite a lot to the XJ, it developed a whirring and clanking sound in the drivers front end

I swapped each part one by one from a complete Dana 30 front assembly, and it made no difference, so as that only left a bent knuckle or worn diff as the culprit, I changed out the whole assembly, and that cured it

I have not yet been able to determine what the fault was, despite investigations, all parts of the diff are good, except I have not pulled the pinion bearings yet, and its very tricky to measure if the axle housing knuckle is bent

While doing this I installed some new parts that I had on hand, including adjustable UCA, poly UCA bushes, 2" longer front brake lines, new brake pads, overhaul calipers

I noticed the adjustable LCA that have been in for a few years, the inner metal sleeve has hogged out the poly bush, I packed them out with permatex ultra black, as I had a tube handy for the diff cover

I need to think of a way to fix this issue

My XJ now steers like a fkn arrow, all bushes are poly except the track bar bush, it will be next

One of the balljoints on the swapped in axle isnt all that good, so I have to replace it