didn't take enough pictures to do a webpage as my swap was rushed (needed a truck to move all my junk to RI, and had about a week to get it done)
things you'll have to do:
the motor mount brackets that bolt to the unibody are different for the 2.5L, you need to swap them. don't wait until you have your engine/tranny/tc hanging from a hoist to realize this.
you'll need to shorten the rear driveshaft from your MJ, the XJ's front shaft can be used with no problem.
is your MJ auto or manual? if it's manual, you'll need to patch the huge hole that's left by the clutch slave cylinder, and I'd reccomend swapping the pedal brackets out as well. I also had to drill a new hole for the shifter cable for the AW4.
since my MJ's original wiring harness was all messed up (leaky clutch slave right above the fusebox
) I swapped EVERYTHING from the donor XJ. the MJ's original harness appeared to have all the provisions for the AW4's wiring, but since wiring was revised in 89 (deletion of c101 connector) you may have to swap the XJ's entire harness.
swapping in the XJ harness opens up a new can of worms. the body harness on the MJ is DRASTICALLY different from the XJ's harness. behind the driver's side kick panel, there are two connectors that couple the body harness to the dash/engine bay harness. the XJ uses two 10 pin connectors, the MJ uses a 6 pin and a 10 pin connector. start off with the 6pin connector, as this is the only thing NEEDED to make the MJ run (fuel gauge, fuel pump, brake, turn signal, tail/marker lights and backup lamps)
the MJ combines the brake/turn signal into one feed whereas the XJ uses seperate bulbs for the brake/turn. to make it easy, I split the rear lights on the MJ. the top ones are the brake, and the bottom ones are the turn signals.
the fuel lines are different for the 2.5 and the 4.0. I cut the lines off the XJ right by the lower control arm mount and then mated them to the existing lines that were in the MJ using short lengths of rubber fuel line (pressure rated) double clamped on each end
the fuel pump from the 2.5 will run the 4.0L (and honestly, I didn't notice ANY difference in performance after swapping them) but side by side, the 4.0L pump is about 3x the size of the 2.5L one. pull the sending units from both tanks and look closely at them. you can swap just the 4.0L pump from the XJ sending unit onto the MJ sending unit without any modification. the XJ sending unit will not fit correctly in the MJ tank and vice-versa.
for some reason, I had to shorten the MJ's exhaust after the cat about an inch to get it to fit correctly. I'm not sure if this was because of the muffler that was installed on the MJ when I got it, or if it was something else. Personally, I'd reccomend doing something other than using the stock exhaust from the cat back. and the 4.0L will destroy the 2.5L cat in approx 600-800 miles, so swap the one from the 4.0L in. (you can make a custom "broomhandle edition" hi-flow one for testing purposes)
that's all the big stuff I can remember off the top of my head. If you get stuck anywhere along the line, PM, e-mail or IM me. whatever it is, I'm sure I'll remember dealing with it.
and yes, you can swap over things like cruise, air conditioning, the steering column (tilt, etc)
I completely gutted the MJ's interior and replaced almost ALL of the MJ's interior with the XJ's interior (since it was in nicer shape) dash and all.
while you're in there, I'd reccomend mounting an XJ domelight to the headliner of the MJ and forget about the lights on the rear pillar posts all together. they're a frickin joke.
with some creative cable mounting, the XJ handbrake can be swapped into the MJ, then you can eliminate that god-awful pedal thing that came with the MJ. A full center console and bucket seats are nice as well. If you don't already have buckets in the MJ, the XJ buckets are not a direct swap. Eagle and I were discussing this one night (or was it early one morning :laugh2: ) and after looking, the bench brackets coupled with some XJ seat parts may be a workable solution to get buckets in.
if you're like me, you can go a little nuts with swapping parts around and have a ton of fun. I still have some finishing work to do (the body work is atrocious, and I'd like to make it look decent) but all in all, I thoroughly ENJOYED doing the swap.
