very loose shifter lever

1989 MJ 4.0L BA10/5 NP231


so recently my friends MJ with the BA10 tranny has had a really loose shifter lever it flops from side to side. It's like there is no spring in it at all. because of this when it is in 1st and 3rd the shift lever gets pulled down towards neutral which causes some noise. I had a similar problem with my AX15 in my 99 XJ and after replacing shift rod bushing or shift shaft seal the problem was completely solved. I have been looking at break downs of the BA10 tranny to see how the shift lever is set up on the BA10 and it is quite different. would replacing the same bushing that i replaced on mine with one for a BA10 solve his problem or is it something else? any suggestions are helpful.

P.S. AX15 swap is out of the question at the moment already tried that hahaha

Ax-15 swap

Otherwise, its like spending money on a D35

souske said:

Ax-15 swap

Otherwise, its like spending money on a D35

Click to expand...

dont have the funds for that sort of project right now how much would it be to fix this problem?

Ridgefield where? CT or NJ?

If you can find a bellhousing for a 4.0 to AX15 and it's CT, spin up toward mass and we can hit Sams, AX15s are $130 there, $100 if I get lucky and the counter guy is in a good mood. There aren't any XJ ones but a 4.0/ax15 bellhousing plus a Dakota 3.9/5speed/4x4 trans will bolt up directly, from then on it's a regular BA10 to AX15 swap except the transmission cost a lot less than most people sell AX15s for.

Hell if you get lucky there will be a '00 or later 3.9/5speed/4x4 Dakota with an NV3550 in it. Same 4.0 AX15 bellhousing bolts right on.

GM mine does that to i can just throw it side to side

kastein said:

Ridgefield where? CT or NJ?

If you can find a bellhousing for a 4.0 to AX15 and it's CT, spin up toward mass and we can hit Sams, AX15s are $130 there, $100 if I get lucky and the counter guy is in a good mood. There aren't any XJ ones but a 4.0/ax15 bellhousing plus a Dakota 3.9/5speed/4x4 trans will bolt up directly, from then on it's a regular BA10 to AX15 swap except the transmission cost a lot less than most people sell AX15s for.

Hell if you get lucky there will be a '00 or later 3.9/5speed/4x4 Dakota with an NV3550 in it. Same 4.0 AX15 bellhousing bolts right on.

Click to expand...

We are located in ridgefield ct. We hit up craigslist in the surrounding states and people want 800 bucks for an ba10 to ax15 swap over kit which includes tcase and etc i will deff talk to my friend about a nv3550

Ridgefield is damn near the other end of the state from me, but seriously, if you want to pick me and my tools up on the way to the junkyard in Worcester some saturday morning, I guarantee we can pull an AX15 or NV3550 that will fit an XJ (with the addition of a 4.0L to AX15 or NV3550 bellhousing from a 94 through 01 XJ, that can be a little annoying to find) for the price I listed.

You'd still need to figure out the trans mount, transmission crossmember, internal to external slave hydraulics stuff, driveshafts, tcase (a tcase off any 91 through 95 XJ will bolt up and keep the old style rear output), tcase shift lever linkage (check bsfab's writeup on that) and a few other things I'm sure are slipping my mind right now, but that's all fairly well documented. I'd bet on leaving the junkyard with a transmission, transfer case, and possibly a rear driveshaft for well under $300, if you can find someone with a busted transmission, buy their bellhousing for $50 and bolt it on.

So we took out the transmission out of the my took it apart and found that the input shaft bearing was done and 3rd and 4th gear were destroyed. Thus all started after putting 10-30 in it my guess is the 75=90 that was in it acted like engine honey. We set out to find an ax15 we found an ax15 complete with transfer case and mounts it came out of a 93 and has an internal slave. We knew that we had to change out the pilot bearing so we went to the parts store and got one for a 93 xj with a 5 speed its to big for the original pilot bearing sleeve and we can't seem to find a sleeve to fit it. Has anyone else come across this problem what did you do?

What pilot bearing part number?

At some point the input shaft pilot diameter changed, somewhere in the early 90s. I'm not sure when. If you measure it and it's within a c-hair of 3/4" bore, that's the later style.

If so, I'm not sure where you can get a bushing to fit it, but if you order part number FC69907 on rockauto or at consumer auto parts (or anywhere else that can get it or cross-ref it) you will get a bushing and a bearing preassembled that fit the bigger input shaft pilot bearing journal.

If it's not real close to 3/4" diameter it'll probably be around 19/32", that's the older style. I'm not sure what pilot bearing and bushing pair you want for those but I think it was used for backwards compatibility with the bushing/bearing used with the BA-10/5.

Novak Adapters knowledgebase says that 91 was the last year of the small pilot tip while 92 was the first year of the larger 3/4" tip, so I think you probably have a 3/4" one and can solve the whole problem by getting the FC69907 bushing/bearing set for around $15. If you need anything else on rockauto at the same time (slave cylinder? trans mount bushing? driveshaft ujoints? other incidentals?) it's only $8 on there.