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I've got 3 problems and 1 solution (BA 10 to AW4)

BrettM

NAXJA Forum User
Location
michifornia
I have 3 problems:

1) I need more crawl! (and still have OD)

2) I need to get rid of my BA 10 before it blows up (even though it work perfectly now with 200k mi)

and the real killer is...

3) It needs to be cheap, I'm on a student's budget.



After thinking about every conceivable option, I am of the strong opinion that the solution to all three of these is to swap an AW4 auto tranny. The torque converter will give me much more crawling ability, plus I'll run lower diff gears because of the deeper OD. And I figure the AW4 should be pretty easy and cheap to swap since it came stock on the same year and model. Although I do prefer a 5 speed, I am willing to go auto especially since I can do all the wiring modifications to an AW4 giving me control over the TC and such.


SO...

First of all, does this make sense? I think I have weighed every other option including granny trannys, AX-15, NV 4500, Klune, Atlas, 4:1 tcase, etc. And the AW4 seems to make the most sense given the obove 3 requirements.



Second, what all is involved in swapping an AW4? I know that it is pretty well integrated in to the vehicles electronics, how difficult is it to swap everything over? If I had a donor XJ/MJ with an AW4, what would I need to take? Tranny, shifter, tranny cooler and lines, what about the ECU, PCM, TCU whatever stuff? I really know very little about electronics concerning an auto tranny. What about the t-case? I won't need the t-case because mine is already 21 spline, right? Oh, and what is the OD ratio for a 87-90 AW4? I've seen .69, .70, and .75 all mentioned.

Thanks guys!

(btw... '88 MJ Comanche with Renix 4.0, Peuegot BA/10, np231)
 
Max, I did this swap in my 89 XJ a few years ago, I guess I need to finish the article I started since this subject has seemed to surface quite a bit lately. It's a relatively simple swap..........simplicity is relative to experience, of course. I can walk you through it, what you'll need, things I found out along the way etc. so I'll hit you backchannel so as to not hog BW here. And I'll get going on the writeup as well................
 
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