Please give me some advice with this safety question. I recently purchased a set of steel rims to put larger and wider tires on my TJ. I purchased these from a reputable dealer that special-ordered them for the TJ. Later, when I removed the new wheels to return to my street wheels, I discovered that the center holes in the rims are about 11/42-inch larger in diameter than the hub on the axles. Is it acceptable for load to be carried on the lug studs with no contact to the hub centers? I am not sure if it is safe to run on these. Joe ConleyVia e-mail
It's perfectly safe to run the wheels you bought. There is lug-centric and hub-centric. Most modern vehicles today are lug-centric, in which tapered lug nuts are used that index into a tapered bore on the wheel.
Even though the factory wheels of your Jeep have center bores that index the hub hats as if they here hub-centric, the lug nuts are still the means by which the wheel is held true to the axle.
I run lug-centric aftermarket wheels on my tow vehicle and that sees loads of around 10,000 pounds, so your little Jeep should have no problems. Just make sure your lug nuts are torqued between 100-120 lb-ft.Cell Calling
I have a project '04 TJ with the 4.0L and five-speed. Is there a specific way to install a fuel cell because of it being an injected engine? I plan on running a 30-gallon cell or possibly dual 15-gallon cells, and I really don't know if I need any special components so the motor will run correctly. I've tried looking everywhere for info, even in the hot rod forums online. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Gregory MayesVia e-mail
If you're putting a fuel cell in, you're not going to be able to keep your vehicle smog-legal in most states because a fuel cell won't pass the visual inspection. Therefore, I'll assume you're not too concerned with keeping your charcoal canister and vapor recovery system intact. Aside from mounting either an in-tank or external tank pump that can put out 50-65 psi, you'll need to run a fuel return line to the tank if your original fuel system has one. However, some XJs and certain TJs used a returnless injection system, so until you drop your factory tank to see how many lines are coming in and out from it you won't know.
In the November '05 portion of Your Jeep you said you could adapt a 1.08 venturi Motorcraft 2100 carburetor to a older Jeep CJ with a 258ci motor. How do you get it to fit? Is there an adapter plate you need, or do you drill the Motorcraft carb to fit the small bolt pattern on the Jeep intake manifold? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I hate the Carter BBD carb on my '80 CJ's 258 engine.Marcus TomesVia e-mail
Trans Dapt Performance Products (562/921-0404, www.tdperformance.com) has a large two-barrel to small two-barrel carburetor adapter (PN 2086) that can be used easily to swap the Motorcraft carb in place of the Carter on a 258. The kit comes with the adapter, two gaskets, and mounting hardware
I recently bought an '00 TJ Sport with the 4.0L and five-speed manual transmission. The guy before me installed a 2-inch lift to run 31s. As I was crawling around under the Wrangler, I was looking at the NP231 transfer case and noticed that the output shaft cover didn't look like the one I had seen on my previous Jeep (a '98 TJ Sport) or the '00 WJ we now have with a similar NP231. I was hoping you might be able to tell me if this is a standard NP231 output shaft setup or if it is some kind of aftermarket tweak. I've searched the Internet to see if it was a SYE, but given the driveline is not a CV-style and the transfer case shaft appears to be the stock length, I have no idea what the big thing that looks like a harmonic balancer is on the end of the T-case.JeremyVia e-mail
That's the stock slip-yoke driveshaft. Beginning in the late 1990s/early 2000s, manufacturers started paying closer attention to eliminating NVH (noise/vibration/harshness) from their vehicles. The round disc is a harmonic balancer designed to eliminate rear driveshaft vibrations and to smooth out the overall drive as the Jeep is rowed through the gears. If your Jeep drives fine and you're not lifting it any more, just leave it. However, if you're planning a larger lift or want to upgrade the rear output shaft for strength, any regular old 32-spline fixed yoke conversion will work on your T-case.