Who wheels a manual?

[Jerry Bransford]

Yeah that loss of overdrive after converting to the 3-speed auto is a drawback when on the highway. Having installed the 4.88 gearing when I still had the 5-speed means my rpms are way high on the highway at 70 so I try to cruise no faster than 55-60 mph now. I either need an additional tranny gear or 37" tires to go any faster at reasonable rpms. With my current finances and the major $$$ to swap in the new front axle 37" tires would require, I'll be getting 37" tires or installing an AW4 when pigs learn to fly.

[mrblaine]

But I have WAY better control in my TJ in the dirt, and I don't have to use the brakes nearly as much. Again, advantages and disadvantages for both.

That's at least twice you've mentioned control in this thread and perhaps you'd care to expound on that a bit. I see it brought up by the manual fanatics time and time again, and I'm not quite sure what it means exactly.

To me, control means control of what the vehicle is doing and you do that by how you drive it.

I've yet to see any manual equipped rig that can take a fall like the last on on OL, start up it and hold a balance point to see if the front tires will eventually drop, or will it go up past the balance point.

I've also never seen one that can take the front end, get it up to the balance point and then manipulate the brake and throttle to rock it where you tap the throttle when the front starts down and use the momentum to pull yourself up something, like the Z turn in the middle of Upper Big Johnson.

At least that's what control means to me.

There's also a pretty serious school of thought that you should gear the diffs and not the t-case, but that only really matters when you care about ALL the performance you can get out of your rig.

[curtis]

Would a auto trans & transfer out of a 93 XJ work in a 2000 TJ?

[aw12345]

Curtis, isn't the aw4 the trans out of a later model XJ
Seems to ne the mod to do and you can reuse your transfercase, the trasfer case might need a adaptersleeve to get it to seal infront and or a new inputshaft, but other than that it should work.
No need to give up your 4:1

[Jerry Bransford]

The '93 XJ's auto transmission is an AW4 and yes, many TJ owners have successfully installed them. Mechanically it's straight forward and there's only a bit of wiring involved to make it work. I probably should have converted to the AW4 rather than the 3-speed 32RH I did go with but I'm still happy with my 32RH.

The transfer case is a different story unless it is the part-time 231 model that was the standard t-case for the XJ which is part-time 4x4 only. If it's the upgraded t-case that has both part and full-time 4x4 modes, then its case is longer and you will have more issues getting things to work properly with the resulting shorter driveshaft it will require.

The good news is that the TJ's transfer case can be made to bolt up to the AW4 as is talked about on Stu Olson's awesome Jeep help website here... http://www.stu-offroad.com/engine/aw-4/aw-4-1.htm with one more AW4 conversion on his website to look at as well.

[mrblaine]

Would a auto trans & transfer out of a 93 XJ work in a 2000 TJ?

If you do the swap and want to clock the 231 correctly, I still have the drill jig I made that's been shipped all over the country for these swaps.