Well the latest is not the greatest of news.

I got a call from Logan Saturday evening that there was no oil in the engine. While on my way, he texts that the Transmission is separated from the Engine. I arrive and start looking things over. Transmission to the block looks fine, just a little oily. Find that there is quite a bit of oil slung around on the divers side toward the rear of the motor... Tilt the flashlight just so and just below the intake is the #6 connecting rod poking out the side of the block. I found why he was low on oil.

Seriously?

Spent last night getting ready to pull the spare motor / Transmission / Transfer Case (with SYE). Got it down to just the mounts and bolt between the transmission and block. Guess I need a tall transmission jack for my pit. I know I cannot lift one like that anymore.

Update on what we are calling Cherokee Building 101

We have the old lifted 92 stripped of just about everything. Motor-Trans-Transfer came out in one LONNNNG unit. Easy enough to do when the Jeep is lifted 7 1/2 inches. WHAT, did I say 7 1/2 inches???  It is a RE 5 1/2 inch short arm kit with 2 inch JKS Spacers up front and 2 inch blocks in the rear. No wonder the hood was like a foot taller than my TJ. After the motor, all the lifts and axles came out. Doors are off, just need to pull a few hoses, and cut the rest up for scrap.

Anyways, pulled the head on the "good" pulled motor, odometer read 225K, pistons are stamped 50. So at some point, motor was rebuilt and bored 50 over... Freshening it up with new gaskets all around, it should be good to go in as soon as we get the blown motor out. The plan is to install the lift and axles first, to get it raised up enough to pull the junk out in one piece again. It made life very easy. Will probably do the short arm kit first to just get it going (no cutting and welding), then eventually put the long arm kit on it.

Opened up the Ford 8.8 rear to check out what is inside. 4.88 gears and a stock limited slip unit. Good to go for him I guess.

Update for May 1:

Casey's Cherokee is lifted and running! Installed the short arm kit on his 1990. New fuel pump to fix the random loss of power, mainly on a hills. Running pretty good, but has a slight rod knock. He has the spare motor from the 1989 pulled, and is freshening it up. It sounded good when we drove it home, so just a good cleaning and some new gaskets. Going to shake it down as is for now and put some miles on it. Will do the motor swap in a month or three after we finish Logans.

Speaking of Logan, we have the long arm kit mostly installed. We are waiting on a friend to help us swap the front end gears (4.88) from the wrecked axle to the good one. Once the gears are installed (this week), we will put the axle in. Then we will be able to move it around again and get it into the shop to do the motor swap. The lifted wrecked one has been stripped down to a shell.

The rainy weather slowed us down quite a bit. Now with the sun, work gets done.