My jeep is no longer "mostly dead"! In fact it just made it's maiden voyage last Sunday on Red elephant hill and it worked sublimely. (When was the last time you read THAT word?)

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Glenn's jeep blew a head gasket on the way to Moab Memorial Madness. With the direction of Bob and Aaron and their assurance that a new motor and transmission would "Drop Right In", I went along for the ride. Part one and part two of the main swap has been on the NY times best seller list for a couple of months now, and if you haven't read it yet, then what will you ever talk about at dinner parties?

This blurb is just going to be about the fiasco that was the wiring of the new motor and transmission. hold on, the ride could get bumpy.

The jeep left Bob's shop and headed over to Aaron's for what he said was "take a day and wire it up". That was 10 weeks ago!

It all started when Aaron, on the day before he was going to start on the wiring, decided it would be more fun to rupture a couple vertebra in his back. Needless to say, the pain, the drugs, the surgery and the recovery did not help my jeep get wired any faster. After 5 1/2 weeks, I decided I didn't want to wait any longer, as the summer was slipping away. I went and picked the jeep up and headed back to my house where I was about to learn all I could about wiring a 4.0 conversion.

Well..... That excursion lasted about three days when I realized at the present rate of 10 hours of web searching for every hour of actual wiring was not going to get me on the trail until Haley's comet returned. I have a client, who's custom Chevy I was photographing who said "his guy" at his shop could wire it for me. And he'd only charge me what he pays the guy for salary. So I hooked up the jeep again and hauled it over to South Birch Auto. There, they took a look and came up with an estimate of about 25 hours and the realization that they didn't have that kind of time, so I hauled it back to my house to stare at it again.

I was in no mood to do it myself still, so I again went to the web, but this time inquired on a couple 4x4 forums looking for someone with great knowledge to help me tackle this web of wires and sensors and computers, and everything. There was a guy on Colorado 4x4 who said he knew wiring and would come over on Sunday and we could get started on it. Saturday night he says he can't make it. Argh. But another answer to my query comes Sunday when a guy named Scott tells me about a company called "Inject to perfect". Sounds like just the place I'm looking for... a simple two guy operation working from their home and would do the whole thing for $625. So I haul it over there. they say it should only take 2-4 days and they will have it back to me. this is on a Thursday.

Sunday comes and I ask how it's going and if I can help in any way. Scott (yes, the same Scott that suggested the place is one of the two guys) says no help needed, but he has to go out of town for the week. Well, I'm heading to South Dakota for a car show, so I figure another weekend is nothing. I come back on Monday (Labor day) to find the state of Colorado on fire. Guess what... the other guy is a fireman. not much work gets done, and Scott says he has to go out of town the next week again. I call again and ask if I can be of any assistance, and they say no, they are just about finished but my fuel pump isn't working. I voice my doubts and they send me a video of them sticking the hose in some gas and hot wiring the pump. It spins and makes noise, but doesn't pump. I tell them I think they need to prime it, and they dismiss my idea and tell me to get a new pump and Sending unit. But they ask for a newer year sending unit to go with the in-tank pump which is a newer year than my 83 CJ. When I inform them that the newer YJ sending units read the voltage backwards from the CJ units they again don't listen. By now I'm a bit weary of these guys. Then I find out they actually wired the fuel pump backwards and I'm thinking this is the reason they think it's bad. Well long story longer.... I drop off the fuel pump and the Old Style (correct) sending unit, and I get an e-mail from Scott saying "I have $150 in parts in your jeep, come get it" What????? I ask Scott if he is finished or giving up and he just says to talk to the other guy. I call the other guy and he say he doesn't know what happened and that Scott just "snapped". Some personal "Family matter" came up. So I still don't know the real story, but on a bright Monday afternoon, I go up to Scott's place and retrieve my jeep. Now, keep in mind that I have to borrow my photo partner's van any time I want to move this jeep, and with getting it too and from Aaron's place in eastern Egypt, and to South Birch auto and back home and up to 72nd and back, I have by now put more money in my buddy's van for gas than I have in the Jeep swap :-)

So, here I am with my jeep back in my garage. Fist thing I do is test my "bad" fuel pump by totally submerging it and it self primes and pumps just great. When Scott wired it backwards, he just pumped it dry and didn't prime it enough to pump. So I reinstall my old pump and old sending unit (with the wires reversed on the pump, so at least the green wire will go to the green wire and the black to black.) So, I have solved my first problem.

Scott had said they fired it up when they sprayed fuel into the system manually, so I thought the wiring was basically done and the fuel pump reinstalled and working would be enough to fire it up..... Hopes were high as I turned the key, and heard the roar of... disappointment in my ears. It didn't do a thing. Just a little lie about it staring when they sprayed fuel into it. So I call up my clients "guy" to see if he now has the time to take a quick look. (it's been about three weeks) He brings up all his fancy electrical testing equipment and we find the problem right away.... the wiring isn't done. So..... the next day it's back to South Birch for four fun filled hours of testing and testing and trial and error and testing and trying and thinking and rethinking and finally, we think we have enough things wired up to the Fuel pump relay and the ASD relay (Auto Shut Down Relay) to make it run. (you would assume anything called an "Auto Shut Down" may be a major factor in the thing being shut down, wouldn't you?) So anyway, with one turn of the key the engine starts right up!....and then, one and a half seconds later... shuts right off!
More testing and more testing and my 4 hour window to fix this thing is ending. So it's back home with the Jeep and I am again on my own....

But in the back of my mind I remember one of the 34,238,843 pages of things I read which mentioned a security module on the Grand Cherokees. I didn't pull the security module when I pulled the wiring harness off the donor jeep, so it was back to the web to figure out if that could be the issue and how to trick the ECU (computer) into thinking the Security module was there and saying everything was alright.

guess what... YOU CAN'T! But all the symptoms point to a security issue. Easily fixed, by the way, by simply turning the key in the lift gate a couple times..... I read that about 100 different places. isn't that great... The lift-gate has been in the crusher for 9 weeks, how does this help me any? So I have to find a 93 grand Cherokee security module.
Once found, I wire it in to the main computer and confidence is once again high... I'm going jeeping tomorrow!!! Turn the key and if fires up and STAYS runing!!!!!! Another major victory, and another batch of electrical Jeep knowledge in my brain. So with great expectations I back the jeep out of the garage for a Test drive. As I pull out onto my street I notice the brute G forces that one normally feels when a 27 year old jeep starts up are not present. In fact, NO force is propelling me.... anywhere.... with the engine revved up to about 5000 rpm, the old CJ slowly started to crawl along the flat ground. Hmmmm, I'm guessing something else is amiss here. I down shift the Automatic transmission into low and it moves. I can manually shift now, so at least I can get back in the garage and then go, guess where... back to the web to search for another 10 hours or so.

Turns out the transmission is in a "fail safe" or "Limp home" mode. With various fixes mentioned, from bad solenoids to entire bad TCU (transmission control Unit). Knowing what I know about transmission computers could (at the time) not fill the tire of an ants tricycle, but I knew that Scott and his wiring has been pathetic up to this point, and the donor jeep ran fine before I removed the motor and tranny, so it HAD to be a wiring issue. Now, by this time I had collected quite a vast amount of wiring diagrams and schematics and enough knowledge to feel comfortable at least tracing the wires and testing for shorts or breaks. I had just installed the VSS (Vehicle speed sensor... you learn a lot of lingo and abbreviations when doing this... ECU, TCM, VSS, TPS, CPS, etc.) anyway, I thought it might be the way I wired the three plug wire from the transmission into my two plug VSS on the TC (Transfer case) so I decided to start there. I get out a long jumper and start my testing when I notice something odd. All my diagrams seem to be upside down. There are 2 rows of pins on the transmission control computer and the wires seem to be backwards. Really? I look again.... I look at a couple other diagrams, and then at actual photos I can find on the web, and again at my computer.... it looks like... it might be...... it could be.... it HAS to be... the moron, who is Scott, WIRED THE COMPUTER UPSIDE DOWN!

I kept thinking there is no way it could be backwards, because the wiring and plug came with the motor and transmission and should never have even been unplugged! But sure enough, I pull all the wires out of row C and plug them into row D and vice versa and my jeep now shifts like a charm!!!!!! So... 10 weeks after the wiring fiasco started, I have a working jeep!!!!!! It's Alive!!!!! I now feel I can clean up the mess of wires under the hood. Cut off the ones that aren't used, wrap and mount the ones that are. Mount the PDU (Cherokee fuse box) and the ECU (fuel injection computer)and button up a few things to make it road worthy.

That ends the main part of our story, but like any good story, there is a sequel. In the sequel, I find that since the motor and transmission are 3" longer, my rear drive shaft angle is too much and it vibrates. So another few hours underneath installing some 6 degree shims, and the vibration is gone. It is now 9:30 at night, and I go out for another test drive... all seems good, so I decide at about 10:00 pm, that I am going to go with Patrol 2 on the Red Elephant run... and the rest, as they say, is history!

I still have a couple little things to clean up. I don't have any reverse lights (but I didn't before this swap), I don't have a temperature sender for the new transmission, so my gauge doesn't work yet, the fuse to the dash lights blew, and I am about to install some switches to manually control the auto transmission in 1st and 2nd gear for better engine breaking when going down steep hills in 4 lo. But that will be another (not so bloody long) story.