I don't know your ability and I'm not assuming anything. With that said, I used to be a technician and you wouldn't believe the kind of stuff I saw. More than once I had customers complain of noise after they did their own brakes, pads were turned around with friction away from the rotor.
It...
Just a fyi, the grand Cherokee is one of the easiest dashes to remove. Everything stays in the dash. Just remove the bolts and unplug the bulkhead connectors and yard it out. Start to finish in an afternoon.
Ok, enough about jeeps.
I'll definitely be following this one. I'm getting ready to do my 93 full-size Blazer with a Cherokee chief dana 44 and been reading every SAS thread I can find for months.
Truck looks really good. What paint did you use, bc/cc? I was wondering where you got your tailpipes they look good. I also like ALL the lights you got. I'm doing the same thing to my truck except I have a rusty frame to box in and rebuilding the motor.
^^^ The cable is a throttle valve cable and just as Chris said you'll nuke the trans if driven with it unhooked. It's a 700R4 I don't believe a 4L60E has a TV cable, although I haven't worked one in years.
I agree with chris, save your $800.00 and do it yourself. It doesn't get much easier than he stated. If you still have no place to pull a trans try a seal conditioner until you can fix it the right way. All it does is makes your seals swell up, it will not hurt your engine, and may get you by...
Black smoke is a rich air/fuel. Blue smoke is burning oil. Plus you said the plugs look decent, you're not burning it or the plugs would be completely oil fouled at a quart per 200-300 miles. If blow by was that excessive your air filter would be oil soaked, assuming you still have factory air...
Have you checked the ground wires on the t-stat housing yet? I would also check resistance on coolant temp sensor, and the pigtail for the CTS. Good luck