Back in June I asked for some feedback regarding mine and my wife's dilema on either getting a Wrangler or a Cherokee upon my return from Iraq. I had some very good input from several folks here. Well, We bought a 1992 Cherokee Limited with 4.0, auto, dana 35 rear, dana 30 front, 149,000 miles. We took it out for a "test drive" the other day. We were following my Brother-in-law in his lifted, V8 equipped Grand Cherokee and another friend with a Suzuki Samurai. Well, we did rather well with no lift, street tires, basically stock. We lost a tire on a rock. No biggie we swapped it out. However, later on the vehicle stalled out (going up hill) and began smoking from the rearend (actually the e-brake cables). Once this happened, the vehicle's Gauges went crazy (fuel read empty, oil was on zero, amp gauge read 0, and the temp was pegged in the way past hot zone, also the lights were dim). The next day we began looking to see what happened. It would appear that the battery currently installed is too tall and with bouncing and flexing, the hood came into contact with the positive battery post and the path of least resistance was through the e-brake cables at the rear wheels. Does this make sense to anyone? Am I one lucky person not to have fried the ECM and complete wiring harness or is there something else that I should be looking for? The vehicle still runs great, the gauges are acting more "normal" except for the amp gauge and oil gauge which still reads lower then before. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I hate to fight with electrical gremlins.  

Have the alternator checked out. It may have lost a dioed or shorted out the inards. The oil pressure sending unit may also need to be replaced.  

cover the terminal with a pice of rubber or something similar  

Get the right battery for your Jeep.  

Grats on buying a jeep my friend welcome to the coven !!! LOL You'll have great fun with it when you get the bugs worked out.......now lift the thing!! we want pics!! LOL  

Thanks for the welcome into the "club".

I am working on a lift, tires and wheels, front bumper w/winch mount, safari rack, additional lighting, etc, etc.

All of this will have to wait a bit though until I return back from Iraq!

Will keep all posted and send pics when there are some that are worthy of taking!