non-vaccum front end, What year did they start?

[isaacson]

I did a couple of searchs and couldn't find out what year they switched to the non-vaccum front end. any help would be great.

 

[Eagle]

It's not when did the non-vacuum front axle start, but when did the vacuum axle stop. The XJs with Selec-Trac have always had non-disconnect axles, beginning in 1984. The disconnect axle was only used with the Command-Trac transfer case. The last year they used the disconnect was, IIRC, 1990.