George

[Gold Cobra]

So around this time last year, I had to sell my 88 Chief, Red Dragons, to pay my wife's business taxes. I regretted selling it the moment it left my driveway. So I spent the next few months looking at MJs on Craigslist for exactly what I wanted, a 91-92 because Renix Jeeps are ghey. I found a 92 in Albany on Craigslist for $1200 so I called him, and told him I would be there tomorrow with cash. BPB, Eric and myself drove to Albany and I handed her cash before even starting it or test driving it. She said he husband was daily driving it, but it had clutch issues "when it got warm". Whatever that means.

What I had just purchased was a 92 4.0 AX-15. What I didn't get was four wheel drive or air conditioning, but I figured I could change that later on. The truck came with the bed full of parts that were all basically garbage, except for a 4wd AX-15.

How I picked it up;

I had a 100 mile drive home to get acquainted with my new truck. However, my drive home was interrupted by a call from my Mom informing me that my Grandpa George passed out and was taken to the hospital. He died about a month later. Don't smoke cigarettes.

 

[Gold Cobra]

Once I got it home, I washed the outside, then it sat for a little while.

I took the truck for a few drives, mostly trips to the dump or just around town.

Then I used the truck haul off the debris from a tree on my property I cut down.

This is the first load;

 

[Gold Cobra]

This is the second load;

You might be wondering, why is it in the garage? Well the clutch/slave issues I had been dealing with since I bought it finally caught up to me. About 20 feet after I loaded the truck, I lost all pressure in the clutch pedal and had to move it into my garage using the starter. I had only put about 300 miles on the truck since I bought it in September.

So now it's time to put in a new clutch and slave. My initial plan was to hold out on this until I had collected all the parts for a four wheel drive conversion but that will have to wait because I could really use the truck right now. So it's staying 2wd, for now.

I had to remove the center console to remove the shifter.

Well that was only held in with one screw and it was in rough shape. So once that was out I decided to remove most of the interior. Especially the ZJ seats that the PO swapped in that sat crooked. Carpet is in pretty good shape except for a wear hole under the gas pedal.

Carpet up;

Once that was done I got the transmission pulled and that's where we are right now.

 

[djrethoret]

awesome comanche dude! sounds like a you got yourself a pretty sweet deal.

 

[Vanimal]

nice looking jeep.
just a suggestion, check the brake master under the dash, where the rod goes in. see if it's at all wet. mine has problems when it's warm, even with a new clutch and slave. turns out the master has an ever so slight leak.

 

[bigalpha]

However, my drive home was interrupted by a call from my Mom informing me that my Grandpa George passed out and was taken to the hospital. He died about a month later.

So you found out he died after the fact?

 

[Gold Cobra]

Maybe I worded that poorly. I found out on my drive home that he passed out and was taken to the hospital, September 26th. About a month after that he died, October 19th.

 

[foreman1063]

Is that a 79 Honda CB 650 in the back?

 

[High2by]

Were the WJ seats mounted to the original MJ sliders?

 

[Gold Cobra]

Bike is an 81 CM 400, and is my winter cafe racer project.

The ZJ seats were on the ZJ sliders, with some ghetto fab brackets on them with self tappers through the floor.

 

[High2by]

The ZJ seats were on the ZJ sliders, with some ghetto fab brackets on them with self tappers through the floor.

No wonder they sat crooked. Are you gonna try to keep the seats but mount them different?

The truck looks awesome BTW. I wish the body and paint on mine looked that good.

 

[Gold Cobra]

I've got a bench I'm going to try and repair in the next week. I like a bench seat in a single cab.

Anyway, my clutch showed up from RockAuto. Normally I like to buy at my local Napa, but it was $60 cheaper even after shipping to order online.

Of course I ordered a budget clutch for this truck.

When I pulled the old clutch and slave I didn't see anything that screamed failure, but on closer inspection I noticed that the splines on the tranny side of the clutch disk were broken.

Got everything installed and buttoned back up but I didn't have any brake fluid plus I was hungry so I called it a night. I'll get it bled and get to work on the bench in the next few days.

 

[Gold Cobra]

I got the clutch all done and the slave bled properly. So I was finally able to haul the garbage in the bed to the dump.

My bench seat recovering project was a complete failure on every level. I'm actually looking for a set of 2-door XJ buckets to put in it, or I may just install the ZJ seats I have.

I also decided that it will probably be a while before I do a 4wd conversion on the truck, so I might as well do something to the stance in the meantime. I did some research and decided I could lower it for almost nothing.

So I got some 2" blocks and XJ shackles to drop the rear 3". I blew up one of my cast blocks before I even started torquing the u-bolts down. So I got on Craigslist and found some blocks about 20 miles away for $15. These were aluminum.

I got those blocks in and decided to put the vehicle weight on the leafs before final torque. Which according to my Haynes manual is 82ft pounds for a Comanche. One of my newly purchased aluminum blocks blew apart long before reaching 82ft pounds. Damn. After closer inspection, I believe the reason I'm breaking blocks is that the Comanche leafs have quite a curve to them, and the perches are actually curved to accommodate this. So I'll have to come up with a solution to this.

Anyway here is a before and after shot of the rear drop.

a wheel well shot;

I think I'd like it down another inch or two. Three inches just isn't enough.

 

[Andy in Pa.]

I lowered my 2WD MJ when I first got it, and ran 16" wheels off of an XJ, with 245-50-16's in the rear, and 225-55-16's in the front. I happened to have the tires around, so I used them. I used a 2" solid steel lowering block in the rear and XJ shackles, and it worked fine. I cut the front springs and dropped the front almost 3". I swapped in poly bushings into the rear factory springs, and used poly bushings for the front sway bar, and it really turned into a great handling little truck. Maybe a tad stiff, but totally tolerable for long drives.

 

[High2by]

Is there any way to move the rear axle back an 1"? I want to lower mine but I want the wheel centered in the well.

 

[Andy in Pa.]

Is there any way to move the rear axle back an 1"? I want to lower mine but I want the wheel centered in the well.

Yes, but you have to weld on aftermarket perches on the axle. There are a few sets that are long, and have multiple sets of centering pin holes in them. Most will weld on right over the existing spring perch on the axle too. You have to clearance the upper u-bolt plate for the bolt and nut on top of the leaf springs too. It won't poke through the upper mount plate in the right spot if you move the axle front or back.

 

[High2by]

Yes, but you have to weld on aftermarket perches on the axle. There are a few sets that are long, and have multiple sets of centering pin holes in them. Most will weld on right over the existing spring perch on the axle too. You have to clearance the upper u-bolt plate for the bolt and nut on top of the leaf springs too. It won't poke through the upper mount plate in the right spot if you move the axle front or back.

Good point on the upper plate but would that cause any strength issues?


Sorry to jack the thread////

Is the last picture with the XJ shackle also?

 

[Gold Cobra]

Yes, last picture is 2" blocks and XJ shackle.

 

[kastein]

Is there any way to move the rear axle back an 1"? I want to lower mine but I want the wheel centered in the well.

If you make your own lowering blocks and don't mind boring a second hole in the ubolt plate, it should be easy.

Get some steel plate the thickness of the drop you want, cut it to 2.5" wide, length to match the perch, bore a hole the size of the centering pin head on the bottom, 1" forward (or back, I guess) of centered along the length of the block. Then drill and tap a hole centered on the top of the block for the appropriate size grade 8 socket cap screw, loctite/torque the capscrew in, and you have a spacer... bore a hole 1" back from the factory centering pin hole in the ubolt plate and you are set. There's no real reason the centering pin has to be directly over the axle tube as long as it's captured by the perch/block/ubolt plate, in fact ruffstuff perch kits and (iirc) some ubolt eliminator perch kits have 3 holes for the centering pin in the plate and the perch so you can choose your wheelbase after installing the perches.

I think the major difficulty would be finding (and cutting) 2" steel plate. onlinemetals has 2x3" (cut 1/2" off one side and you have 2" block material for a 2.5" width spring...) for $52 a foot, iirc spring-under perches are around 3-4" long so figure two sets out of an 18" piece. I usually go to the local steel supply house and scrounge around in their drop stack if I'm looking for something this odd, they usually cut me a break if it's on the drop/scrap pile and they even have a giant bandsaw, I had them cut some 1"x7" bar stock I bought for recovery points on my bumper into 4 4" long pieces (1x4x7 solid steel blocks effectively) for a pretty reasonable rate. If you found something that would work and had it cut, you could probably get a set of solid steel leaf spacers for under 50 bucks, I can't even find solid steel spacers for that nevermind ones that can be used for offset mounting so I don't know that you'll get em any cheaper than that.

Of course if you know anyone with a big bandsaw or a hell of a plasma cutter you could probably cut that price even more.

 

[zebvance]

Nice! amazed at how good of shape your floor boards are in!