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"The Heap" Comanche build thread

T

TheMilkMan

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Georgia
Hello all! This forum has answer a lot of questions and provided hours of entertainment so I decided to finally post up a build thread of my own to document my progress and hopefully help keep me motivated along the way.

First a little back story how I came across The Heap! I grew up riding motorcycles off road, but never owned a 4x4 until Feb 2013 when I picked up a '89 F150 4x4 from a friend. I cleaned it up and made it into a good driver. Took it off road a few times and really enjoyed being able to take the wife along to some of the places we ride the motorcycles. *Ended up meeting a guy through our local dual sport group who was into Jeeps and got bit by the four wheeling bug. After taking the F150 a few places I shouldn't have, I realized it was just too big and nice for what I wanted to do. I regretted having to sell the F150, but started looking around for something to build into a trail rig. Here are a few pictures of the F150 for your viewing pleasure.

The day I brought it home.'89 Long Bed, 4.9 I6, hd ZF 5spd. Great truck. I'll own another one day


Added a craigslist camper


Outside paint job


Turned out to be a good 20ft paint job. Leveled it off with some f250 springs and added some 33X10.5s


Flexing lol


Tire wash


Top of Bell Mtn. I had just mounted the 33s and this was it's first off road test. The last climb up is pretty good and the truck surprised us.


The wife was happy I didn't leave her at home and take the motorcycle instead lol. Happy Wife, Happy Life




Final for sale picture



I didn't have any particular vehicle in mind, but started looked around at a few XJs and Toyotas. Ended up talking with a friend who mentioned he had a Comanche project sitting around........Sooo :explosion
 
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Sooo...off to check out said Comanche. From what I recall the previous owner wrecked his '94 XJ and found this '89 Comanche to swap everything over to. The guy never got it running because of some wiring issues so my buddy bought it for cheap. After he got it running some other things came up and it ended up sitting for a while. It's had the 4.0L HO, AW4, non cad D30, 27spline 8.25, SOA, Rusty's 6.5 short arm, XJ buckets and a box of extra parts. Talked it over with the Boss (wife) who approved the deal! Off we go!

6" lift and worn out 30s...You should know what the first purchase will be


Lawn mower not included




Few extra parts in the cab


Found a guy at work selling a cheap set of wheels. Of course being a noob and not knowing I didn't even think about the backspacing...whoops. 15x8 with only 2" backspacing....


Mounted up a set of 33x12.50 KM2s
 
Got the wheels mounted up! Looked tough! Didn't care too much for the extreme backspacing, but it'd do for now. Without flares it made it look like it had full width axles





Cleaned out the inside and tried to paint the cracked dash tan..fail


Had to trim the front fenders.





Decided to make it all one color. Didn't spend to much time on body work. Figured i'd be collecting some body damage soon enough




Camo tan!



Ahh doors off. This was our first experience with no doors. It was interesting.
 
My wife got me this sweet shirt!


And some random pictures from its first group outing






Local fire tower and over look




Found some use for camo duck tape. The digital camo glare off the dash ultimately made me get a legit dash to replace the cracked one


Wife hard at work



Tired of being "that" guy so I picked up a cheap walmart cb


Got a free Wilson antenna..i still haven't tuned
 
Nice rig

Looks like the xj donor was a 95 or 96, 94 did not have an airbag
 
So mid December we're out on my parents property messing around and I hear something snap. Couldn't figure out what happened until I noticed the cooling fan getting into the shroud. Realized the whole motor had shifted down and forward :gonnablow. Turned out I should have been reading the forums more often and not skipped over the thread about loose or broken motor mount bolts! Apparently one was missing and the other two decided they had enough. They sheared off flush with the block...:banghead: Luckily we were close to the shop and I was able to drive it up out of the woods. We tried several ways to get in to drill them out, but ultimately decided to pull the engine. The engine was tired and smoked a decent amount idling along so I went ahead with a stock rebuild..

Out with it


Pops having a go at drilling out the old bolts


Finally all cleaned back up


Back from the machine shop


Fresh



Cummings Beige because I wish it was a 4bt


Brown Dog mounts because I never want to have the mounts break again. I'd suggest these to everyone. Don't wait for the bolts to break cause its a bitch getting them out!

 
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Engine build went smoothly minus the machine shop not setting the freeze plugs correctly. Noticed the cam wouldn't go all the way in. Turned out the cam plug was set too deep and the cam was rubbing against it. Once I buttoned everything back up and started it up for the first time another freeze plug was shooting out antifreeze in a nice little stream and another had a small drip. Joy....had to take the intake and exhaust manifold back off, but finally got it buttoned up.





Boostwerks 231 shift linkage worked excellent!


A buddy had some exhaust hose laying around that worked great for letting the truck idle in the shop for a while


Back in its natural habitat


Then proceeded to get it stuck down in the woods lol. Open diffs + wet off camber hill = no bueno :bang head: Acquired some new body damage and ended up leaving it down there for a while till it dried up.
 
It was time for a locker. Decided to do the rear first, went with a Spartan. Much better!!



Random picture from a wheeling trip. Wheel wash


After a few wheeling trips I experienced a few hard starts, eventually determined to be injector heat soak. Decided to make some hood lovers to see if that'd help. While at Home Depot one afternoon I figured i'd give some of these vents a try lol








I'd been riding around with no rear shocks for a hot minute. Bouncy bouncy. Flexed it out, took some measurement and welded some mounts up to use the factory shocks. They limit the down travel slightly, but will do for now




Tacked in place to make sure they worked right


 
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One of my used wheels ended up having a slight bend in it and I wasn't too fond on the backspacing so I bought some JEGS D windows with 3.75 backspacing. A friend was generous enough to swap my tires over for free. Score.

 
Picked up a WARN M8000 and some brackets to make some bumpers. Cut some of the cross bracing out and mounted it behind the bumper in hopes to help the approach angle and hide it from the elements.













 
Dude, love it!!!! I've always wanted to build a commanche. Told the wife I'm going to finish the XJ first, then find me one to build as a Support/Rescue vehicle.

EDIT: any pics under the front bumper on how you mounted the winch?
 
Enjoying the warm weather back in June


Out with the old digital camo dash


New tan dash from the junkyard


Time for a back bumper






After ripping my tail lights off several times I decided to fill them in and use some oval lights. Eventually i'll upgrade these to some led ones



 
cloudedjudgement said:
Dude, love it!!!! I've always wanted to build a commanche. Told the wife I'm going to finish the XJ first, then find me one to build as a Support/Rescue vehicle.

EDIT: any pics under the front bumper on how you mounted the winch?
Click to expand...

Sorry for the long delay on the picture, photo bucket was down every time i tried to upload. Here is a picture just before i bolted it up. You can kinda see the where i cut the cross section of the cross bracing too.
 
Finally decided to ditch the short arm. It flexed good, but at 6.5" it rode like ass.

Old Rustys short arm


Out with the old


I think cutting the old mounts off the body was the worst part :banghead:




Went with the Clayton 3 link. Here is their truss


Threw in a Aussie front locker too!






 
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