gogmorgo

Is there any serious advantage or disadvantage to having them or not? Mine fell apart and went bye-bye a long time ago.

Buddy of nine picked up a '85 Fiero that had been sitting pretty much abandoned for $500, made it run and drive for a while, then in started running kinda rough, and he found chunks of lists ring in the oil. He swapped in a 3.4 from a low-mile write-off Alero (sound familiar to a Jeep guy? Lol) and damn it's a fine ride now. He preferred driving it in winter to his 2wd XJ just because the balance was so much better, and tbh mpg probably played a big role there too.

:dunno: presumably the manufacturer? I'm not a machinist, but if I was I'd be making sure I was doing things properly. Don't get me wrong, I have a huge amount of respect for machinists. I've tried my hand at it, and huge amounts of precision don't come to me very easily. I wish I was better at it... Seems like an awesome trade.

On a lift, your suspension ends up fully drooped, so the driveshaft will pull out as far as it goes. As long as it goes back in properly and sits at a reasonable point at ride height and you don't regularly completely flex out the rear axle (not sure how ou would short of high-centring the truck) I'd call it okay. As to the suspension lean, if the truck is still on the original rear springs, they'll be a bit saggy, and given both the fuel tank and driver sit on the same side, if it wasn't normal to have passengers then the driver's side will end up sagging more. A driver my size plus a full tank of fuel is getting upwards of 350lbs more on that side of the truck than the other.

The Jeep wouldn't really take many sales away from the Ram. I would expect it to be more of a competitor to the Tacoma and Colorado. FCA doesn't currently sell a mid-size truck, at least not in this market. I personally was a fan of the Renegade-based Comanche concept, but I doubt we'll ever see that one.

A proper machine shop should be able to mill the convex shape, and should also know to look up the proper specs they're milling to. But there's no guarantee that a machinist will bother to do it properly. Some will, some won't. It's probably best to confirm with the machine shop in question.

Comanche, Commanche, Cammanchee... seems like no one can spell.

HOW you drive has a lot more to do with fuel economy than WHAT you drive. Like you said, the Miata ranges from 19-30 mpg. If you drive it like you stole it, you'll probably do worse than 19. If you drive it with economy in mind, you'll do closer to that 30 number. There are advantages to hanging onto a car. You already know it and its faults. Getting another car, especially one of a performance nature, is an unknown. You don't know how it was driven, you don't know all the faults, and especially if you're comparing it to a non-performance vehicle, you probably will get a much worse example for the same dollar. Unless you put hundreds of thousands of miles on it or it asplodes, the value of the Contour isn't going to change much in the next couple years. Hang onto it, save up. and buy yourself your dream car when you find the right example, don't just grab the first one you can buy thinking it'll be amazing. I made that mistake with my Niva. If I'd waited a week I would have wound up with a much better example for the same price, that had been looked after by a thoughtful individual, one with few faults and less rust. Not this one that I replaced the transmission, clutch, brakes, this summer and still can't drive right now because the engine is out, all of it because the PO was a dip$#!& and used the wrong fluids and overtorqued everything.

Right ( drivers side hits) , and add the 6 inches in length and it's gotta hit . Here's a post that Neohic mentioned his drivers side shock hitting the tank (6th post down ) http://comancheclub.com/topic/41774-better-then-oem-suspenion-in-rear/?fromsearch=1 :dunno: like I said, mine is close but doesn't actually hit. Could be a different brand shock I suppose.

Mine came from the PO with a load-levelling shock (only on the driver's side?) that doesn't interfere with the 23.5 gal tank... But it is close.

Does it make a difference if he has a 2.5L?

Well after several months I finally made it back there. Couldn't see a serial number tag on it, but a ton of snow had drifted in the back opening and there was ice covering most of the bed rails. This is the only tag I saw on it, looks like the top says M150 but the rest is indecipherable. Does the door have a piano hinge sorta deal? Trying to imagine how I could construct a temporary door for it, and that's the only thing that makes sense to me.

If the AW4 gets too cool it doesn't shift so great either. But I've only noticed that on a cold start well below 0°F so you may not encounter that I suppose. But just an FYI.

^^^ that is true. I was only thinking of sender in tank compatibility.

You probably blew a fuse or a fusible link in the ignition system. The tach signal comes off the coil I believe. Or you could have sent power to the wrong ECU pin and cooked the ECU if you hit the diagnostic connector.

Using your sending unit shouldn't be an issue. They're all basically the same, just the pump and the polarity to the sender are different, it'll still go in and sit where it needs to. Any info on the manufacturer of the tank? There's only a couple manufacturers still making them, if you can find a part number you might find a better deal somewhere else. You'll also need to get (or make) a third j-bolt to go with the third strap.

They're becoming more popular in the classic truck crowd, I think something about being different. There was one I saw on the road a couple times a week this summer, all done up in red and black as though it had just been restored or at least repainted, and I see the odd one go up on local (well, local to me is about 300 miles, lol) classifieds every so often.

Might even bring back a Ramcharger if it's on the Ram platform. Fun fact, they sold a 3rd gen Ramcharger in Canada, up to 2002. Good luck actually finding one though.

Well I tried. It wasn't so bad out there as I expected, but unfortunately, I came up empty. I trudged around the whole yard for a couple hours (it's a big place) but every jeep out there was sitting on the rotors with them frozen into the ground. No way they're coming out till April, maybe March if the melt comes early. Sorry, man.

Except it does. The Ecodiesel is in the WK2 as well as the Ram.

I'm about to go hit the yard, although it's -20°F with -40 windchill so I don't know how long I'll be able to stay out there, but I'll do my best. If that first work out I've got a stub shaft in my garage out of a '93, although I don't know what shape it's in, the bearing it's in is also thrashed, so I'll give it a look if I come up empty today. I've got a new-looking bearing with no box (don't know what brand so I don't trust it, but it'll be better than junkyard I hope) that came with the jeep that I've been hanging onto as a spare that I could send as well cause I'll likely never use it, but I don't know if the '93 hub will work in the earlier knuckle.

Unless something new has come up since yesterday morning, the EPA is still treating it as a violation, not a defeat device. From what I've seen, it just pollutes more than it should during extended highway cruising, (whether intentionally or not is what's in question) unlike VW's system that was programmed to recognize the circumstances of a test and completely detuned itself to pass the test, then went back to grossly polluting in all driving conditions shortly after it rolled off the dyno. I don't see this one being quite such a big deal for FCA as VW's issue was. Everyone's just under a lot more scrutiny now after such a major player got away with cheating for so long.

I don't think the scanners have made it out my way yet. I got pulled over about a year ago and breathalysed (story for another time, but I hadn't done anything wrong and blew absolutely zero) and so was sitting in the back of the cop car when the officer called my plate in. But then I do live in the middle of nowhere, where a scanner is probably a cost that isn't quite so justifiable when it's mostly not doing anything. My dad had an early 70's Buick that he brought with him between a few States and then registered in Alberta after he moved up here. Then he moved to BC. Every time it was registered, it was always GREEN, but when registering it BC, I guess the girl asked what sort of green so he pointed to it out the window, and it became TURQUOISE. Then he moved back to Alberta, and when it was getting registered he said he always thought it was green but the girl in BC said it was turquoise, so they went outside to look at it and it became BlueE. Then some dip$#!& tossed a molotov cocktail in the back seat a few weeks later so I never got to meet it. He jokes now about not letting cars get too cold (i.e. bringing them to Canada) or they'll turn blue and die, but you can tell he misses it quite a bit.

What's wrong with relays on their side? To be honest I never bothered securing them, they're still floating on the wires, hasn't caused an issue yet for three years. One of those things I've just never gotten around to doing, although it is a "don't try this at home" because I will address it eventually. I also used his wiring colours, although I used different coloured heatshrink for left and right sides. And as a matter of pedantry if that's what we're doing, the factory lights are 35W/65W, but the XV's are actually 55/65, so there's not much point in going with a lower gauge for the low-beam circuit.

Yeah, when I said the difference was noticeable, it's more when I shift to reverse, if the block heater wasn't plugged in it "hangs" for 2-3 seconds before I can feel it grab, and same thing again shifting to drive at the end of the driveway, but it's only about one second with the block heater plugged in. Like Dirty says, there's not much coolant flow through a closed thermostat. I'll also point out that if you still have the heater valve in the loop, your heater lines won't flow any coolant unless you've got the heat turned on. Best to just delete it.