mvusse

Different tires can be made of different types of rubber, affecting gas mileage. Tread also affects it, as well as tire pressure.

I must be old. The first video looks like a waste of good/expensive rubber. The second looks like a course a stock Comanche could handle. The truck, now that IS cool! A stock Comanche can handle that part, as I have done it when mine was still stock. Stock Cherokee also. I don't think he pushes it too hard, and I don't blame him. If my truck looked like that I'd be afraid of scratches, pin stripes and dings as well. I do push my truck, and it shows. I had to replace the driver's door 'cause it got too badly damaged, but before that I drove around with a big dent and scratch in it. Replaced both side mirrors twice now. I have dents in every part of the body including the roof and the frame, and the rear bumper looks like a pretzel. Some of those dents actually have names...

He's a member on here, and wheels it at JeepSkool occasionally. Met him once there. Even a 4BT is not an easy fit. He had to cut a hole in his hood to clear a second turbo when he went to a twin turbo set up. Transplanting a CRD out of a Liberty might be a though also, but with 13 months to get it done, I think you'd better forget about doing a diesel unless you have lots of spare time, and enough money to keep the build going without a break.

With the higher torque peak, it seems the HO engines get better mileage in the power setting. Don't know about Renix engines. I usually had it on comfort with the stock tires, now leave it on power with the 33s. But I still run the stock gearing. As for no need to go 70? Last long trip I took, to Badlands in Indiana, I was going to take it easy, but the truck wanted to run. I managed to keep it to 60 for about 45 minutes before it began creeping up. By the time I hit Columbus I was going 70, and before Indiana I was cruising at 80. I started thinking about the time to get to my destination, and decided to keep it at 80, only slowing down when the nice folks driving the semis alerted me of Smokeys over the CB. Got to my destination more than an hour earlier than I had planned, and didn't mind having the extra time to set up camp and cook supper. Averaged 19 mpg for the trip, which I didn't consider bad at all running 6.5" lift, 33x12.50s at that high a speed. Lotsa wind resistance. Took me a long time to get back, though, battling overheating issues caused by a mud caked radiator, as well as a small leak that prevented the cooling system from getting to full pressure. Was boiling over at temperatures I should have been at. All fixed now, though. Will move 4.10 gears at some point in time, but have other things to spend my limited money on first, like a new set of play only tires. Any secret Santa out there wanting to give me 4 new 35x12.50 MTs? :D

My brother is currently on vacation in Syria. They have a very young tourist industry, so he's hoping to catch the country and culture as they truly are, without the tourist traps that will eventually inevitably pop up. Bought a $500 refurbished (would have been $1000 new) digital HD video camera specifically for this trip. I think he needs to get his priorities straight. The kind of money he's blowing on this trip would buy me 5 new tires...

Renix is not in no man's land between OBD I and OBD II. Renix would be more accurately described as pre-OBD I. There are no self diagnostics, and the computer keeps no memory when the ignition is off. Every time you start the vehicle is a fresh boot. Front doors of 84-96 4 door Cherokee are s straight swap. 97- will need the striker relocated a bit higher I think. Everything else you seem to have under control. Even with the rear brakes redone, Comanche brakes are marginal at best. Common swap for better pressure is a later model Cherokee dual diaphragm booster. Some Cherokees with the towing package have hydro boost brakes run off an electric hydraulic pump, but i don't know if anyone ever swapped that into a Comanche.

The title is destroyed and the truck is issued a "certificate of destruction".. I imagine if that VIN later turns up "not destroyed", a yard could lose their license over it.

wasn't there a thread a few weeks ago about a place that can fix/recondition them?

I have 33x12.50s mounted on 8" rims. It took a 26 foot box truck on a ramp with the edge of the ramp against the rim to pop the bead. Tried (in order) Cherokeem Comanche, ZJ, 16' box truck, and then scratched my head for a minute before getting the big truck. Bent the ramp from the weight :eek: Still have no clue why that one was that hard. Cherokee or Comanche on the ramp has always been enough before.

Sending units for Comanches are NOT available anywhere. Only for Cherokees. All the parts stores wrongly list the Cherokee one as being interchangeable with Comanches. They are not. Comanche is mirror image from Cherokee, and the pan inside the Comanche gas tank interferes with the Cherokee sending unit.

Spring over in the rear gives ~5.5" lift, and looks best with 6.5" up front. At that height you need track bar, upper and lower control arms, brake hoses, shocks, and at least 31" tires to make it look right. You're looking at ~1000 or more plus tires. He was looking at cheap to go with 30" tires. I agree with the budget booster. 1.75" coil spacers up front, AAL or longer shackle in the rear if anything.

Better stopping power. Brake pressure with the stock booster is marginal at best. D44 or 29 spline 8.25" rear axle.

Why the dual perches?

Surge brakes work better with better tow vehicle brakes. But they are a pain to back up as you have to get out of the vehicle and disable them before you are able to. They also burn up the brakes on down hill slopes. I would say electric brakes all the way, but I have towed electric brakes extensively in my younger days, and they worked awesome when cold, but after 5+ hours of driving not so much. May have been adjusted wrong, who knows. It wasn't my truck or trailer, I was just the driver. After they cooled down they worked great again. Did jack knife on a downhill rounding the tip of Lake Erie in Duluth somewhere on route 2.

I haven't seen them. :chillin:

With that set up, the capacity is 5000 pounds ONLY with trailer brakes and load distributing hitch. I have towed a 4500 (fully loaded) trailer a number of times over short distances (3.5 miles). No trailer brakes and I ran a stop sign on a steep downhill twice. Stock MJ brakes are not enough to be able to stop that. If you are going to do any serious towing with it, get a load distributing hitch, get a brake controller, upgrade the stock brakes with a dual diaphragm booster and don't even think of hooking it up to the bumper. Despite specs, the step bumpers rust from the inside out, and are not safe to tow anything heavier than a wheelbarrow with. Auxiliary tranny cooler in front of the radiator and trans temp gauge would not be a bad idea either.

Considering they are taking pre orders and won't be shipping until 12/31/09, I doubt anyone has them as of yet. Looks like the first true 4 link LA kit I have seen.

6'5" here also. Not the roomiest vehicle, but not too cramped either.

Last time I had Wal-Mart install tires was to put a pair of snow tires on the rear axle of my F100 (RIP). The guy went to pull the truck in, and walked back in 20 minutes later to ask me to do it, as he couldn't find reverse gear. So I get in to found out he had somehow pulled the shifter linkage out of the shift arms. I had to crawl under the truck with a flashlight, in 2" of rainwater when it was 35 degrees out to pop the linkage back in. Pulled the truck into the shop, grabbed a towel out from behind the seat to go to the rest room and try to get dried off a bit. As I looked back through thee shop window I saw him attempt to pop the bead without removing the valve core. I watched him attempt to blow himself up before I took of as I was getting rather cold. After drying my jeans under the hand dryer I got back to the tire shop 30 minutes later, just in time for the guy to be done. So I paid, and was about to get in the truck to pull it out of the shop (I was NOT letting the moron try to drive it again!) when I saw 5 lug nuts on the shop floor beside the wheel, which was angles out pretty badly. I asked him, "You're done, right?". "Yup, all finished!" was the reply. "THEN WHY THE H*** ARE THE LUG NUTS LAYING ON THE FLOOR THERE!" "oh...". That kid must have flunked out of the local MR/DD workshop. Never again will Wal-Mart do anything to my vehicles. Can't beat $11 to have tires mounted? Not if you want it done properly. The only way they can do it that cheap is by hiring unqualified help. Qualified tire shop mechanics won't work for minimum wage/no benefits.

I use a ramp on the tire (laying flat) against the lip of the rim, then drive a vehicle up it to break the bead. Do that on both sides. After that I go to town with a pair of TSC tire spoons. Mounting a tire is easier than dismounting. I refuse to pay $14 to have a $25 used tire mounted and balanced when I can do it for about $3.50 in airsoft pellets for balance and a bit of puffing and sweating. New tires I pay a shop to do it. That way when the bead of the tire gets messed up while mounting it, they can pay for a new tire, instead of me losing about $200 worth of rubber.

Could have been a blocked muffler. The backfire might have been blowing through the blockage. After hitting a deep pothole my Geo ran like crud. Floored it up a freeway on ramp, and it sounded like a hard backfire. After that it ran fine, albeit loudly. Turned out the pothole jarred loose some rusted mufler part that ended up blocking the exhaust. The backfire was the muffler splitting open along the weld seam making another exit for exhaust gas.

Just measured the bent and dented one laying in my driveway. 48.25" center to center on the u joint ears. That's off an 87 4.0/auto 4x4 D35.

Going from memory, I believe my stock 4.0/AW4 D35 measures 48".

If you get an 8.8 with disc brakes, you need a way to get more brake pressure to the rear wheels, either by fiddling with the load sensing valve, or getting a proportioning valve off a vehicle with rear discs (like the same Exploder). The 8.8 is a bit narrower than the D35, so you might want to get some wheel spacers, or run rims with more backspacing on the rear wheels.

I don't know which previous poster you mean, but the way my trailer is set up, and how I load it I usually end up with ~15% of tongue weight. I have been towing trailers for 19 years, and have learned a few things along the way. Problem I'm currently having is towing a trailer I designed for a Suburban, now that I don't have a Suburban any more.