coheed

Mounted the Camaro 3.4 fuel pump relay on the pedal box. Luckily the fuel pump wire exists in the 86 2.8 harness, there just isn't a third wire in the weatherpack connector going to the tank. I just threw some weatherpack terminals on the feed from the relay and plugged it into the cab harness and added a third wire going to the tank. I plan on using some rivnuts on the little bit of the cab wall that hangs below the bed to mount the in-line Walbro pump. Ran the trans cooler lines and mounted a Hayden cooler on the radiator. I plan on also running it through the cooler in the radiator, but I need to get some fittings as the Chevy threaded ends are different from the Jeep ones. Also, gonna move those horns for more airflow. The 2.8 usually ran really cool, but I know this 3.4 will run hotter. Finally got all the engine bay wiring loomed up and routed through the harness clips. Need to figure out a pcm mount and how I'm gonna run the heater hoses.

Eh, in the grand scheme of things the injectors were cheap. I got the lowest price option on Rockauto because they at least had a year warranty. I'd like to get some nicer ones to replace them down the road. Thank you for the kind words. It's been cathartic to do this project as it's one I've thought about in some form or another since I got my grandads truck back 18 years ago.

Finally got around to thinning out the excess on the harness. These Apex 2.8 connectors are great because it doesn't matter what way you insert the terminals into the body, so you don't have to worry about how the terminals are oriented when crimping them. Also got a new driveshaft delivered and installed today. Once bolted down to the axle yoke the slip yoke just completely covers the splines on the tcase.

Repurposed the 2.8 coil mount to make some mount tabs for the pt cruiser fan to the radiator. Had to clearance the shroud a little so there's room for the hoses and clamps. Now sorting out all the wiring. I guess I jinxed myself saying how much I hated wiring work because now the Lexus daily has a wiring harness issue. So much fun.

Trying to prioritize things now. Started mocking up and cut the hole in the cowl for the intake. With intake and coolant hose routing I realized that there wasn't a way I could keep the mechanical fan. While the Camaro came with aftermarket electric ones, they were no-name and I was dubious as to how many cfm they would pull and if they would be enough. A few times on here and on the TDI swap group on facespace I had seen people mention that a PT Cruiser fan might be the right size for the TJ/YJ radiator and the 2.5 and 2.8 radiators on the MJ/XJ. So, yesterday I went to the local pull a part with some tools and a measuring tape and sure enough the fan and shroud is just about the same size. There was an abundance of PTs in the yard, and I was able to snag a low mileage Bosch unit for $24, so in the future I should be able to get a decent set of brushes and a commutator if it ever decides to die on me fairly cheaply. Below are pictures of a 2.8 radiator with the stock mechanical fan shroud, the PT Cruiser shroud without the tabs trimmed off, with the tabs trimmed off, and sitting in the truck. Replacements are advertised as pulling 1500-2300 cfm and the stock Bosch is fused at 40amps from the factory so I assume a factory one should be on the high end of that. That's more than the stock 3.4 Camaro pulls, so I think it'll be alright. I'm going to look more into how to lower the fan kick on temperature in the PCM as well. Also realized that the boostwerks NP242 shifter linkage won't work with my setup. First off, the NP207 shifter lever tab has an odd angle compared to the later 231 and 242 shifters. So, I snagged a 231 shifter off a '00 XJ in the yard. And, with the 4L60e being shorter than the AW4, the extension they give you hits the shift shaft so I'll need to shorten that. As well as the turnbuckle they provide being significantly too long, but I found a fairly cheap 304 stainless one I can order to replace it. Speaking of shifting, I wanted to keep the 4L60e cable shifted and since the shifter for the 84-86 A904 operates on a linkage I couldn't make that work (I had it laying around from my grandad's truck). I snagged a shifter, cable, and transmission bracket from the same '00 XJ. I should be able to cut and weld the Camaro and XJ cable brackets on the transmission end together and make it work. I'll also be regrinding the notches in the shift gate like shown in this build thread over on LS1tech. However, I'm not seeing a way to tap into the trans wiring to feed the reverse lights, and on the Camaro they were powered through a set of contacts attached to the shifter. So, I'll need to figure out how to get my reverse lights to work. I also managed to nab a C and D horn from an 88 Cadillac Deville to be spares for the ones on the truck for $5

Started sorting out routing the stand-alone harness. I want this to be contained to the engine bay with the stuff up near the wipers passing through the big oval grommet next to the throttle cable. All the excess that would normally be behind the Camaro dash will get shortened and go through an apex 2.8 sealed 14 pin connector up above the blower and pcm. Rigged up some brass fittings so that both the factory sending unit for the MJ gauge and the sender for the Camaro pcm both get oil pressure. The gauge one has much more clearance than it looks like in the photo. Welded a 1/2-20 nut to the bracket that originally had the vacuum release on the brake pedal that I assume went to the 86 cruise control, so that I can reuse the Camaro brake switch. The Camaro throttle cable fits into the MJ firewall if you trim down the locating tabs on both sides.

Made holes and mounted the Camaro power distribution block. Surprisingly the Camaro battery cables fit quite well and the battery already has side posts. Got the factory engine bay harness and the Camaro engine harness mounted today. I've always liked the cowl intakes, so I'm gonna rig something up with all the piping I have on hand

Well if anyone was using it to do a conversion on a 87 or later they'd have to get the later style master cylinder, but that's fairly cheap in the scheme of things. I could've answered if the 229 was bigger a few months ago if I knew it was a question in need of an answer. I sold the 229 I had on hand a while back. I don't remember it being substantially larger than either the 207 or the 242. It was heavier than 207 though.

Installed a new brake booster after hitting that area with the needle scaler and a coat of mastercoat. I'm incredibly impressed with the mastercoat. I had some overlap from the area with clutch master, and it took a significant amount of time with the needle scaler to knock it off. I decided to just get a stock replacement because I wanted the simplicity of just bolting it in. Will look more into upgrading to a larger one somewhere down the road. I also mounted the vacuum reservoir from the Camaro and the cruise control unit behind the front crossmember. The truck hasn't had a vacuum reservoir since I've owned it, so it'll be nice for the HVAC to not default to defrost under heavy loads. Now, on to the matter of the transmission mount. Novak supplies a nice bracket that bolts to their adapter and an energy suspension GM style mount. In the form it comes in, it was way too tall to fit the stock crossmember and if I bolted the mount straight to the transmission the engine would've been angled downward too much. I felt like it was easier to modify the Novak bracket than the crossmember. I cut the bracket so that only the lowest mounting holes were left and rounded the corners off. However, when bolted in place it didn't sit flat on the crossmember, so I stuck it in the vise and bent the tabs to match the angle of the adapter relative to the crossmember. Threw a coat of paint on and drilled holes for the new mount bolts and access holes for a socket on the crossmember and bolted everything up. There's about 3/8 of an inch of clearance between the NP242 and the driver's floor, so I shouldn't have to worry about them touching. It's nice to have this drivetrain completely bolted into the truck. Now everything I've read about 3.4 swaps says you need to swap in the oil pan and timing cover from the 2.8 so there isn't any interference from the axle. I would rather keep the 3.4 timing cover because that's where the 24x crank position sensor is housed and the 2.8 cover doesn't have a place to bolt it to. The 24x sensor helps with keeping the idle smooth and according to some of the reading I've done, without it the engine defaults to multiport injection instead of sequential injection. Multiport injection isn't a bad thing, it just means more than one injector would be firing at a time and costing more gas. I've also read in a few places that if you're lifted it may be possible to keep the 3.4 oil pan. I left it on the motor when I swapped it in, and today I tried to see if there would be any clearance issues. I disconnected the sway bar and maxed out the suspension as much as I could with a jack. It had about 2.5" until the driver's side was going to be on the bumpstop and the passenger tire was already 2" off the ground. There was more than 3.5" between the diff and the oil pan, and the same for the passenger side. That said the truck is lifted 3ish in the front, so this might not work for a stock truck or one that was going to get flexed harder than mine. Time will tell Looking at it, I may be able to get the mechanical fan to bolt up to the 3.4 water pump but it would be much further back than on the 2.8. Ultimately, I'd like to keep the mechanical fan and have a pusher mounted on the front that the PCM controls. The stock Camaro PCM doesn't turn the fan on until 220° and I'd prefer it to run just a bit cooler than that.

So, in swapping my 2.8 for a 3.4 I'm also getting rid of the AX5, NP207, and clutch pedal/master cylinder. I know that the bellhousings are the same between external and internal and that the clutch fork is different on the 84-86. Are there any other differences? And what's the value of said package? I have no clue how many miles are on them, the truck had at least 320k when I got it (the speedo cable was unhooked for who knows how long before I got it) and I've added 30k. Is the clutch fork the only really valuable bit of this? There's not a single AX5 on Facebook within a hundred miles of me to get an idea of price and Jeeps get picked clean within hours at local yards, so I know there's a demand. The only one on craigslist is an internal slave 300 miles away, and they're asking $250.

Pulling the 2.8 wasn't a huge deal. But the hoist couldn't get quite tall enough to get the 3.4 in. I swapped the trailers wheels with 235/75r15s on, and even then I had to deflate them to about 5 psi to get enough to get it in. I probably should've taken the header panel off but Regardless, the 3.4 and 4L60e are in the truck. Bolted up the NP242 today and started working on the transmission mount, more on that later. Looks like a decent angle for the engine to rest at. Need to measure driveshaft angles before I finish the trans mount. I didn't plan on pulling the dash twice this year, but here we are. It'll help with the wiring and let me fix some routing I wasn't crazy about from after the floor replacement. I can't stand wiring but, I think I'm done with the wiring aside from routing it on the truck and doing the crossover between harnesses at the ignition switch and the brake switch. I took the engine bay harness from the truck in the house and eliminated all the unnecessary stuff like the starter, a/c, and carb/emissions related things. I should be done with the Camaro harness as well aside from the routing and crossover parts.

Tearing apart an automatic is not nearly as complicated as I thought it would be. Maybe if I had to take the valve body off, I wouldn't feel that way though. Output shaft has been swapped on the 4L60e, now I'm just waiting on some parts to come in. The Novak adapter comes with a mount bracket that's adjustable up and down in 3 half inch increments. If I can't make that work with the crossmember I can bolt the mount pictured directly to the stock transmission location.

Filed down some pocket screwdrivers to make some depinning tools and spent about 2 days thinning out all the wiring. When I'm done with the swap, I'm planning on listing out all of the wires and connectors I'm keeping to run the engine because that seems like hard to come by info and it may help someone out in the future. This engine and PCM needs very little wiring to actually run. I removed about half of what is shown here after this photo as well. It runs, so I didn't screw up too badly. 20250828_180841.mp4 Spent a day getting it out of the car, and another day cleaning grime off of it. There's something zen about sitting down with a brush and a towel and cleaning an engine off. Separated the 4L60 and brought it in the house since it'll be the cleanest place to disassemble the transmission and install the new output shaft and NP242 adapter. I'll have to drill and tap a hole in the governor area for the Novak supplied VSS so that the PCM will have that info. This will also help me keep the cruise control built into the PCM from the factory. Having cruise will be a nice quality of life feature in this old truck.

This is such a great build. I've very rarely thought about getting away from the stock 4-link short arm setup, but if there was a kit for this, I'd be incredibly tempted.

After swapping the injectors I unhooked and labeled all the wiring. Pulled the body harness but left the engine harness, so when I thin everything out I can't make sure it still runs before I pull the engine. Lots of fun ahead. Pulled the exhaust as well. It had a full 2.5" Flowmaster catback that I'll cut up and make a new exhaust for the truck. Should be better than the cobbled together stuff on there now.

Much better. 20250825_165524.mp4

Well I figured out the rough running issue. Only 4 of the injectors are working. Surprisingly the one on the far left still seems to work fine. I think these may be a bit beyond a rebuild, so gotta get some new ones. Also, figured out that the aftermarket cooling fans were added because the fan relay ground is messed up. Should be an easy fix once the wiring harness is out.

He's a cool dude. I bought the factory grill guard that's currently on my truck from him. It was on that truck as an original option.

Not a whole lot of motion on getting camper stuff accomplished, but I got gifted an old Cobra 29ltd cb and installed a 5ft firestick antenna for it. Planning on cutting some plywood for the back cab wall and mounting it there. Also, in between jobs at the moment so I've got a good bit of time on my hands. Did about $2000 worry of maintenance to the daily Lexus, and I've started digging into the Camaro donor for Squirrelly Dan. Completely bypassed the VATS system, so I can get rid of all that wiring and put the bypass module on a switch to act as an anti-theft. The Camaro runs and moves in reverse and drive, definitely has a misfire or something because it's running rough, and I couldn't get it to rev enough on the stands to shift out of 1st because of that. Need to diagnose that and figure out why they added an aftermarket fan and relay to the radiator. But progress is progress. 20250809_164053.mp4

I'm also curious if the 95-96 one would need any different work in the 86 to swap in. The diaphragm in mine has started leaking and I wouldn't mind a stronger booster.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2548093482203230/ Stumbled on this Wildernest on Facebook. 60"x90" so it would fit a longbed perfectly, but it's already mounted to a trailer with benches and propane. Looks like the canvas is decent condition as well.

Absolutely gorgeous truck! This is how the Comanche should've looked if they kept the production running as long as the Cherokee.

Yeah, that seems like a throttle sticking issue or the carb cleaner is making it run that high. When I have multiple vacuum lines unhooked on my 2.8 it won't even idle because it's too lean. I don't have egr hooked up at all and I only have 4 vacuum lines hooked up; the brake booster, the one going to the fuel tank, one for the hvac controls, and one for the distributor advance. Everything else is plugged.

No problem. Also an fyi, the 78s are normally only side terminal batteries. The reason I got this one is it has both top and side terminals so it would be easier to connect a second battery or run power to my camper at some point. So, if you get a 78, make sure it works with whatever cable ends you have.

Actually, reading the specs I just realized it's a little wider and taller than the group 34s they offer, but an 1/8" shorter on the long side. Maybe that's why it fits and you couldn't get a group 34 in there?