glundblad

Thanks for the comments. :cheers:

But here is the best part. I didnt like the thought of having an aftermarket bumper (a Fey). I live in northern Indiana and finding rust free bumpers is almost impossible. I ran across one awhile back. After I bought it, I found another one. Now I have two and two sets of bumper brackets. Everything was very straight. I sent them off to the body shop for painting. I also had a receiver hitch that needed painting too. I was a little shocked when I got them back. While they looked good, they were not flat black. The body shop said they were the same paint as the rest of my truck but it has been awhile and he forgot. He said this was eggshell. Here is one of them against the Fey. You can see that the Fey is definately flat and the factory one has much more gloss. I will also solve the age old question about which bumper is heavier. In this unscientific experiment, the Fey weighed 37 lbs. The factory bumper (without the rubber trim) weighed 28 lbs. Others on the forum mentioned the factory bumper was heavier but I didnt think that was right. The fey is definately heavier. I am now indecisive about what to do. Would you mount one of the glossy bumpers or take them back and have them painted flat? I like the gloss but I want it to be factory too. The sheet metal is not the highest quality so all the flaws in the stamping are easier to see. Any thoughts?

I wanted to update my build with a few new things. I am in need of advice and hopefully others can learn from my mistakes. I will start with my NOS tail lights. I finally got the second one in the pair a couple of months ago. Ignore the dust. I also wanted to replace my headliner. But thought you suckers were spending way too much time restoring your old POS foam so I thought I would smart and buy new. Big mistake. Keep restoring the old stuff because the new do not fit very well. I creased mine and now it has wrinkles in the front corners above the a pillars. So I am not using it. Hopefully, all of you can learn from my ignorance. You can see in the pics why I need to replace my old one. My dad tried to fix it with glue and newspaper. :no: The new one looked nice though. Here is the back of the new one. It was a foam product over some extreemly stiff fiberboard. It was well made but it didnt fit. I glued my old velcro strips to the new one. It was going to be nice. Too bad.

I needed two cab corners. The body shop was able to form the piece that needed replaced on one. On the other, too much of it needed replaced so I had a JY cut one off a donor. They charged me $40 for it. Just have them cut above the angles on the top and past the seams on the back and toward the underneath side.

Very nice. How easy is it to put up or take down? Mine came with both tops but after messing with the soft top on two occasions and still not getting it right, I gave up. If I want the top down, I unbolt the hard top. The rag top is in the attic.

I bought 4 jeep turbine wheels from some company up in Michigan. Each wheel was like new. Then when I got them all out on the living room floor, I realized the color of the alloy wasnt uniform on each wheel. This style also has gray paint on them too. The paint didnt match and the allow didnt match. There were three different shades of gray. Plus the casting wasnt exact either. I wanted to return them because they didnt match but they wouldnt take them back without me paying shipping plus a 20% restock charge. I said they didnt match and they claimed each wheel was fine and that they didnt match wasnt relevent. It was a long battle and I eventually gave up and called my credit card company. The bank pulled the money from their account and which caused them to send return shipping labels. Moral of the story, you will never know what you end up with if you buy them from someone. I sent mine to a local refinishing company through my body shop called Transwheel in Huntington, IN. They were in pretty bad shape but looked new when they were finished. Just rememeber, never let the tire company mount weights on the outsides :no:

I recall I had a very odd squeak for years. Then when I bought the truck back, there it was again. It didnt happen very often but it still drove me nuts. Then I figured out it was the spool in my seatbelt. I was such an idiot. :shake:

Rob has excellent eyesight. It took me a minute to figure out how he saw it was a chief. BTW, those cab corners are gone but it doesnt look bad behind those rear fender flairs. A good bed is tough to find.

I am in the process of replacing my headliner. That also required me to remove the carpet panel in the back below the rear window and the plastic b-pillar trim. Since so much has been removed already, I have been considering installing sound deadening material so I could listen better to the fidelity of my crappy factory radio. Here is what I was considering installing behind the seats, b-pillar and the roof: http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_info.php?products_id=55 It is a closed foam product which is not suppose to absorb moisture and it is not tar based so it shouldnt smell during a nice sunny day. Plus it is inexpensive. Has anyone done this with any success?

Yes the off road has higher sulfur so it burns dirtier. Road diesel is dyed as proof that the road taxes have been paid. Road diesels changed from 2007 and later. I believe it is harmful to some degree to burn the dirty, higher sulfur diesel in the 2007 and later CRD diesel vehicles. But it doesnt matter for road engines prior to 2007 other than the fact that it is very illegal.

I have no idea what I am talking about so keep that in mind. Older vehicles typically are exempt from newer safety laws. A 1963 nova didnt come with shoulder belts. A model T had no seat belts. Yet you are required by law to wear both. I bet that thing doesnt even have seat belts in the cab. It sounds like it is the same thing.

I was in the exact same situation as you. I decided to restore it. I didnt do any of the work beyond "tinkering". I have three other vehicles besides this comanche and lots of other toys I don't really need. This old comanche is by far my favorite vehicle. I can't explain why. I don't understand it myself. By the way, 1987 what a great year! That makes it Amercan Motors. You can scoff at Chrysler. http://www.comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=21903 In order to post pics on the forum, you will need to set up an account with photo storage site such as photobucket. It doesnt cost anything. Upload your photos to that. Then when you add a post on the comanche forum, you link to the photo on photobucket.

I have seen those before and have been tempted to get one but I don't know what I would do with it. I would not put it on my truck though. AMC didnt put those on the MJ so I guarantee that each time you look at it, it will give you a migrane. It would be like putting the Chrysler "Trail Ready" badge on it.

I have read countless similar posts previous to yours. I ended up purchasing a set of OME (Old Man Emu) shocks. I am really glad I bought them. They fall within the expensive category too but they really improved the ride. Others have said Monroe sensatracs perform pretty well and are less expensive too. But don't forget, Comanche's cab welded directly to the frame. I live on the roughest dirt road in our county. While it does give a great ride on average quality roads, there is no way it will be as smooth a ride on rough roads as my tahoe or my jk rubicon. On rough roads, the rubicon for example benefits from 20 additional years of suspension development. I am the original owner of my '87 comanche. It rode harsh when it was new but I didnt buy it because of it's luxurious ride.

Welcome Back. It's about time. We thought you took off and joined the French Foreigh Legion or something.

I had a 1975 Chevy Monza with a cat. Anyone remember the Monza? It was thrill in snow. :ack:

For those MJ owners that have bench seats and wish to upgrade to buckets, the choices are fairly limited. Especially considering the age the seats will need to be in order to work. A lot of them are getting pretty ratty looking. If the brackets were able to support other options (ZJ or later XJ for example) that would be great. Something else that would be fantastic is on the older style Wranglers, the seat tipped forward at the bracket to allow access to the rear. In many cases, such as myself, I had to replace my bench with XJ seats from a 4 door. If the brackets tipped the 4 door seat up to allow access to the jack, that would be great too.

Yeah, this line doesn't make much sense to me. Available as the short-bed Comanche Sport Truck and the long-bed Comanche Chief, the last Comanche rolled off the line in 1992... Makes it sound like the Sport Truck and the Chief were the only two models available. If it was a chief, it was a longbed. They never made a longbed Chief. I bet my sister wrote that.

They are nice but they rust beyond imagination.

Taking a saws-all to these things is no big deal. It is not like it is a 25 year old limited production vehicle or something. :hmm: but taking a sawzall to the bed and leaving it cutoff is a shame. itll be one of thoes damn P/O stories for they guy that buys it. and if you havent noticed they only made these trucks til 92, so its not like there are nearly as many left as xjs. so i stand by my poor truck statement :thwak: you for thinking shoddy work is ok Sorry about that Cody4359. I agree with you 100%. It was my attempt at sarcastic humor that didnt come out right. These really are 25 year old limited production vehicles and I will never understand why anyone would want to hack them up. It seems it is the first thing a lot of people do. It's especially true with a rust free bed. It is worse than taking a black dash (which as near as I can tell was available for only two years) and painting it spray can red. Or chopping up the door panels to hold a couple of wal mart speakers. I don't get it. :shake:

Taking a saws-all to these things is no big deal. It is not like it is a 25 year old limited production vehicle or something. :hmm:

I like it. It is not too big and flashy. I tried to get a personalized license plate that said MJOTM followed by the date. I couldnt get it done with the technology we have in Indiana (text string too long). This would be almost as good.

I think this would be a tough business to be in. Lots of competition and slim margins and you must deal with customers on tight budgets. 1000 satisfied customers cannot compete with the mouths of a few unhappy ones. My wife owns a beauty shop and works hard at it. But this kind of thing happens there too. But I think this type of business would be worse.

I hope no one thinks I bought it. I am not gutsy enough to take a hack saw to my truck.

Congratulations. Well done.