terrawombat

Glad you made it back safe and sound. My wife actually mentioned that she noticed me displaying a rare emotion of sadness after you drove away. I'll admit that I was a little torn up when I saw you drive her down the street, but was happy that someone who appreciates these trucks was taking it home. To be honest, I wouldn't have given away any of those extra parts with the truck had it been sold to some random buyer who wasn't familiar with the Comanche platform, but I knew you'd put them to better use than I ever will. Best of luck with whatever you have planned for her and make sure to take plenty of pictures.

The 3.0L EcoDiesel is a great little engine manufactured by VM Motori, but as others have already stated the emissions systems required by the US EPA really tarnish its reputation in terms of reliability. VM Motori also made the diesel engine in the 2005-2006 CRD Liberty and that is generally considered very reliable, but the US EPA was a lot more lenient a decade ago so there were fewer emission systems required, which ultimately meant less parts that could fail and cause a domino effect leading to other parts/systems failing. The only 3.0L EcoDiesel I have driven was in a 2015 Ram 1500 and it didn't have a lot of the "harsh" diesel engine characteristics that I've experienced from many of its bigger brothers i.e. the 5.9L Cummins (I own one), the 6.0L Powerstroke (co-worker has one I ride in often) or the 6.7L Cummins (buddy has one). I found the EcoDiesel to be very smooth, free of vibrations and extremely quiet. In my opinion the biggest issue with the 3.0L EcoDiesel is the fact that every vehicle model that offers it as an option already uses a good, proven gasoline engine as their standard offering. Modern gasoline engines have made some pretty significant improvements over the last decade in terms of power and fuel economy where diesel engines don't really make too much sense for the extra $$ that comes with them. It would be interesting to see what kind of similar improvements could be made to diesel engines if they received the same amount of R&D effort as the gasoline engines have, but that will never happen. All of the R&D effort on diesels is spent coming up with ways to comply with the ever-changing rules and regulations of the US EPA.

Ha! When I was a toddler the childseat seat movement was really gaining steam and there was all kinds of whacky designs coming out that made some bold safety claims. I have a 1.5 year old myself so childseats are now mandatory or else I'm essentially considered a child murderer. Sometime in the early 2000's the auto industry adopted a standard known as LATCH. It requires that rear seats have a specific mounting bracket for fastening in childseats. By my wife's orders if a vehicle does not have the LATCH system then our son is not allowed to ride in that vehicle. These are decisions above my pay grade...

Sorry didn't see this until now. I'll start out by stating that my MJ isn't my daily driver and it doesn't see a whole lot of action ever since my son was born - the MJ bench doesn't pass the Mom seal of approval for child seats. As such, the amount of foot traffic the carpet has encountered has been very minimal compared to what most MJs on here likely receive. My MJ does get plenty of time in the sun, however, and I haven't noticed much in terms of color fade. The only area of the carpet that no longer looks uniform in color is the passenger footwell, but that is due to an on-going water leak that has been repaired several times, but always finds a way to resurface. Overall I think the Duplicolor fabric spray paint has exceeded my expectations.

It's actually 330ft-lbs of torque, not HP. When I saw your post and read that I was genuinely surprised since that motor only has about 160HP from the factory. It's pretty easy to squeeze more torque out of a diesel, but to double the HP usually requires a bunch of supporting modifications. Also baffled by the decision to use a Durango for the swap, but to each his own. With the amount of time, labor and materials invested into this vehicle his asking price of $5,500 isn't all that bad.

When I bought my '92MJ the headliner and backing board were long gone. Drove it 7.5 hours back home from OH to NJ so I got became pretty familiar with the interior road noises. To make matters worse the upper rubber bushings on the front shocks were completely shot so whenever I hit a pothole, the front shocks would clang against the shock mount and the interior seemed to amplify the noise. I replaced the spring bushings and installed a new headliner around the same time and the difference in cabin noise was night and day. I wound up buying one of the first prototype headliners w/backing board from a member on these forums. I remember his company was SMS Headliners and I believe his name was Steve. Not sure if he's still making them, but he was excellent to work with. The first batch of headliners he made had a little too much material in the rear of the cab which cause the backing board to get pinched and crease. There was also no way to get the plastic trim to fit without hacking up the headliner. I sent him pics of the problem areas and he immediately saw the problem, modified his template and sent me a new one out ASAP completely free of charge even after I offered to cover some of the cost because he gave me a big discount on the first one since I was essentially a beta tester. http://smsheadliners.webstoreplace.com/

I've always been hesitant to use Dynamat or one of the 100 copies that are out on the market. My fear is that the stuff will promote condensation due to the fact it's also a thermal insulator and you'll get water trapped between the floor and the mat.

eBay is absorbing the costs, but it won't be a 20% hit to their bottom line since they gouge their sellers with listing fees and take their cut on the final sale price for many of the auctions listed on that site. I used to enjoy being a, eBay seller, but got tired of it after they continued to bump up their fees but offered their users nothing in return. I don't use it nearly as much as I used to, but I'll poke around there once in a while to see if any 2.1L diesel parts pop up. I'll definitely take advantage of this coupon if I find something - thanks!

I wasn't referring to the difference in color between the two generations. Even the 84-96 grey and tan interiors aren't a perfect match for the 97-01 grey and....tan/beige/whatever Chryco called it. I always assume that anyone who does the 97+ conversion properly will need to lay down some interior paint somewhere along the lines. What I was referring to was the subtle differences in the design of the early AMC/Jeep panels vs the later Chryco XJ panels. The surface texture on the 97+ panels is a lot smoother and they also have larger radii on every edge. Once the interior is fully assembled the seats practically cover the entire B-pillar panels and the rear upper carpet panel never in anyone's line of site so it won't even be noticeable unless you're looking for it.

Wow, you have basically amassed the ideal set of components for swapping in 97+ XJ seats into an MJ. I don't think you'll run into any issues with those seat bases as I used to have a '99 XJ Classic with the electric height/tilt control. I never looked all that closely at how it was setup but it was able to adjust the seat height so that it was about 1-1.5" lower than the fixed height in my '01 XJ Sport that had the standard, no-frills seat bases. No matter how many 97+ interior parts you gather you'll always have the B-pillar panels and the upper rear carpet panel to remind you that you're still rolling around in a late 80's/early 90's Jeep. If you happen to come across an individual that is able to identify this subtlety then it is safe to assume their MJ/XJ knowledge is at a very respectable level.

I did three total coats using a specific spray gun/nozzle combo that was recommended by the manufacturer. I bought two gallons of the stuff and I think I used just about all of it. Don't get me wrong, the stuff worked and I definitely noticed a difference, but it didn't match my expectations that were driven by the hype generated by my former co-worker. Ironically both you and him were using it on VW buses/vans that have very large sheet metal surfaces, which are more susceptible to vibration phenomenons such as resonance. My belief is that the MJ interior sheet metal is a lot more rigid and doesn't account for a lot of the road noise that many complain about. I found that the biggest reduction in interior noise came when I stuffed the transmission shifter hole with a piece of foam.

I used a spray-on sound deadening coating called QuietCoat on the entire interior of my MJ when I had it stripped down. It came highly recommended by a former co-worker that used it while restoring his VW Bus and he said it made an incredible difference. My experience with the product wasn't quite the same. While it seems like the cab doesn't have as much road noise, it is still very much present. I think the reason we had different experiences with it is because his VW Bus is basically a tin can and anything you do to the interior is a huge improvement. The Jeep Comanche has a bit more rigidity to it than those old VWs so the sound deadening wasn't quite as noticeable. I also wouldn't recommend because it's very expensive and the appearance of the final product looked pretty tacky to me - the stuff didn't lay down nice at all.

I cut out the 97+ XJ seat brackets and welded them in just like you did and when I did the test fit of the 97+ seats, I was less than thrilled. I felt that the seats sat way too high in that configuration, although I didn't have any issues with headroom. The height at which my legs came off the front of the seat and the angle they needed to be to get to the pedals just felt awkward, if that makes any sense. I wound up trimming the brackets on the actual seat to lower it a bit and it felt a lot more natural. Might be a total non-issue for you, but just thought I'd mention it. Also, while I was messing around with the seat brackets, I decided to modify the recliner assembly to allow the seat to flip forward. Was incredibly simple and only required you to remove the "stop" pin in the assembly. Of course, this could also be a total non-issue if you have 2-door seats :) Obviously, mine were from a 4-door.

UShip can be a great resource for shipping vehicles at incredibly low rates. I worked with a contractor for a few years that was based in Indiana and would travel all over the US to install and service our equipment. He would always drive to the locations (regardless of distance) and would use UShip to see if there were any jobs posted that were on his way. Didn't bother me any as long as he got to the sites on time and got the work done - was just a little extra bonus money in his pocket if everything panned out correctly. I believe that UShip has additional insurance policies you can purchase in the event that the rotted out tow vehicle or busted up trailer finally gives up and your vehicle becomes a victim.

I used IronClad transport to have an '07 Duraburban shipped from Colorado to Maryland this past summer. Can't think of a heavier vehicle than a Suburban with a Duramax diesel engine in it and it went almost coast to coast. Total cost was $870. Had great communication the entire time and had a direct cell phone number to the driver who would text me updates along the way. He wound up being a day late because he got a call from his dispatcher when he was in Kansas City because a member of the NFL Chiefs just purchased a brand new car from a dealer and didn't want to go pick it up and offered to pay $500 to have it delivered to his house so they wanted the easy money. Didn't bother me one bit since I was informed of the delay and was able to plan accordingly.

I'd be interested to see what kind of unibody reinforcement (if any) was done. Most of the convertible trucks they show on their website are a cab on frame design which is a little more forgiving to this type of modification. Do you have a top for the Comanche? I'd like to see that and how it attaches to the cab and windshield as well.

Neat site - read a few of the articles and learned some new factoids. He's got a link to CC so I'm guessing he's lurking around here somewhere... Quick history lesson on internet blogs - you used to be able to easily dig up the user ID of blog authors by viewing the source code of the webpages and looking for a particular string of code that could at least get you to their profile. From there you could at least establish some form of contact with the author, but I tried it on this blog and that old method doesn't seem to work anymore. I'm guessing they made it more difficult to do detective work and track down the author as I know some of the blogging sites were getting a lot of complaints from the anonymous internet tough-guys who would blog a bunch of controversial garbage that really had no place other than to get readers stirred up. Those bloggers would generally remove any way for readers to contact them, but once the little detective trick I described was discovered people would oust the author and flood their e-mail inbox. This made the internet tough guys angry because they thought their identity was a secret. Oh well, freedom of speech I suppose...

When you say you "took it" does that mean you got it for free? If so, that's one hell of a find. The Waggy's have been gaining popularity over the last several years and to find one with no rust is not an easy task.

The good news is that it's not the worst I've ever seen! The fact that the brake lines needed some "alterations" to work, the extended sway bar end links and the track bar drop bracket make me think that it has more than a 3.5" lift on it. I didn't think all of that stuff was necessary until you got up into the 4"+ lift range.

Can't argue that!

The UV radiation from the sun will make quick work of any exposed surface on the Tesla. Poor Starman won't benefit from the protection of the ozone layer like we do. The extreme temperature swings will also do some fun stuff with expansion and contraction.

The main lines that all of the drip tape branches into is pretty heavy duty stuff and can take a beating. When I lived on my parents farm I'd have to punch all of the holes in that tubing to install the on/off valves for the multiple rows of drip tape. It required a special round punch to get through the stuff and it wasn't always easy.

I'd prefer it didn't crash into anything. I think it'd be really neat to see it in person after being in space for a while just to get an idea of the intense accelerated aging effects that happen up there. Maybe the mainstream media will create enough of a frenzy that they just concede and go get the damn thing.

Was the drip tubing the PO used the soaker/emitter type that has holes all the way down the length to allow water to drip out?

Honestly, how to start and manage an investment portfolio needs to be one of a few topics that is part of a mandatory class in every high school. Topics also studied in that aforementioned class would include "Credit cards, and how not to use them" "Your credit score and why it's important," and lastly, "Everything you don't want to know about taxes." Not saying you don't know how to create one or even need to (for all I know you have a vault of gold coins that you swim in like Scrooge McDuck), just speaking from my own experiences with various people I've met over the years, both young and old, that don't do much in the way of investing and honestly think that the government is going to adequately take care of them when they retire.