SteveW155

Amazon says you don't ship to South Africa...!

Ah ok, thnx!

Nah, can’t say I do, Cape Town is a big city (well by our standards lol)although I do have an architect friend who probably does... Of course they are, us Capetonians are all super cool !!![emoji41] Our youngest got married to an american lass about a year ago, and they’ve almost got their ducks in a row to go back. I sure wouldn’t mind making a move myself... you have a beautiful country to explore and I love your positive mindset and national pride. I’m afraid we have lost most of that here [emoji22]

Thanx a mil for the info! I love the Sportruck decals on your MJ - dumb question - is that factory, and if so was it a particular year?

Looks magic! Great job!!

Bwahaha - nahh, I'm fine, and a terrible influence on my friends! My Jeep buddies land up buying Alfas and visa versa. 2nd hand Alfas are cheap here, thanx to mediocre dealerships, which have led to bad reps for the cars, which are actually brilliantly engineered, reliable, and cheap to run especially if u diy. And a hoot to drive. I have a fleet varying from full blown restoration projects, to nice hop in and drive. Newest is a badass slightly modified 2004 156GTA 3.2l 24v V6 for special occasions. Daily drive is 98 155 Sport with nearly 350k km on untouched original motor - cheap thrills, I want to be buried in that car. I love it almost as much as my wife and 2 border collies I'm totally hijacking this thread ... Sorry!!

Thanks! Interesting, but frustrating format ... now I also know what vertical scope is... I see he's already passed thru

Ahhh OK, now I get it... Yip, I'm beginning to think that addiction may describe me better than collection ... What else have you got? Any Alfas in the family? (Am I hijacking the thread now?)

Oops, sorry ... was I just rapped over the knuckles there? So "too many Alfas" would not be appropriate? I'll hop on a PC later and update

Thanks Tom, your magnificent beastie is one of the reasons I wanted one so badly! Spot-on regarding Cruiser’s tips!! I’ve been working through them, and I’m pretty sure I’ve identified the causes of several of my MJ’s issues. I can’t wait to get back to it and try them out [emoji16]

Thanks! You just answered a question I had! [emoji16]

Thank you!! The MJ being an import, has its controls on the wrong side, whereas the others are on the right side! I'm gonna see if I can pick up on that thread, thnx - I heard something about that. Hope we didn't miss his Cape Town visit... Yeah ... well in Africa the rules change all the time ...

I’m finally qualified to reply, seeing as I’ve been an MJ owner for just over a week now 😁. Hopefully it will be moving under it’s own power soon! I need to sell my first Jeep, which I love to bits, but can’t justify keeping, the 93 XJ 4l (AW4) and then there’s Golddigger ... 99 XJ 4l (AW4). And way too many Alfa Romeos... Fuel is expensive in South Africa, more so every month ... so Jeeps are not daily drivers ☹️

Well, there are many nice RHD XJ’s over here for you to choose from...[emoji12] You’ll be happy to hear that I’ve actually canned the RHD conversion idea. The beastie is just simply too nice and original to mess with it. I feel it would be wrong and stupid. If it was in need of a full restoration, it would have been a different matter

Thanks Pete, that’s a great idea! 😁

Those seats look magnificent! A question for the experts: my newly acquired time warp 89 SporTruck has basketweave vinyl in the same color - I’ve seen very few pics of this on the net - mine has a large tear which is an eyesore ... has the basket weave got any significance? Would it be a crime against comanchety to ditch the basketweave & recover like the OP’s? Assuming I could even source replacement basketweave...

Years of practice!!! LOL Thanks!

UPDATE!!! On 16/2/2019 my dream came true, and I became a fully fledged Comanche owner!!! Still feels unreal [emoji16] Thanks to a good friend in the Alfa Romeo club, it’s become possible to follow your sound advice AND do my Roadkill SA dream! A bunch of us travelled up north (a story on its own) as far as Springbok on Friday. On Saturday we did the next stint along with a Cruiser and trailer and collected the MJ from the previous owner and trailered it 300km south (and closer to home) to my friend’s place where we spent the last daylight of Saturday and all of Sunday working on the beastie. We have brakes and clutch, and the 4l runs sweetly with direct fuel injection - from a baked beans can! [emoji13] I got the fuel pump running, but it doesn’t pump... and injectors seem to be siezed. My friend has a radiator shop, so he will refurb the radiator, possibly we’ll upgrade to a thicker core. The Jeep has cleaned up beautifully, it really is a time machine - it was imported when it was about 2 years old to the semi desert area of the far Northern Cape. So ... after an EPIC weekend up North with buddies, I’m back in Cape Town, the Comanche is safely stored with my friend in Springbok, while I get the injectors refurbished/replaced and source a fuel pump and lower rad hose (interesting in our RHD country) and recover from a small surgical procedure which has outlawed physical activity for 4-6 weeks[emoji2955]. Then I’ll load the Alfa with spares and tools again and go get the MJ running under its own power. Hopefully! Then I’ll need to find the cause of the death wobble the seller warned me of. I may leave the MJ with my friend for a month or two to use and test before taking the long road back to Cape Town ... the jury is still out on that one... Thank you for all the encouragement, support and advice from the other side of the world, I really appreciate it!

Turbines would compliment an already stunning truck. No brainer, go for it!

I am, and I will thanks! Also toying with doing the cooling conversion before bringing it down. It gets pretty hot here

Update: So Operation Comanche is underway. It’s been delayed by personal stuff and a busy seller, plus the concern of safe transportation of over 800km (We don’t have full size pick-ups like you guys over there) The adventure starts 15 Feb - we’ll be trailering the MJ 300km closer to home to a friend’s fully equipped workshop. Once there, I’ll go up for a long weekend and prep it to drive it home, preferably offroad, down the coastal west coast route. Excited much!! Thanks for the support and enthusiasm, I’ll keep you posted!

Looks fantastic! Which year model B2500 did it come off?

Thanks! Lucky for me the owner bought it when he was working in the USA many years ago and liked it enough to bring it home with him. One cannot register LHD vehicles in SA anymore that weren't already registered by a certain date, a few years back - so it would have been VERY difficult for me to import one - I would most certainly have needed to convert it to RHD before being able to road register it Either way ... here are some pics of the beastie - as you can see he"s pretty solid, having spent his time here in a very dry part of the country :-D And he only has 85k miles on the clock... I'll turn the grille right side up as soon as I get him home.

Thanks Pete, I'll do that!