Rokstomper

I will start with a brief introduction and storyline of my Comanche. I bought it as my first car at the age of 17 to have something that could go off-road with my family. That was 5 years ago and since then, a lot of things have changed. For the first 2 years, I fought gremlins caused by whoever worked on it before me not really having much time to modify while just fixing all the issues of buying someone else's build. About two years into owning it, I cut the roll cage that the previous owner built off so that I could build a better looking and stronger roll cage. It was at that time after cutting the old cage off, I decided to go on a couple trail rides and unfortunately rolled the comanche over without a cage on a steep off camber down hill. We pushed it over and it began to rain so I drove it home with no front windshield and a smashed cab in the rain. This marked it's first major overhaul in the first couple years. At this time, I straightened the window frame as best as possible to put a windshield back in it and pushed the A pillars back where they should be. After that, it was time for a new roll cage and a couple other parts like track bar that cracked in the roll over. I drove it like that with some minor modifications here and there for the next 2 years. At this time, a friend and I decided we wanted to race King of the Hammers stock class, as well as the entire west Ultra4 series so we then took action and cut the old roll cage off and built a new race legal cage, put new seats in, installed a fuel cell and many of other upgrades as well as safety requirements. After it was all built, we took off for King of the Hammers 2018 and races our first race. After KOH, we fixed what was necessary and affordable and then took off for the Sacramento area for the Ultra4 Stampede race and raced that race. After that is when things started to go wrong prepping for the next race in Ridgecrest losing my Codriver and teammate. That brings us to now, 3 weeks until the next race, but no codriver and a team that is now busy with work and other things. With everything going on and a busy life, racing will have to begin again when I am finished with college in a few years. That is where this thread begins, another rebuild, except this time it is to make a race truck into a street legal truck again. This will involve cutting off yet another roll cage and building another new cage, putting a windshield back in the truck, building a new custom fabricated dash, patching holes from racing, a new heater/possibly air conditioning, new doors, new back window out of plexiglass, a center console, painting it, building a new rear bumper, new front suspension 3 links and I am sure a whole lot more. Until I get busy with all of that soon, I will provide some old pictures and if anybody wants to know anything from the past, feel free to ask any questions. Here is a current photo from the last race in Sacramento. I will dig up some older photos and show them as well.

I just read the last 10 pages of your build thread. It looks very nice. I am still reading farther back to see a couple things like how exactly you built the front 4 link and how far you limited the front travel with the limit straps. I will be doing limit straps soon before a break a shock so wondering about that. I have also been pondering a rear 4 link as well so nice to see someone else did it. Looks awesome, keep up the good work. nice tube work on the cage as well.

Okay, thank you. I feel the same about my radius arms. They do their job on flat ground and in rock gardens decently but as soon as I hit an up hill or downhill the radius arms just get too unpredictable. I think I will go ahead and work on a 3 link up front as well as dropping it down an inch or 2. I am also the only guy I know who has radius arms and I am the only one who complains at all and they are just running short arm Cherokees or leaf sprung yjs and toyotas. Thanks everybody who participates on here.

How did you like the 6.5 Rustys coils? I am trying to decide between more Rustys stuff or going with Rubicon Express coils. I do love the rustys in high speed desert hoops and stuff like that but want something that will work better in the rocks. I have read that the rustys 6 inch coils are a bit softer than the 8.5 coils. How did you feel about them? Thanks again

Yes, I have radius arms up front. I do not want to run a stock xj shackle but for buying aftermarket there are a lot more options for the xj than the mj. I am thinking I will just the leave the rear alone though anyway now. I already have some Cali stance (rearend low and prerunner looking). I probably have a little leeway there. Thanks for your help

That is just about exactly what I was thinking of setting up next. I currently have soa rear as well and 8 inch coils up front. I am also running full width axles and currently sit at 80 or 82 inches wide. I can't seem to remember which. It is very stable side Hilling but the front wants to unload any time I flex on something with only a front tire like a ramp or stacking on other jeep tires. That's what I'm trying to combat. 3 link might help as well. Thanks a ton for the help.

I built my own tie rod and drag ling using 1.5 x .25 wall dom tubing and heim joints instead of tie rod ends. One of my best most worthwhile upgrades for sure. On a closer to stock truck factory replacements are probably the best bet. I just needed more beef and so far so good. Figured I would throw the idea out there anyway.

Mine depends on what I am doing. If I am just daily driving around town I don't even carry a spare tire so it cannot get stolen. If I am just wheeling really close to home I typically do not bring much either. If I go farther than 20 miles I start to bring some tools. Between my brother, dad, and myself we typically have all the tools possibly needed including even access to weld on the trail. This one is important and we learned this the hard way. I broke my trackbar in half in the middle of a trail so 2 of us had to drive about 8 hours round trip back to the house to weld it up and bring it back up to the trail, install it, finish the trail, and head back home. Just a wake up call to be prepared all the time. I personally carry in my truck, which mostly go into an action packer and another bag, Hi lift jack spare tire assortment of random hand tools Hammer zip ties electric tape A few extra important bolts extra motor oil gear oil for trans an diffs atf for tcase coolant water power steering fluid brake fluid Some paper towels I also carry a pair of gloves for pulling winch line I typically bring an extra jacket in the winter

I would like to know what you guys are running for leaf shackles. Right now I have 6 inch aftermarket shackles but want some in the 4 inch range because I would like to drop the rear an inch or so when I drop the front down from 8 inch coils to about 6 inches. I am very dissatisfied with my rustys 8 inch coils. They seem very progressive and do not flex near as good as my rear leafs do. The coils unloaded threw me upside down already once. I would like a little softer coil and a little lower. I am thinking 4.5 inch with a small spacer. So the question is, which shackles are available for the rear that are shorter than 6 inches and which coils are you guys running in the 6 inch of lift range? Also, do xj shackles work on mjs?

That looks nice. I like the carpet.

I already have a perfectly good working ax-15 in it from the factory. I just want the automatic transmission because I play in the rocks a lot and the automatic transmission is a lot cheaper than sourcing and putting together a dual transfer case set up to have the desired control. Also after replacing the internal slave cylinder twice in a short period, I feel it would be a good change in terms of reliability as well.

I have been doing research on swapping out an AX15 to the Automatic Cherokee transmission (AW4). There are a ton of these threads but I seem to be having issues finding info on swapping the 23 spline aw4 into a renix 4.0. I have a 1990 mj with an ax15. So in order to use my transfer case on the aw4 I will need a 23 spline aw4 which would be the newer models from 91 and up. So a 91 or newer aw4 but i will still need an 87-90 flex plate to get it to all work? I am not sure about this. I have also read about needing a new throttle body and tps for hooking up the tv cable. I am unsure if this is truly necessary. I am also concerned about whether the ax15 crossmember will work with the aw4. I have a long arm set up and they bolt to the crossmember as well as the transmission. Also whether the 23 spline spline output on the aw4 is the same as my np231j 23 spline input. I will be running radesign rail or baja shifter and no tcu for simplifying the process. Is there anything else I missed or that I will have trouble with? Thank you