Rymanrph

The white looks great! Part of me really wants to paint mine white.

Like the color. It looks like the Inca Gold they used on the Wranglers, PT Cruisers and some Prowlers (more?). What's going on under your driver side tail light?

Interesting..... we might have to trade. The Laredo bumper has a lighter gray end cap compared the the black. My fender flares and bumper end caps have been repainted a satin black; most of my truck is satin black right now cause all the clear coat is gone.

The reason I don't want to paint the plastics is I want to hide the fact that the rear flares don't match the front. My rear flares aren't in the best of shape either, so if I did paint them it would just draw attention to all the imperfections. I like the contrast of the black anyway. As far as painting it the original color, every time I buy a black vehicle, I tell myself I'm never going to buy another black vehicle. If I'm going to spend a couple grand on a nice paint job, I want it to look dramatically different than it did before. Black with a chrome grill looks great (somebody else on these boards has one with bushwackers), but I'm partial to color. I have two grills and two sets of headlight buckets. One will be painted body color and the other will stay black. That way I can swap them out as I feel like it. I have a NOS chrome Laredo rear bumper sitting in my den right now in the box. I'd rather have a black one since I don't have any other chrome pieces, but maybe a chrome grill up front would balance it out...? Deciding on a paint color for my SRT-4 was one of the hardest things I had to do on that car; this isn't much easier. Thanks for all the input guys!

Ok, I got a little bored and played around in Photoshop. A solid color would be a lot easier and cheaper, but I thought I'd give creativity a try. Rescue Green with Black accent and gunmetal wheels: Blue with Silver Two-Tone: Silver with Black Two-Tone: Black with Red Two-Tone and gunmetal wheels (I know I said no black or red, but this is just for fun): And a crazy White with Red accents: I really like the first two. I'll keep playing and messing around until I get tired of trying to pick something.

I try not to pick colors I've had before. Here is why I'm not going with red: The SRT-4 was mine. Its the car I sold to do all the work on the Comanche. I rebuilt it after it was totaled and painted it Inferno Red. The Challenger is my brother's. I just bought a Miata back in February. It's red too. I think gunmetal would look great, but there are already a couple on this site. Patriot blue is nice, but I don't want to go that dark. Most days its going to be Rescue Green, but my mind is easily swayed.

When I sell my TJ, I'm going to start getting some quotes on repainting my '97 conversion. I can't seem to pick a color. Here are my guidelines though. 1. No Black 2. No Red 3. Body color bumper, black bumper end caps 4. Black fender flares If it was yours, what color would you paint it? Body color grill or black?

Just as a reminder.. Here is the interior of my truck when I bought it: Here is what it looked like about 7 months ago: and here is what it looks like now:

I need an electric fan for my '97 swap. I also need an engine oil dipstick. A passenger fender would be great too, but not a must have. I just haven't been able to find these at local yards. I'd be willing to trade with anyone local leftover parts that they want from either my '90 or my '97 XJ.

You can move the seat belts down the floor in the stock location. You just have to bend the bracket straight. That's what I did since I'm not using the newer XJ seats. I'll try to add some pictures to my build this afternoon.

After all the body work, what color are you going to paint it?

I thought that too for a while. Then I just went for it. Its less about nerve more about patience. Its not very difficult to do, just somewhat time consuming and if you're doing it by yourself it can take a toll on you. I'm glad I did mine, but I won't be doing it again if I can help it. Looks like you're well on your way Backdraft. Your's looks a little familiar...

Hornbrod to the rescue! :clapping:

I've had several people ask me about the wiring for my tail lights, so I thought I'd post it in here in case anyone ever looks. I hope this makes sense. I wired it so only the top light would work as the general light. The middle would be the turn signals only and the bottom would obviously be the reverse. There will be a couple wires on the top two pigtails to the Comanche lights that you won't use in this arrangement. Driver Side: General Lights/Brake Lights (Top): Blue -> Solid Brown White w/ Black -> White w/ Orange Turn Signals (Middle): Blue -> Green w/ Red Reverse (Bottom): Black w/ White -> Black w/ Green Passenger Side: Lights/Brakes (Top): I also wired the license plates lights in here too. Blue -> Brown Brown -> White w/ Orange Turn Signals (Middle): Blue -> Green w/ Red Reverse (Bottom): Brown w/ White -> Brown w/ Green Obviously your grounds would all be the same. I hope this helps. I got the interior back together today. I'll post some pictures before the end of the weekend.

I left the plugs for the back doors in tact. The only things I thinned out were all the rear hatch stuff like the defroster, third brake light, rear wiper, etc. The tails are a little interesting. The Comanche has the top two lights tied together, but the Cherokee has all three independent (brake, turns, reverse). Since you have to use the Comanche pig tails to work with the factory lights, you have to do some selective splicing. When you get ready to do it, let me know and I'll post up my wiring notes as to which wires connect with what.

I had them cleared at the store and have driven it about 5 miles since. No light back on yet. Its run for a while (ran, but didn't move) and I hadn't had any lights before. I wonder if the shop bumped something while they were working on the exhaust...? Course, its possible that the transmission controller plug could have come loose a little behind the dash while I've been working on the interior. I'm not used to automatics; what is a typical shift rpm for the AW4? I feel like it revs a little high before it shifts, but I'm used to shifting myself pretty low, so it could just be me.

I got the registration updated today, but I also threw 3 codes (CEL). P1694, P1698 and P0700 which all seem to be transmission related like there is a bad connection or something. I've done some searching and it seems like most have some other symptoms like the truck won't start, runs bad, gauges act funny, etc., but I can't seem to tell that anything is wrong other than the light on the dash.

Got the truck back from the shop today. The exhaust is done and they adjusted my rear brakes. When I got home I adjusted the parking brake so that works now. They also inspected it for me while it was there, so tomorrow I will update my registration and it will officially be road legal again.

It probably does, but I'll already got that plugged in (whatever it is). Someone on Jeep Forums mentioned it could be for the temperature sensor for the over head console (that I don't have).

I dropped the truck off at the shop today to get the exhaust and e-brake fixed along with an inspection. They told me it would be ready today, but no of course it wasn't. Here is a picture of the new headlights. Quick question. You can see on the passenger side I have a gray pigtail hanging down. I have no idea what it's for. It wasn't connected to anything when I got it. It's a weatherproof connector, but I have no idea. I thought it might be for fog lights, but my cherokee didn't come equipped with them and there isn't another plug on the driver side. Any ideas?

That is one very clean looking truck. Very nice and welcome.

I hate that I never got to see it in person when it was still in Charlotte. Glad its finally going to a new home (I think he's been trying to sell it for a while).

It was actually pretty strange. I've seen this dash in and out of the truck a million times in the last 6 or 7 months, but it looked completely different sitting in front of it for the first time. I took the old sender/pump cap back off (and lost several more gallons of gas in the process) and then reinstalled it. I have no idea if its going to seal this time or not. Maybe I have the order wrong. I installed it this way: tank - o-ring - cap - lock ring. Is this right? I don't want to have to put several more gallons of gas in to find out if its leaking. I got my autopal housings in pretty early this morning so I got a chance to install them. With eAutoWorks harness, they were really easy to install. When I ordered my housings, there was an option to pick a different color bulb at no cost. I wanted the white color over the blue, but apparently the blue come pre-installed, so I got two extra bulbs in the box for free. Just as I was finishing up it started raining, so hopefully my new hood release grommet works and I won't have a puddle in my floor board. If everything works out, the exhaust should be fixed Monday and then I can have it inspected Tuesday. Then I can start cleaning up the interior and put it back together. I can't wait to put some miles on this thing.

Well......... I had my inaugural run. Good news and bad news. The good news is that pretty much everything seemed to work just as it should. I didn't have but a small splash of gas in the tank, so I took it up to the corner to fill it up because I wanted to see if the gas gauge works. The bad news is that the o-ring on the old pump location must not have been seated correctly because after I filled up, gas began to pour out all over the ground. I think I may have lost 8-10 gallons (and the gas gauge still reads full). So I spent my Friday night at the gas station pushing around kitty litter cleaning up gas. It should be an easy fix (hopefully), so at least something isn't broken. I found out the repair on my electric fan didn't hold, so I really just need to find another one. My upgraded harness came yesterday for my new housings and H4 bulbs that will be here tomorrow. If they get here before the rain does (not likely), I'm hoping to install them tomorrow. I also found out that my hood release cable grommet tore, so I had a small puddle in the floor board from the last bit of rain. The exhaust is deafening without the cat or muffler; I should be able to get it to the exhaust shop sometime next week. Unless something just goes completely wrong, I think I should have it all back together by next weekend.

Totally know how you feel, but you're getting close and it will all be worth it.