Rymanrph

Looks pretty tough. I've always been a fan of those wheels. Any options for center caps?

Love the color! I was considering something very similar when I first got my truck. With the painted flares, I'd paint your front bumper end caps.

So, I finally got the car back to my house today - a full five weeks after I dropped it off at the shop. They never found the correct drum. They just cleaned up the one I had and sent me on my way. The shop owner is convinced that its a Ford 9" and not a 8 3/4. I don't know enough about either to argue with him, but I know that the 8 Ford drums he tried didn't work. He told me that he adjusted the ride height when he did my alignment. I measured when I got home and the driver side is a full 1" lower than the passenger side. I have no idea how you can be that off. I tried to tackle some little things today. The first project was to try and fix my temp gauge. We put a jumper on the plug to ground and it moved to the first ticked and stopped - wouldn't go back down either. I know that the wire is pretty brittle and hard, so it could be that or the gauge. Next project - I decided to adjust the doors to get them to close a little better. When I pulled the driver door striker out, I heard a clunk (sigh). I pulled the back seat and the interior panel to fish the "nut" out and this is what I found: As you can see, there is no longer a captured nut and absolutely no adjustment possible. Not sure what I'm going to do long term, but for now, I'll probably just open that hole up a little more for adjustment. When I have the quarter panel fixed from the wheel coming off, I think I'm going to have my body guy fix all my visible paint flaking/rust/bare metal spots - hood, trunk, header etc. The goal is to get it down to two major colors - faded blue and primer gray.

The 360 came out of a 73 something and the trans came from a 75 Dodge truck. I got that info from the serial numbers. It's far from original.

I still don't have my car back. The shop owner couldn't find a brake drum locally and asked me to order it (3 business days after the accident). I told him that he should take care of that. Apparently it has been ordered, but its still not here. I stopped by the shop yesterday on the way home because I hadn't heard the first thing from the insurance company and nothing from the shop owner in a week. Turns out, he's on vacation this week and the insurance company can't do anything until they settle with him. Tomorrow will be two weeks since they damaged my car and Friday will be three weeks since I took it to them. I've grown impatient.

Its good that you took those before pictures because at some point you'll look back at them and say to yourself, "Why did I spend all this money upgrading it? It looked great before!" Haha, I've done that.

No, I don't believe so. I hate that it happened, but its all going to be fixed and it will probably be better than it was before. The paint was already bubbling slightly on that lower quarter, so I'll get some free body work. The wheel lip molding might be hard to find though.

The car has been in the shop getting an alignment and brakes. I got the call you never want to get when your car is in someone else's hands. While out testing the car, the rear wheel came off. He thinks the tech just didn't seat the wheel properly. Here you can see some of the damage to my brand new wheel: The shop was really cool about everything, so its all going to get fixed on their insurance. The wheel hit another car, but nobody was hurt. It could have been a lot worse. I'm a little bummed because I'm so close to getting it driving (reliably) and this is just another set back, but oh well.

Well that will ruin your day/week/month. I'm working on a '68 Barracuda and headrests are something that concern me. I've already converted to three point seat belts, but your situation has me thinking again about adding some sport seats at some point. If you change your mine and decide you want to buy it back, I know someone here in NC with a dealer's license that buys stuff from iaai auctions all the time - might be able to save some money on the buy back.

If you guys go to Uwharrie and want some more MJ company, let me know. I'm only 40 minutes away. I need to get mine back out on the trails.

Yep AR TT2s. 17x8 up front and 18x9.5 in the back.

Its actually a Cadillac color called Opulent Blue. Unfortunately, its going to be a while before the rest of the car is that color. Paint jobs are expensive.

I've been making some steady progress on the car. In fact, my Jeep habit paid for some new wheels and tires.

I haven't seen many people do the '97+ swap and keep the original front end, much less the doors. Brings back memories of mine when mine was on a 3" lift.

Well, the newness didn't last very long. I have no idea how this happened. Maybe a cat climbed up on the fender flare or something while it sat in my driveway. They don't look too deep, so I'm hoping they'll buff out. Let's just say I'm :fs1: .

It's a sport s with the power group, connectivity group, upgraded sunrider top, tinted windows, uconnect 430 and traclok differential in copperhead pearl.

After bouncing around for a while on economical daily drivers, I ended up with a Mini Cooper S that was fun to drive but unreliable. I finally had enough and decided to stick with what I love. I had to drive 5.5 hours one way to get it yesterday. I couldn't find anything used for a decent price with the options and a color I wanted, so I decided to buy my first new Jeep. It has a bunch of extras that I didn't want, but it had the options I did want in the color I wanted and this dealer was actually willing to deal. My local dealers wouldn't match the price and told me to go buy theirs. After a YJ, 5 TJs, plus my two XJs and MJs, this Jeep is a completely different animal.

I haven't done anything to the MJ recently except driving it quite a bit. My last tank got me 14.5 mpg which is pretty good for me. I did wash it today and I got the TJ finished and ready to sell as soon as the title gets here.

The dealer can't always make a key from your VIN. I tried that with my brother's Stratus coupe when he locked his key in the car and the new key didn't work.

I have a harbor freight trans jack that I have certainly gotten my money's worth out of. It makes the job a cinch, especially when your rig doesn't have much ground clearance.

Not Comanche related, but Its that time of year again. I bought another TJ to fix up and sell. I got it for cheap, but the 32rh needs rebuilding, the paint is rough and it needs tires. I couldn't pass it up for the price though. Its a '99 and only has 140k miles. The PO installed a new radiator, exhaust manifold, head gasket, battery and valve cover gasket. I'm hoping for a quick and profitable flip.

Ha, I actually recently bought a new brake pedal pad. I looked high and low for one that actually fit like the original. I ended up having to buy one from the dealer. I have the euramtec b pillar lights (I've had them for several years). Although one of them no longer works as an entry light; I was disappointed that it broke so quickly. It still works as a map light so I haven't bothered changing it. I ended up buying a Viair air down kit and a fire extinguisher for my Barracuda.

TMI man - that sounds somewhat uncomfortable. Congrats on the rewire; that's a job I would not have wanted to tackle.

I may be wrong, but I believe the '86 firewall is different and you may run into some clearance issues with a 4.0L (assuming that's what you're putting in it). That truck looks familiar with all the red accents. I wonder if I've seen it on here before.

Welcome back Brent!