Garvin

That'll require a ton of work to get the older dash to work with the newer wiring harness. The late '96 clusters should be the same as the older ones. In '97, they changed the dash lines enough where the clusters won't swap without a good bit of work. You might be able to cover up a lot of the gaps with the trim piece on front but I'm not sure how deep the newer clusters are. You'll also need to run an electronic speedometer, but that should be able to swap into your transfer case already once you find one.

I'm not sure on the dashes themselves as I didn't look too close when I had my '86 apart but the clusters will swap up to '90. You might need to swap one or two wires on the connector (I had to swap the alt and one other to get the gauges working, forget what the second one was off hand) but everything does work. I'm making a wild guess on this but I'm going to say '84-'86 dashes are the only ones that really bolt right up. AMC changed the firewall (and entire engine bay) in '87 to fit the 4.0L.

A stock 302 with a carb isn't really going to make all that much noticeable difference in power than a 4.0L swap. The '95 302 was rated at 195hp and 270ft/lb of torque while the '95 4.0L engine produced 190hp and 225ft/lb of torque ('96 produced the same numbers), this is also on a fuel injected motor. From my experience with carb is that unless you dump a good bit of cash into it, you'll be losing power. Now before anyone yells at me about that statement, I'm comparing essentially stock setup to stock setup. The 302 does have a lot of aftermarket support but the potential comes down to what you want to do with it and how deep your pockets are. If I were doing the swap, I'd keep fuel injection and swap on a GT40 intake (maybe even the heads also if they can be found cheap enough). I'd port and polish the heads and gasket match the intake and that'll let her flow a lot better. Might need to go to larger injectors also but it comes down to how crazy you want to go. Since your signature says you have a Mustang with bolt ons, I'm sure you ran into a few of these options on that already.

Fords are drivers side drop so the drop is correct. Best way if you want to keep with EFI is a Mustang's setup. It is pretty much a stand alone kit when it comes to the wiring and ECU so it is easy to mate into yours. It all matters what transfer case it has to how low it will hang. If it's a full size Bronco (forget what year they stopped making them) then you might run into issues in getting the transfer case to fit between the rails of the Comanche as the transfer case if fairly large. I was about to drop a 351W into my Jeep (and still might) but got a great deal on a lot of the swap parts for a 350. I have looked extensively into it as it's essentially the same as a 302 (looked into the 302 also but liked the truck 351W better) so I can answer questions up to the point of dropping her in.

Isuzu swaps aren't all that common so none of the later companies make the engine to trans adapter plates. Your best bet would be to talk to a local machine shop to see if they are willing to make one. Can you make the 4wd Isuzu transmission and transfer case fit?

Don't forget the weight of the trailer also as they get heavy fast. When I get a tow rig (won't be a few years atleast), I plan on going at the very least 3/4 ton. Probably going to go to go to 1 - 1 1/2 ton though and get a goose neck trailer to hold two vehicles.

Not sure what's in that puppy but the Roadmasters 3800 supercharged engines were marginal at best, takes a good amount of time and money to get anything out of them and, from what I've seen, they don't like to stay running that way. Just a little offtopic on this one...The 350 is not hard to cool in an MJ and is not expensive either. I have less than $200 into my entire cooling system, and that includes a brand new 3 core radiator. The '86 is even easier yet since it runs a Wrangler style radiator instead of the regular Cherokee style, you can slap a radiator from something like a Wagoneer in place (I chose to go the Cherokee route because I was stubborn and wanted a recessed winch). I personally prefer fuel injection also. From my carb'd 350 to fuel injected (TPI) 350, with everything the same except the intake up (carb had an Edelbrock intake while TPI is all stock), I could easily feel atleast a 50hp gain and gained ~2mpg on top of that (up to ~17mpg). Fuel injection is harder to tune and is a bit more complex but is also easier to diagnose if you have a scanner.

I've never had good luck with the fuel injector cleaner additive. What I did on my last set was I took them all out and soaked them in SeaFoam shaking them around about every 30 mins for the first 2 hours then let them sit overnight.

The sliders look nice but you want to stitch weld to sheet metal instead of full perimeter weld. Rosette and stitch welding is the strongest (and safest) way to connect thick metal to our sheet metal frames.

I have one of the clevises kicking around that I took off my '86 (other one got trashed) if you need just one. Pay for shipping and it's yours.

A few pictures... Don't have much in the line of pictures for my old carb setup but here's the best I have. TPI setup short of looming the wires. This was before I added the second heater core. My custom made engine mounts. The part that bolts to the frame is facing straight down. WJ steering box if anyone was wondering. It is also highly recommended to make a cowl hood or put hood vents on it to get the heat out of the engine bay, I chose to build a 3.5" cowl hood. You can actually see a good bit of steam coming out of my cowl on a cold day.

I used to have a carb'd 350 in there. I now have a TPI (Tuned Port Injection) setup on it. The TPI system came out of a Camaro and I cut all the unneeded wiring from both harnesses and spliced them together, ran the ECU under the dash to protect it. The harness I had was for an automatic (350 TPI's only came with auto's) and what I did was just ground the NSS wire and cut out the TCC (torque converter lockup) wire. I have it mated to an AX15. The issue with this setup is you need a VSS sensor of some sort. JagsPerformance (I think that's the name of the site) makes a VSS conversion piece that has the needed VSS sensor as well as the straight through for our older cable driven speedometers. I have a custom cross member so the transmission mount being moved was a mute point in my case. Something should be easy to mock up to attach the mount again. I bought my engine off of Craigslist from a running vehicle. Then I went though it and put all new gaskets in, lower bearings, and lapped the valves in. I'm running duel OEM Cherokee fans, one older and one newer style. The older is smaller so I can run my intake ducting over it. I bought a set of the cross member mounts from Barnes4wd on sale for $34 (normally $44). I bent a piece of 3/16" along the frame rail and essentially copied Advance Adapters design except I raised my engine some so I could run 42's on 4" of lift and still get ~5" of uptravel out of the Dana 60. I'm running a Cherokee CSF 3 core radiator. I also have a heater core in line with my other one to kinda extend the radiator. If you're running a heater valve there then you will have to get creative. Keep in mind that a more efficient engine puts out less heat. The adapter for the transmission is Novak, as well as the clutch slave setup. I bought them used for cheap, which threw my hand to Chevy for the V8 swap. My axles are stretched (spring flip in rear for ~5" of stretch and ~3" of stretch in front) so I was able to use a stock front drive shaft for the front and used my stock rear until I blew it up. In some setups, you will have to run a WJ steering box to get more clearance. I had to to clear my power steering pump since I wanted to run the serpentine setup from the Camaro. The other option is to run the WJ steering box to get the stock box out of the way to run a larger radiator. Would need to measure everything again but I believe a Wagoneer (FSJ, not XJ) radiator fits between the rails but hangs down a good bit.

There are tons of pics in my build thread (need to update it once I get everything back together) but I'm more than happy to take specific shots if anyone wants any. More than happy to also answer any questions as the stuff that I've used in mine will fit any Comanche except '86 (made a good amount of modifications to get them to fit in mine).

I have about $1500 into my 350 swap including engine, transmission, transfer case, new rear drive shaft, and that's with rebuilding the engine, . I used a CSF 3 core Cherokee radiator and put a heater core off to the side to "enlarge" the radiator. This is with two stock Cherokee electric fans (one newer and one older) mated to an AX15 and NP231. The engine is planted with custom engine mounts that cost me a whole whopping $40 to make. I have the uncoated Novak headers (made by Sanderson), Novak transmission adapter for the AX15 and the Novak external clutch slave setup (got the adapter and slave setup as well as the bell housing for less than what the adapter costs new, reason I went with 350). The engine runs around 180 degrees on a 90 degree day on the high way and closer to 170 at idle. The tach is dead on connecting the wire straight to the tach output on the coil.

HO's have a better flowing head and a straighter path of flow. They're also more abundant and have almost all the aftermarket support. You can swap to an HO head with a Renix lower to get the better angles, then upgrade to a newer intake for better flow. I'm sure these guys know a lot more about strokers than I do but that's what I was planning on doing years ago when I had my old Cherokee.

For a proper front lift you'll need: longer shocks to accommodate the lift, the springs of your choice for the lift, longer sway bar links, longer brake lines, and a longer (or adjustable) track bar. You can put a drop pitman arm on also to correct the steering angles some from the lift but don't need to. If you do put a drop pitman arm on, make sure you put a drop track bar bracket on that will match the amount of drop the pitman arm gives or you will get bump steer. I believe the rear of your truck has 3.73's but make sure on that as the 4.10 ratio was an option for the trucks. If you pop off the rear differential cover, the ring gear should be stamped with two numbers. Divide the larger number by the smaller number to get your ratio (example: 41 10 41/10=4.10). If you can find a donor vehicle with the same setup then you can steal everything from the front end, including the drive shaft. The rear drive shaft will need to come out of a Comanche with the same options or get custom made as Cherokee ones won't fit. If the 4spd is manual (AX4) then now might also be a good time to swap in an AX5 to get overdrive as you will need to swap the transmission to a 4wd one to put the transfer case in. You can also swap in an AX15 with a Dakota 4cyl bellhousing.

Just keep in mind that it works now because the Dana 30 actually twists some, the Dana 60 does not twist at all so you will notice a difference.

A properly set up 3-link will not unload. All radius arm long arms unload on steep inclines, which is the most common long arm system out there. This is mainly caused by the lack of frame side separation (radius arms have the same characteristics as a 3- or 4-link with no vertical separation at the frame). If you do plan on running everything on the drivers side then you have two real options, both of which will work perfect. You can run a truss to hug the leaf spring mount and just slap a coil mount on that or you can cut back the center section that goes over the tube some. I chose to cut down the tube and haven't had a single issue. I did weld the center section to the tube though where it was cut. The exhaust issue was more for if you go long arm. It can be done easily still with the upper arm on the passenger side, you just need to put it closer to the frame. I'm running the same exact front axle and have my upper arm on the drivers side. I have Ballistic Fabrication joints on all ends with the 5/8" bolt hole upgrade and run 2" wall x 0.25" OD DOM for both the upper and lower arms. Running heims on both ends of the panhard bar and 12" travel Bilstein shocks. I can easily max out the shocks with 4" of uptravel and 8" down. If you stay with stock length arms, you are going to have a horrible pinion dive as you flex due to the different arcs.

I've Herculined the interior of mine with good results. The black does fade a little if you don't cover it though. The water will still pool inside the Jeep, no matter what you put down on the floor. I have a slight leak from either my rear window or rear of the door and it pools right on the reinforcement on the floor after any heavy rain. Resealing everything isn't hard. What you can do for the rear window that I've had good luck with is pop the rear window out, get windshield caulk and squirt a little inside the seal and pop it back in. I did this on my '92 and it doesn't leak anymore, I just haven't gotten around to my '86 yet to figure out where the leak is.

What year 60 are you dealing with? I'm running an '89 F350 Dana 60HP under my Comanche with a 3-link and have plenty of room, even with the Chevy 350 and raising everything atleast an inch. If you're thinking of using stock arms and a stock type upper bushing, don't. Those arms will twist in no time with the weight of the 60 and that upper bushing will get destroyed. If you want to run a 3 link + panhard then look at all hard joints in the control arms as rubber and poly joints won't last. You can see what I did on my axle with the truss over the pumpkin in my build thread (link in sig).

Maybe someone else can chime in with exacts but when I destroyed my stock drive shaft in my '86, I was pretty much forced to go custom as I could not find a single vehicle that would fit. That being said, mine is around 54 3/4" long. I got a custom one from A1 driveshaft off their Ebay auction for my Jeep with 1350's on both ends and all Spicer parts for $197 shipped, they might make one with 1310 ends for you but you would have to ask. As for the Ranger, those u-joints are 1330's. You can buy conversion joints (1310-1330) for about $25 a joint. I run them on my '86 (in the 1310-1350 variety) and have no doubts in them holding.

RuffStuff makes great stuff and has a great customer service but you will have issues trying to run the anti-wrap leaf perches on SUA. The first link to the perches will work or you can chop the edges down on the anti-wrap ones you get from the kit.

The ECU only reads the O2 sensor in closed loop so you are right, it will default to open loop and run rich.

The maintenance light makes no difference if you have an O2 or not, it's just a timer. All you have to do is find the box under the dash and yank it and the light will go out. The other option is to pull the bulb from the dash.

Might be easier finding shocks for a 6" lift as that's a fairly common lift height and the 1/2" won't make a difference (assuming you have no sag). Your best bet though is to flex out the Jeep and measure then buy the appropriate shock lengths. If you have no access to something to flex on, the easiest way to tell what size lift shocks you need is to measure from the hub to the lower edge of the fender flare. I don't have those measurements on me right now but maybe someone else can chime in with them.