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If you are swapping one control arm at a time as many do, you will rarely have them fit perfectly. It is completely normal to have to wrangle the axle into place with your first lower and upper control arms. If you want to, you can loosen up the rest of your control arm hardware (loose but don’t remove) and it will make it slightly easier to adjust. But don’t modify the Jeep and don’t assume the control arm length is different just because it doesn’t fit the same. Stock control arm length is something like 15.** inches eye to eye for the lowers. If you can just verify that your control arms are the length they are supposed to be, that’s all you need. Yank the axle around and/or loosen your other control arm hardware. Removing the track bar lower bolt can help as well. Maybe a good time for a meal/drink break

Leave the factory shims alone along with the cradle. The trick is to wrangle to axle into place so the bolts fit in the same spot as original. However, it would be advisable to measure your oe and new control arm to make sure they are the same length eye to eye. If they aren’t, technically you could adjust your shims. They are there for caster alignment. Few shops will carry those shims if you decide to get it aligned. Adjustable control arms have a real advantage here. But try to leave your factory spec in place as much as possible.

That’s a neat idea. Should we settle on Spring or Fall of 2027? Depending on how it goes, we could perhaps do another in 2028?

Don’t drill anything. From the pic it looks like you just need to line up the hole better. Does your oe hardware fit properly in the control arm sleeve?

Not sure where you’re seeing negative feedback about Moog in regard to Comanche parts. My experience has been quite the opposite. I think like most companies, they have various lines of quality and are likely just private labeled like many. But their standard original parts have been solid for me. I’d make sure to grab them from a reputable source so you get a genuine part.

Nah, get and aggressive flap disk and knock some off. You don’t need to remove all the material at once. You can remove some, cool it off then remove more. It takes a decent amount of heat to start melting that rubber.

No, definitely not correct. I’ve seen some post here about grinding down the sleeve with the WJ arm swap. You may have to do something similar if you can’t get a drop in fit

It depends on what you’re using the raptor liner or similar product for. I was using it as a replacement for undercoating. Raptor liner is a good product that doesn’t absorb moisture and is appropriate for certain applications if the TDS is followed. POR15 is a moisture cure product which also has its applications if applied as specified in the TDS. And yes, I used plenty of epoxy primer in the right settings. All my finished body panels received several coats of CRE epoxy primer before even getting any fillers or glazes. I’d follow that with a reduced CRE epoxy to use as a sealer. In areas such as rocker panels and inside uniframe channels I applied a few coats of Eastwood internal frame coating which is a very thin coating. Followed that with 3m cavity wax. Also used pillar foam in different varieties in gaps between the skin and sub structures. I can’t say it’s the best method as I’m sure there will always be some new product on the market that may work better. But it worked very well for my MJ in some brutal weather conditions.

Also, where the MJ lives and is stored will make a huge difference. Spending its life garage stored in a dry desert climate will not reveal the full extent of durability or lack thereof from the factory products/application. I can say with some degree of certainty though, that the work spent sealing up metal joints will really help prevent moisture related problems down the road. it’s pretty easy to improve upon the factory work. I’m sure there are build quality variations between each MJ but my 90 had abominable quality workmanship. The seam sealer, the spot & mig welds, the gaps, the accuracy of bracket placement was just atrocious. My 91 had significantly better build quality overall. I love these Comanche’s but it seems like they were built as cheap, disposable beaters. It’s not terribly difficult to improve upon many aspects of the factory workmanship/materials and the seam sealer is most certainly one of those areas. And I’m not knocking it for being 34+ years old at this point, I’ve worked restoring several much older vehicles with build quality easily exceeding that of the Comanche. The engineering behind the MJ seems decent but the assembly work

@Limeyjeeper any chance you’d be up for the trip?

That would be nice . I'm up for most anything up to about a level 4 trail with the MJ. I enjoyed some tougher stuff with the YJ and TJ but it. I was thinking it would be nice to have a meet and greet and maybe 3 days of trails or so.

Tagging: @Comanche SS Id love to run trails like “Fins and Things” or similar. Mild trails where it’s really just about picking lines. Fall is probably a bit more reliable for precipitation. But May would be great but maybe not Labor Day weekend.

I’m game. Wonder what the best way is to gauge interest on this might be. Maybe another thread with polls for interested ones?

Just hot, but no other real reason.

27 and/or 28 sounds good. Have to figure a good time of year as well. How about somewhere between May-June or September-October?

I’d be up for a Moab meetup someday. Maybe 2027? Was last there in 2017

Took the MJ in to a local shop the other day to have them fix the buggerred drivers side down pipe the local butcher/muffler shop installed. Had a piece of mig wire 6” long sticking out of the side of the pipe near the flange. What a joke. Horrible routing and I hadn’t even noticed they had reduced down to 1.75” tubing. So I picked up a pipe of 16awg 304 stainless pie cuts along with some mandrel bends and v bands. On another note, I was experiencing some death wobble whenever I hit a bump while going 35+ mph. Fairly violent as well. I inspected all the steering and suspension components and didn’t find any issues so I dropped it off for a good alignment. They fixed the toe and it seems to have resolved the issue. I’d still like to swap in an iron man fab track bar system for the double sheer bracket and the cross brace. That and maybe the Curie Curectlync and some of those new metal cloak ball joints

The factory tended to seam seal the back side of joints (the non exposed side). I really have mixed feelings about that. You can’t leave places for moisture to accumulate without proper drainage. At times, seam sealer can actually trap moisture or prevent drainage. That’s why I like POR15 inside metal seams such as pinch welds followed by seam sealing the back side. The por15 loves to seal up cracks and crevices in metal. The process I used was to mask off the back side of a seam then allow some POR15 to wick its way down int the joint. I’d the seam sealer the back side of the joint then hit both side with raptor liner. Did most of my truck that way. Strategically adding drain holes in certain areas before this process helped a lot as well. And one quick tech tip for removing old seam sealer, use an oscilating tool with a caulk cutting blade. They work very well at getting the old single stage seam sealer off. The factory application was horrendous on my 90’.

I found the issue actually some time back. There was a single connector under the hood that was full of water and had completely corroded the pins. Caused a short between 5v and sensor ground. Cleaned it up and zero issues.

Swapping in the later model “plate and fin” evaporator and condenser is a good start. Takes some fitting work but is a much more efficient design than the old tube and fine designs. The compressor volume to evaporator size ratio is key for making a good AC system. What engine are you running? I’d try to keep the compressor under the hood if possible as the power draw for an electric compressor will be substantial. Custom hoses/lines is the easier part.

Moog control arms were a direct swap for my when I got a set in 2023.

Sending unit o ring not properly seated is prime suspect and has happened to me multiple times. Occasionally, the hold down tabs that keep the pressure on the seal can be the culprit. Did you also replace the vent valves and/or gaskets?

Lots of great builds in here. My top 4 for a good read are: For kicks, lookup a thread called something like: “how to get this screw out” or something or that effect from Jesse J. The premise was, how can I remove that little screw on the a pillar trim near the dash. That’s the first time I’d seen a thread have the “hot topic” tag . Wonder if anyone has the link

Any open cell foam will help with noise but noise isn’t much of a problem inside the box itself. When I rebuilt mine, I sealed all the junctions with permatex black and added 1/8 minicell foam for insulation only. In retrospect, a good option would have also been dynaliner in 1/8. You can add some open cell near th vents and duct exits to act as a baffle. But I find that stopping escaping air around the seams made the biggest difference in airflow and sound