88mjsally

Today I finished up the seat brackets and got them painted and ready for installation with my dads help. The rear brackets are flat plate on one side and 2 inch square tube on the other. I’ll get some pictures of them mounted in the truck tomorrow if I have time. I need to go to the scrap yard at some point tomorrow to get rid of the leftover parts from the engine swap that nobody seems to want because our yard is starting to look like a junkyard

They are very comfy and much better than the two door buckets I had and the bench seat in my friends truck. They also look really good in the interior

They are pretty similar in height to the ones that were previously in the truck which were 2 door xj buckets on modified frames. They may sit about an inch taller but my dad and I can both see out the middle of the windshield with plenty of headroom. I couldn’t really get them any lower without modifying the floor since the middle seat is on the tunnel and I didn’t really want to add spacers to raise it up

This weekend I finally got around to finishing up my drivers door by reinstalling the newly fixed and hopefully leak free vent window along with some new weatherstripping along the door glass. I also got the transmission leak repaired and ordered the speedometer gear that I needed so my speedo will be accurate. Today my dad and I started installing the dodge dakota 40/20/40 seat. We used the stock Comanche bucket seat brackets for the front along with some square tubing. For the back we used flat plate connected to the old seat studs in the floor. The factory bucket bracket in the back was too far away to use and still have the seat be safe so we just didn’t use them. We also used the dakota sliders in favor of the Comanche ones since they were already attached to the seat and the mounts lined up pretty well. I posted pictures of the front brackets below and I’ll take some of the rear tomorrow

It’s pretty darn close lol but nothing hits, the picture makes it seem closer than it is. It has about a 1/2 of space so I don’t think it’ll be an issue. The headers are also wrapped which adds a little thickness. It still has a non cclip dana 35 at the moment but I plan to put an 8.8 in it when I get the chance. The 35 was recently rebuilt so it should hold up for a little while and I have a spare one if I need it

I’ve been meaning to create a build thread for my truck on here for a while so here it goes. Hopefully I’ve put it in the right section. I’ve always loved jeeps and in the summer of 2013 I got my first which is a 2003 wrangler freedom edition that has been my daily driver ever since. It currently has a 3” lift and 33” general grabbers and I do offroad it on occasion. In the summer of 2016 right before I started college I found a 1988 Jeep Comanche for sale on facebook and I went to look at it since I’ve always like the look of them. The truck was originally a 4.0 2wd 5 speed with the ba10/5 however the guy I bought it from blew up two transmissions and started a 4wd automatic swap. My original intent was to finish that swap and turn it into my new daily but the scope of the project quickly grew. It was supposed to have been running and driving when it was parked but after trailering it home I discovered that it probably had not been. I had gotten it all put back together and I had finished installing the front axle and the rest of the drivetrain components then I figured out that I couldn’t get it to start. I tried replacing pretty much every sensor and component in the ignition system to make it get spark but I couldn’t figure it out and eventually started to lose patience with it. I had quite a few different people look at it and try different things but nobody was able to point me in the right direction. Since I didn’t know much about the drivetrain at all other than a engine rebuild at some point since it had 270k miles on the odometer I decided to do an engine swap. My dad had a 5.7 liter vortec engine and th350 trans that were originally intended for another project that got sold so I worked out a deal with him to put them in my truck so I could actually get it back on the road. The 5.7 had been converted over to a carb with an edelbrock intake by the previous owner so I knew that I would be able to actually make it run. The th350 was 2wd and when I first started the swap I had planned to convert it to 4wd and use the np231 that I had but as I got farther into the swap I decided to leave it 2wd since I already have my wrangler and this was intended as more of a budget build. I pulled out the old motor in the winter of 2017 and got the new motor installed with Novak conversion engine mounts and a bracket I made that used the factory trans crossmember and a rubber transmission mount that I already had. The motor had v belts on it that were pieced together from a bunch of random accessories so I bought the accessory set up off of a 4.3 vortec and bolted them on for simplicity and so I could eventually hook up the factory air conditioning. I used a used Novak conversion radiator initially but it ended up having a leak so I made a universal speedway motors radiator fit in its place. I have a set of headman center dump headers that clear the frame pretty well. I ended up taking out the 4wd front axle since it had a few issues and put a 2wd beam axle back in the truck along with new ball joints, brakes and steering. The original 2wd ba10/5 driveshaft ended up being about the right length so I used it and a new 27 spline yoke. For my fuel system I ended up removing the factory lines since they were on the wrong side of the truck and I installed an external electric fuel pump that sucks through the return line since I don’t need a return style system for my particular carb. I have hooked up all the factory gauges so they work as they should and from the inside of the cab it looks stock other than my shifter. The shifter I chose was a tci ratchet shifter that fits in the interior well and is bolted to the floor. The truck currently runs and drives however I still have a few things to do to it before it’s ready to be daily driven. The tail housing on my transmission is damaged which causes it to leaks everywhere so I have a new one that’s getting installed soon. My interior was also nasty so I bought a set of Scion xB seats that I was going to use however they ended up not fitting well. I ended up buying a dodge dakota split bench that I plan to install since I’ve seen it done before. I also need to fix the leaky vent windows and trace down a leak from under the dash. The last major thing it needs is an exhaust system which I’m also planning on making myself since there are no overly complex bends and I like doing all my own work whenever I can. The front marker lights also don’t work so I need to swap in the other harness that I got from a friend. I am home from college on break so I hope to get the last few things finished up on it before I have to head back so I can enjoy it this summer. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about anything particular that I did and I am planning on updating this as often as I can. I’m also going to post some pictures of the progress below