Hello Everyone. I'm fairly new here and I have been lurking about for a couple of years since owning my Comanche and did not sign up until recently. Most of every part replaced is junkyard OEM or NOS from the dealership I work at. At last here is Little Red.
She is a 1988 2.5L 5-speed Pioneer Comanche. Built 11/15/1987 and she left the factory bare minimum as a Pioneer trim. She started with an idiot light cluster and white trailer like rims but came with floor mats with matching dash mat, mud flaps and a tailgate liner.
Since owning her I have done some upgrades such as a 5/6th gauge cluster, various factory lights add-ons, clock, headlight warning buzzer, sentinel headlamp module, hood insulation, AMC jeep nameplates, 2.5Litre nameplate, and a NOS hard plastic valve cover. I changed the rims to the star "Jeep" engraved rims from the trailer looking rims. The only non factory thing added is an LED under hood light strip.
Year 1: Upon acquiring her I did basic repairs and fluid changes to bring her back to life. Fuel pump was dead and had to replace that and various other tune up pieces to get her going again. My father redid the door panels and headliner. After I got her running, brown coolant started showing up and could not figure out why. Before the Jeep rims I repainted the white rims to a black color so they didn't look awful. Took me a couple of years to hunt down a set of 5.
Year 2: Figured out the cause of the brown coolant being a blown head gasket and changed that in the summer. Surprisingly the head gasket was 30 years old and I'm surprised is lasted as long as it did before it gave out. Sadly due to pressed time I did not have the head rebuilt until this year. A few months after changing the head gasket I changed the motor mounts and due to a bad drive shaft causing awful vibrations I destroyed the AX-5 transmission. Had to replace everything from the bellhousing to the driveshaft. Lesson learned, never underestimate the 2.5L. After that I learned to seat the pilot bushing all the way into the flywheel.
Year 3: Early this year I changed the water pump out and the window seals replaced. In march I replaced the oil pan gasket and repainted it as well, cleaned up the engine and engine bay. Had the head rebuilt and upgraded to a leather steering wheel recently. Also replaced the 8 slot grille with the 10 slot variant and replaced upper radiator hose.
End goal is complete restoration with some other additions. Sorry about that. Just three years of summarizing. I will upload more pictures from early on as I find them.
