The86manche

so we had gone ahead and fit one, then the other side of the unibody sections. and although things look decent the fitment was poor. the left rear wheel well to floor pan had a huge gap and we could not get the uniside to slide back enough to fill it in.. and the right side was worse

NEVERMIND i found the photos i was looking for on my phone! And some i didnt even remember taking!

as it turns out i am missing a few photos to explain what happens in between the last photo and the next.. so aftermarket sheet metal for these old cars can be real hit or miss.. the quality is not great and i get that. as most of the dowels used to stamp these pieces are the original from the 60's. what can you do? so, after burning in the main section of flooring we tried fitting one of the uniside sections on to see how it would fit relative to the floors and our work. it wasnt great. where the rear shock mounting area kind of protrudes out interfered with the rear wheel well and rear uniside section fitment. the metal was forcing the uniside out and forward. and we couldnt really massage that area of the floor pan in as it was multiple layers of metal welded together.. lucky for us, my dad had ordered a full floor pan section already welded together.. for all intensive purposes.

after we had set up our jig, and layed out some of the sheet metal we started prepping, welding, grinding, and more sheet metal drlled holes in the rear unibody rails where we could not weld from the top where the trunk floor lays across. drilled, prepped and coated trunk floor pan with zink weld thru. floor pan burned in, minus a few spots, and welds ground down main floor pan laid down for fitment. it was a decent fit some work needed at the firewall area. but thats a common thing on these repop panels

update time! still have a lot of photos and progress i just dint have the time to upload them

thats all I'm going to think about now whenever i see this photo

hey look, parts! after finding everything i found with the car and all the sheetmetal ruined we started in a new direction. start new. complete rebuild from the ground up. so home made jig made and it begins.

and so begins the fun. oxy-accetalyne torch and cut off wheels. the cutting begins. so initially, with this project we were under the impression that we could cut out the floors, firewall, cowl/dash and go from there. weld in new floors and firewall and everything else would be a breeze. no... the more we cut and dug into the more we found and did not like.. a prime example of what we found as we cut.. and it got worse. unisides were swiss cheese with urethane and rivets. wheel wells too..

sub frame removed and firewall stripped of parts the floors. they looked better than they actually were.. we started drilling out the seat braces to reuse. altimately though we just decided to get new ones. dash partially stripped and the hack repair work for where the radio goes. all welded and elongated.

crusty and rusty..

me removing the glass and inspecting the rust on the dash cowl seem where these cars are known to rust. its hacked. tons of rust and urethane not from the windshield everywhere.

by the way that red on some of the inner panels was the original color

once at home disassembly started immediately.

so years go by, the car had been partially disassembled and life got in the way so it was parked in storage.. this is when we pulled it out of its hibernating spot to bring it home to start again on bringing her back the doors and fenders were junk. bondo, rivet panels everywhere. sadly no photos but they were stripped of all good parts and junked.

hello all! this is a build thread i am creating to help show the rebuild of my dads dream car. his 1969 pontiac firebird. its a 350 4 on the floor car. originally it was a 350 HO car with an automatic. someone swapped a muncie 4 speed in. this is the first photo of it when i dad bought it about 10 years ago. looks good right? the 400 hood is not correct. and little did we know just how bad the car actually was.. the poor thing had been hacked together worse than ive ever seen. but this thread is about the journey with my dad and i and the trials and tribulations of building it back up to its former glory.

Local to me i found someone selling a repop 2 door xj quarter panel which i quickly scooped. I plan to use some of this metal to help patch up my bedsides. For anyone who may be wondering the quarter is not the same as the bedside. I am aware and thats okay. It still gives me plenty to work with And since today was such a nice day on the east coast i took advantage of that to do a little more removal work I was very happy to find nothing snapped on me. Today was a good day. And i think that morr or less brings us up to date on things. I probably missed some details but thats it thus far. I plan to do more work tomorrow and will try and update more regularly

I HAVE COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN TO UPDATE THIS THREAD! Ive been slowly doing work to my truck, i took it off the road for the winter so the salt doesnt eat it away and i have nothing left to fix haha Before winter i fixed my exhaust that was leaking. The gaskets were basically nonexistant. I also deleted the egr tubes coming off the exhaust manifold. Durring the winter i went searching for parts. I sought out a new intake manifold to get rid of my rochester 2 bbl. After a while of searching got a deal on an edelrbock intake and 4bbl adaptor. This summer i plan on installing it. I also acquired some exhaust headers for pretty cheap too. And lucky me i even found a minty rear bumper! I plan on having that stripped and chromed to match the old oe one. Now that its starting to get warm out again ive been starting to work on the truck again. I started pulling parts off. Tail lights, rear flairs, and rear bumper in preparation for the bed to come off for metal work. Only snapped half the bolts off removing the old bumper And i was hoping to save the bumper brackets but as it turned out they were too far gone.. much like the bumper

Thank you for the responce! I actually went in and searched for your post about the temp sender and was able to find it, acdelco 213-80, and cross reference it to another brand. So i got that taken care of. But thats having a bit of problems on its own. Either i don't have a good enough ground for the sender or my gauge/ contacts are improper. Most of the time it reads right, 220 when warm but it likes to climb to 280 at random and i know its not running hot. It will climb back down to 220, it seems to random to actually be reading hot. And I have reason to believe my tach is actually broken. A bummer. When i bought the cluster it was damaged as i found out taking it apart to swap my milage into it. My speed gauge was frozen. Wouldnt turn at all. And it looked like it had been dropped on the back end where the cable goes into it. This is it. The little needle with the cup on it goes through that hole and into that spring. But the tabs were broken where the clip retains it all. The housing had warpage on the tabs so thinking about it i wouldnt be surprised if the tach broke internally when it was theoretically dropped. Mind you i only paid $45 for it and i have 2 others including the dummy light cluster that came out of my truck so i was able to salvage the speed gauge. But what should i do about the tach? Do they make replacement parts like that? Or source? Or is it something i could fix?

So tonight i got around to installing my full cluster on my 86 mj with the 2.8. Almost everything works beautifully. With the exception of the temp gauge because i havent swapped temp switches. I think i got sold the wrong one anyway.. So my issue is that my tach works but it seems oversensative. If i turn the key to the on position the needle jumps to 0. But when i started it the needle looped all the way around past 70. Pounts almost straight down. Hooked up an aftermarlet tack, pulled the needle off my tach and set it up to where the aftermarket tach was telling me it was idling. About 700rpm. Now it kind of reads better but its still oversensative. Tap the gas peddal and get it to rev to about 1000 rpm and it will jump up to the 30-35 mark and hover there for a minute before creeping back down almost to the 700 mark. More the 10 mark and would occasionally rise on its own. Why is it doing this? Where should i start looking to fix this? Thanks all!

Long overdue update! Ive been doing a bit of tinkering with the truck but for the most part ive just been enjoying driving her around One of the few things i am happy to have fabbed up was a new handle for my tailgate! The other things ive done are wire in a quartz clock. Its not the correct year part but i think it looks good. And its black so it matches my interior too. Found a nice set of chrome drip rail trim that i snagged off another truck i found in a junkyard. Mine were plastic and looked horrible. And some led headlights. Best choice i have made as far as lighting goes. Aside from that its been just general maintenance mostly. Put a new starter in her I found some turbine wheels ill be picking up for her and then just the usual hunting for rare parts. And its not going well lol Looking for a headliner and a rear bumper.

Thanks guys! I actually already have had a look and though it doesnt look great because its rust its still not as bad as it could be. Would like to get the bed sodablasted but that won't happen anytime soon. Anyway, did her first oil change today since i got her! I don't know who decided to put the oil filter right under the exhaust manifold but what a terrible placement.. could hardly get my hands in there. And then i met up with a guy who was parting out a few comanches and scored on some parts! Found a unicorn! Bought an extra set of tail lights that were in nice shape. New urethane motor mount bushings still in the box And these beauts. Also found a quarts clock i want to try and install in my truck too!

Hello everyone, new to the forum but not new to jeeps! Have owned a few. And currently own two, my other one is a 1995 grand cherokee orvis edition. So Technically this is my second mj but since the first one i never had for very long at all and never got it running i don't feel like i can't count it. Anyway recently picked up a very well cared for 1986 jeep comanche X Its very nice and solid for an 86 truck. It was owned by 1 family since new and they loved this truck. They decided it was time to let it go. 10 hours total road time and it was mine and at its new home. Its an x model, 2.8 auto 4x4. Since they owned it the motor had been changed. Supposedly its still a 2.8 but its not an amc replacement. Theres no mechanical pump no block off plate. can't even find a serial number. Anyway the engines healthy so I'm not worried. The trans is still a 904 but its was also replaced, the original one was given to me(in pieces, some assembly required) And the d35 had been rebuilt. It was repainted once before too. Anyway! So my plan is to fix it up and freshen it up quite a bit. It needs rustwork on the bed sides under the flares both sides, a rear bumper, rocker and cab corner work and theres only one hole in the floors that needs attention on the drivers side. Everything else is either solid or just surface rust. Ive already started some of the repairs. The fan clutch was shot in a bad way i was getting concerned about my radiator being taken out so i had one sourced and swapped asap. The park brake did not work so i had to go searching for new cables, not installed yet but have them. she needs an oil change. And the radiator is at the end of its life. I found a nice aluminum one made by osc I'm having shipped in After that its onto the nightmare that is my vacuum and emissions setup.. Ive also been on the hunt for a unicorn. A non rotted tailgate handle and thats been very tough. And trying to get my hands on as many spare parts as possible. Ive been on the fence as to whether or not i want to swap out my dummy lights for gauges if i can find a set up or just put some aftermarket ones in somewhere. Mainly i just like having a tach which it doesnt have.. In the future i plan on respraying the truck, though I'm not so sure what color right now, and bed lining the bed. So far though shes running like a top so I'm going to enjoy her for the summer before she goes in for surgery in the winter. More to come! And always open to tips, pointers and suggestions.

1986 jeep comanche X model 2.8 v6, tf904 3 speed, 209 transfer case, high pinion d30 front, d35 rear i believe high pinion as well. 3.54 gear ratio. Long wheelbase Build date unknown, sticker is too faded. Resides in the U.S. states. Eastern Massachusetts. It is back on the road after having sat, but not neglected, for a few years. Was owned brand new by a single family who loved the truck. Red outside black interior, black with white plaid striped bench seat, vinyl floor, column shift, warning light cluster. No quarts clock, am/fm radio no cassette. 3 piece back glass, single slider. 4x4. Steel rims with chrome rings, 7 foot bed. Chrome bumpers with front fog lights. Was a 2.8 but the engine was swapped out. Was told it was a better 2.8 direct from gm. But i think it could be a 3.4? I can't find any block numbers so i can't figure it out.. Current owner: me, corey ward now