88towmanche

5 Port - the 5th one is hidden behind the bushes on the left - no roll up door, used as an office. Upstairs is a 600sqft studio apartment - got one of the kids living up there, some day I'll get it back and make it a man cave. Searched for that place for 12 years - lived poor, made some good investments, got lucky and bought it during the real estate crash in 2009. Garage is bigger than the house (by about 200 sq ft) - upstairs was unfinished when we got it, but it did have a gas furnace and gas water heater installed and lots of power - added a 4 post lift last year - interior of garage is finished with full heat. Took about 8 years to finish the apartment (broke as hell after we bought the place - had to do it one bit at a time) - scavenged a lot of materials - managed to gather up enough granite to do the counters, friend in the flooring business hooked us up with just enough pre-finished wood flooring to do the place, that sort of thing. Got an 80 gallon Ingersol Rand compressor and have air plumbed through out. Full bathroom upstairs, but only a mop sink in the garage (kind of an issue - wifey doesn't like my buddies tromping in the house to use the head - and I won't have them pissing in the bushes - or the mop sink) space issues would make it difficult to put a bathroom in the garage, but there is room for one of those stainless prison urinals that have the sink on top - problem is every time I find one of those they want major $$$ for them. Biggest problem with a garage like that is family wants to store all there shxt in there - Pops collects old cars, really old rattle bang Model T's - they aren't worth much, but can't leave them outside. Had a 1925 coupe, 1913 runabout and a 1921 speedster all stuffed in there along with a bunch of my brothers crap ('69 Olds 442 W30 option basket case that will never see the road), couple of boats (2000 Trophy W/A & 99 Seadoo Speedster) - finally evicted most of the rolling stock but still have a lot of junk to get rid of. Goal is to have 3 vehicles - DD (currently an 04 Chrysler Crossfire), the MJ, and side hustle work rig (2000 Astro van) as the only vehicles in there - leaves the lift bay open for projects. Always thought it would be cool to have this set up - property taxes and power bills are brutal though.

Grabbed the clear marker lights off of Amazon - look pretty good, fit was decent.

Got an opportunity to pick up a very clean rear-end smashed 2000 XJ for free but not sure I want it - the front clip is perfect, could swap the front end with the MJ for the "newer" look, but like how the front of the stock MJ looks now - aside from the big window doors which would be nice, don't know why I would mess with how it looks now.........

Thinking about replacing the front amber lights with clear - have seen this done, not sure how it will look but they sell on Amazon for like $30 figure could try it out....

Am thinking 99-2004 WJ Booster upgrade. Yep, hoping to get the TB from Meanlemmons he hooked me up with the battery cable upgrade set and it is excellent.

Thanks brother - still got a ways to go, this Fall plan to get the brake booster upgrade done, TB, new headliner & seats, maybe upgrade the exhaust and start thinking about getting the A/C working. But for now:

Fishing taking up most available time right now - but did get Krustyballer to hook me up with some of his rocksliders, he does really nice work - got them delivered by UPS banded together with all hardware (got a set of seat brackets from him while I was at it) - dropped them off for powdercoat, got them back and bolted them in with the supplied 3/8 thread cutting screws - will eventually have them welded to the frame rails, but they are solid as it now. (Dog pic is of my apprentice - 9 month old Irish Terrier - he was in a "timeout" because he finally got one of those damn squirells he's been after - I have no problem with him taking out those yard rats, but would not surrender the (deceased) squirrel on command so he had to spend Sunday on a tether - which he hates)

Yeah! Looked like that or this one - the one I saw of the Comanche was similar...

Been driving me crazy - somewhere on this forum is a picture of an MJ where the owner flush mounted an LED light bar in the factory bumper - stumbled across it a couple months ago while reading through posts, now can't find it. Like the look of the factory front bumper, want to take another look at that set up and see if the owner has a write up because I think that might be something I want to do with my rig - appreciate if anyone can recall or direct me toward that thread.......... Thnx

Was not that noticeable to me, but couple people pointed out that the rear tires looked tucked farther in than the fronts - read on here that a some put 1-1/4 wheel spacers (hub centric) on the rears to push them out....so for $40 figured I'd give it a shot.

Ok, got to read up on using 98 axles

Yes, think that is the smart path.

Thanks Eagle, appreciate the info - you always have good intel.

Copy - not throwing any MJ stuff away

Wow that is sick! - no, no, no, - guarantee wifey will kick me and "all my stupid shixt" to the curb if I start that kind of build - already alarming at how fast the want/need list for this supposedly simple house truck is growing....axles, brake upgrade, A/C resurrection, not to mention all the interior stuff I have been putting off..... My thinking when I started down this road was "hey, instead of buying a '19 Sierra and making $400-$500 monthly payments, will by a cool old truck and throw that much at it for a while and see how it goes" - no regrets, but starting to look like I could spend $400-$500 a month on this MJ for a looooonnnnnngggggg time and still find more stuff I want to add....

You won't , no one want's those. Ha - figures, more stuff for the scrap pile then.

How much they looking to get for it? If I put a 4.11 D35 in the rear, how hard to change/replace the D30 up front to a 4.11? Do I want 4.11 gears? This would be to improve towing, add some pep to Sluggy - was thinking easiest to find 3.54 or 3.55? Places like usedrearaxles.com (sounds almost like a porn site) show the D44 with both? Just started looking at axle options - there is another site East Coast Gear Supply that supposedly sells the Ford 8.8 already fabbed up for the MJ.... Not trying to re-invent the wheel, just looking at options to change gearing to help with towing -- figure it will cost more to find plug n play axles, but will recoup some of the $$ selling off my 3.07 D30/D35 that have fairly low miles (90K)

Ok, thanks

Hmm - $35 shipping....something fishy

Does this look legit? https://parts.hilltopchryslerjeepdodge.com/p/Jeep__Comanche/AXLE-ASSEMBLY/67928904/83503057.html?partner=googlebase_adwords&kwd=&origin=pla&partnerDevice=c&userLocation=9033251&gclid=Cj0KCQjwyLDpBRCxARIsAEENsrJhXRkFEBqOPDGfb3_YPLfWlhQ3JeJnMa5WGwmvzesDxeQJTiJVPDMaAv5KEALw_wcB Haven't called these guys, have read on here that MJ D44 axles are tough to find - this is a Chrysler dealer, don't think they are selling used stuff - says the axle is for 86-87 MJ, are they different for an 88? $1000 is a fair chunk of change, but JY D44's are at least half that if not more, NOS would be nice.

There are write ups about it on this site - they are too wide to fit stock, have to be cut down, I bought a couple abrasive wheels for a chop saw and figured that's what I'd use to start - think some guys angle grinders or sawzalls with metal cutting blades? When I did the budget lift, I pulled one side of the LCA's to get the axle to drop far enough for the pucks - think I measured the factory width at 2-3/4" and the WJ's are like 3" or something, so you don't have to take that much off.

That's what I've read on here - I have the WJ LCA's but have not installed them yet - living with the rub until I get to it (kind of a hassle jockeying the trailer around but otherwise not a problem so far)

I am not very active on Social media and don't have a Bookface login - but my kids do! Will have them log in so I can look around tonight. Appreciated

Ok - I am officially looking for an MJ D44 with at least 3.54 gearing - like that idea better than messing with the (not broke yet) 35. Have to start scouring the web - Fleabay, car-part.com, row52...maybe even luck out on Craigslist