WranglerMangler

Also ran back over the pass yesterday for another load of firewood. Found an old burn with lots of windfall. Perfectly seasoned firewood just laying there for the taking.

Thanks Big Mark! It was pretty cool too, over at Funny Rocks, I was the first truck to climb up on the rocks, didn’t spin a tire. The rest of the group followed up the same line and definitely made it look way more difficult than Little Minche with an open diff D30 on 31”s. Smallest tire they had was a 37”. I always like hanging to the back of the group, I would watch all these guys struggle through an obstacle, they would jump out and come running back to watch the little Comanche struggle through the obstacle as well. Minche would just lug through everything not spinning and making it look easy. The Central Oregon boys were definitely impressed. One guy said to his friends “Well I guess I’m going to be looking for a Comanche to build when we get home”

Luckily was able to go out four wheeling this weekend. Headed out to Naches Wa. Hit the funny rocks and moon rocks. Was an awesome day out in the woods with my daughter. Couldn’t have asked for better weather. Even got a load of fire wood too! Going over Chinook pass. Great view of Mt. Rainier This about sums up the traveling part of the trip. Dusty late summer conditions. This was at “moon rocks” My buddy Dave came with in his TJ. We met up with a random group of really cool guys out of Central Oregon. This was my favorite rig in their group. It was an Ultimate Adventure 2016 truck. Sticker remnants still in the windshield. Unfortunately, one of they’re guys had an incident. He turned this nice bronco, Into this… He rolled it twice at the bottom of “5 fingers” (The hill in the background). Luckily it had a roll cage and nobody was hurt, the truck never stopped running. Landed back on its tires too. Was over all a great day of four wheeling.

I agree with that! The truck definitely has potential. She’s a little rough around the edges but does clean up pretty good.

Looks to have kept the bumper fairly straight so far. Imagine there’s a couple extra holes in it, but not all bent up. Keep the duck head trailer hitch ball cover too. Lol.

Awesome. Good to hear you guys are doing good!

I drove past this Comanche in a neighbors yard for a year or so before stopping in and asking what was going on with it. Turns out it was a drug addicted Uncle’s truck who had not been heard from in a couple of years and used to live out of the truck. I told the guy I was interested in the truck and left it at that. Another 6-8 months went by and one day, driving by, he flagged me down, says to “come get the truck, I have the title”. I was kinda taken by surprise and asked him how much? He said he was tired of looking at it and just getting rid of it would be payment enough. He wanted to use the space it was taking up. I ran home real quick, grabbed some tools, a decent battery, and a fresh 5 gallons of gas. The truck actually started right up and ran good enough to drive it the 1/2mi home down a country back road. Despite it having absolutely no brakes. Assuming that’s why it was parked. This all happened in 2016-2017-2018ish. Can’t remember exactly. I got the truck home and basically have done nothing with it since. Except borrow parts from it. Lol. My best friend fell on some hard times and has always wanted an MJ. I told him he can have this truck. He is completely capable mechanically and will hopefully take over this thread one day. My plan for now is to get the truck running reliably. It would be nice to have it sitting here ready to drive. Unfortunately I really don’t have any extra money to put into the truck at the moment but I got a pretty good parts stash that we’re going to get into and I’ve been acquiring some parts in the bed. Here’s how the truck sits now. I found the canopy here on Comanche Club from my now good buddy NorthwestMJ 1988, 4.0, Column shift AW4, 2WD, D35, LWB. 186,2xx miles In the bed is a 4wd AW4 with an NP242 bolted to it and a non vacuum D30 for a 4WD swap. I totally intend to let my buddy do the swap. I also have close to the same color front clip and power doors with wing windows off an XJ that I recently parted out for the truck as well. I had some time tonight, went out and really got a good look at her, changed the oil and installed a new serpentine belt that she has needed badly for a long time. Noticed the water pump definitely needs to be replaced. Lol. Has a screw plugging the weep hole. Plus I really don’t like the Blue goo all around it either. I will be converting to an open loop cooling set up anyway. Will post more updates as they slowly happen. Plan on doing all Cruiser54 updates as well.

I definitely need a regear for sure. Still have the stock 3:07s.

This will be an awesome build. Can’t wait to see how you do the TDI swap. With how your making your money back selling parts, pretty soon, people are going to be paying you to drive the truck. Lol. Keep the updates coming. 👍

No, I’m afraid of what I’ll find. Lol. Suppose I should though

Beautiful truck sir. Thank you for recognizing what a gem you found. Your patience definitely paid off. Glad to see it’s not going to be hacked apart into a trail rig. Welcome to the addiction as mentioned above. Lol.

Thank you. It’s amazing how much money people want for that combo. I don’t think the kid knew what he had. Was just his parents old 5 speed Cherokee that was there since he was born. I’m pleased with it so far. Now just a matter of collecting parts to get it in the truck. Would love to HO swap at the same time. The old Renix is tired.

Yes. I agree. Plan on driving this truck for a long time.

Thank you for recognizing what a gem of a truck you have and not cutting it up. That truck is absolutely beautiful. Glad to see it fell into somebody’s hands that will care for it. Congratulations on an awesome find. Amazing what a little bit of degreaser and pressure washing will do. 5 speed too! 4wd? Can’t tell. Basically Eleanor (gone in 60 seconds mustang) in the Comanche world. Jealous. Will be watching. Lol.

It’s been a while, how did your move go? Getting settled in? Find a new job yet? How is Rattlecan liking the new climate?

Was surfing through FBMP and found a 1995 XJ for parts with 233,xxx Mi on it. Noticed it was a 5 speed in the Ad. Hit the guy up for a picture of the output shaft, He sent me this picture and said the transmission was working flawlessly when he pulled the engine from the XJ. He claims it was used as a satellite vehicle for his parents Motor home and accumulated most of its miles behind the motor home. The output shaft looked pretty good in his picture so I went to check it out. The transmission shifted through all gears fairly crisply and the transfer case shifted good as well, the output shaft had minimal slop and looked even better in person. I happily paid the guy his $350 asking price for the transmission and transfer case. External slave AX15 and NP231J for the best price I’ve found in 10+ years of keeping an eye out for the combo. He even threw in a 7 blade fan for the price. Lol. Scrubbed her down with some purple power and a wire brush to knock the crud off. Cleaned up pretty good. Drained the oil, it was about as dirty as you would expect for an old Jeep transmission/Tcase. The transmission drain plug magnet wasn’t super built up with shavings. Had some, but I’m happy with what I saw. My Peugeot accumulates about the same in a 5k mile oil change cycle. No big chunks to be felt by finger smearing the metal goo around on a paper towel either.

Spotted this guy on my way home tonight. He had 3-4 pretty nice XJs too. All pretty heavily modified. Left him a magnet

Thank you. I really need to get the proper buffing pads to really get after it.

Decided I was going to give the very neglected paint some attention tonight. It’s been bugging me lately how dull it is. Started off with NuFinish and 6” orbital buffer. Definitely showed there’s some potential to this old paint. I moved to the other side of the hood with a 2 stage turtle wax rubbing compound and polish to compare. Kinda like the “patina” with the shiny paint. Seems like it’s starting to come around. Thinking the NuFinish is the way to go. One coat on the drivers side of NuFinish, passenger side was 2 coats rubbing compound one coat polish of Turtle Wax.

Got home and was checking stuff out underneath Minche after our little road trip, noticed “the other” motor mount bolt I hadn’t modified yet had popped loose over the course of the drive. Pulled the threads out unfortunately. So I did the old sleeve and 1/2” bolt fix. Didn’t take many pictures. Same procedure as described above. Also found my UCA is hitting the new Track bar brace so I also spent some time cutting on it today as well. Still have some cutting to do before it’s done.

Thanks Pete. It was a good time. Beautiful scenery and perfect weather.

Went on our annual San Juan Island crabbing trip this last week. Luckily, Minche got to come along for some of the fun. Was only about a 200 mile trip as far as the driving goes, but the boat got plenty of miles on her this year. We stay at an awesome place called Guemus Island Resort. This is their boat launch. Got plenty of Dungeness Crab. This pot alone had 9 keeper sized crab in it. Haul them in, clean, then cook, right on the beach We were fortunate enough to pull our limits with one pull every day we could crab. This was my view for most of the week. Mount Baker in the far distance The view from the top of Lummi Rocks. Just off the SW coast of Lummi Island. Burrows Island Lighthouse Went all the way around Fidalgo Island, through Deception Pass. Stopped in LaConnor Wa for breakfast. There’s a Public dock available to tie up for food and shopping. We had breakfast over to the left underneath the black umbrellas. The “Rainbow bridge” is in the background. Going under The Deception pass bridge. Final sunset of the trip.

They look beefy. I’ll give them a try for sure. Thank you. I need to replace one of those sets that keep failing on CommuteChe. Those should be standard on the shelf parts at the store.

Looks like the XJ is a limited by the grill. Lots of good things to get off her! Check it for a rear Dana 44!