MontanaManche

Man this stuff always scares me, at least your not at a total loss and got some of it back. Most of the time it just disappears and you never hear anything after.

Hey so I was looking into getting a rear slider window (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ARJXUM/ref=crt_ewc_title_dp_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2VNERJJQ7ERIT) but I'm curious how far the slider opens, I'm looking for something I can use as a passthrough between a shell and the cab during the winter so I don't have to go out in the cold at 4 AM in the middle of the woods. Does anyone who has this window know if that's possible? I'm not a very large guy, about 5' 9" with a 32 inch inseam. Also I've seen the fitment seems hit or miss based on what I can find, is this just installation error or should I shy away.

Got some better pics of the new seats, also took it through some mud

Got to take her out this weekend, 70 degrees and sunny was perfect for rolling the windows down and mobbing down some nasty muddy dirt road. Not my greatest photo's but hey its all I got Also got the new seats put in that my Grandma hooked me up with, she added some padding on the inside of the cover which almost makes up for the awful control arm angles. Seriously a massive improvement, hell they are more comfortable than my Dads 2014 JK or our new 2021 RAM 2500 truck we are using at work. Seriously excited to get more done with this truck, I'm pretty much just working out little quirks and stuff before I start looking into new drivetrain, interior mods or paint. I have big plans I'm working on, not sure if any of it will actually happen but I guess time will tell.

Ok turns out the motor might actually not be blown up, this truck is giving me mixed messages and I'm not sure what to think. I guess I'm just gonna use it and hope it doesn't actually blow up. maybe ill try and take it out in the dirt soon and use it for what I built it for.

Novak even sells a brand new ax-15 for about 1600, no way it should cost that much.

I found this kit awhile back (https://www.ocautocarpets.com/wn-product/door-kit-10pcs-27830/) I haven't bought them so I can't say how the quality is but the price isn't bad. From what it looks like you might need to take the door apart to replace a few of the seals but it isn't very hard on these trucks.

Ok after about 5 1/2 months I've gotten another random boost of motivation to work on the ol truck. from looking it over a few times it seems like 2 of the cylinders are wasted, 2 of the plugs were covered in an extreme amount of oil and I'm assuming the gas in the oil came in through those cylinders. It seems to run fine, doesn't like to rev very much but it does it. My Dad and I have been working on our "shop" so once its useable in the next few weeks I'm gonna go ahead and do a rebuild on the engine. I'm putting the TDI swap on hold for awhile, I think with a rebuilt engine and some 5.13 gears the little 2.5 will push me from trail to trail just fine. I'm hoping to get this all done before a Jeep trip to Oregon I'm hoping to make it to in July.

I just recently got them back from her and I'm gonna try and get them put together here pretty soon, ill make sure to post pics once i get them on the seats!

So the truck has been sitting after it broke down while i was picking up some flooring for my parents and i decided to change the oil while i tried to figure out what was wrong and there was a good quart or so of gas in the oil... that explains why everything smelt like gas. I've decided to replace the o2 sensor and also the idle speed motor and hopefully it won't happen again. My Grandma is also reupholstering my seats for me which I will get pictures of when they are done, i got some saddle blanket material that i think will look good. I think i have also made the decision to start prepping for the vw tdi swap. I'm currently saving and scouting for good donor vehicles. This 2.5 just isnt enough for the terrain out here, the torque from a diesel should help tons while going up our mountains. I also have a beach jeep trip planned for this summer and am praying ill have it done by then, or else its gonna take me twice as long just trying to make it to the beach!

Today I was driving my truck around testing my new tires in the rain and after about 30 min of driving around with my wipers on, a large puff of smoke started pouring out of the wiper stalk area. After I turned off the wipers the smoke stopped and didn't seem to come back. Anyone have an idea why? One of my biggest fears is my truck burning down and id like to figure this out. I might just get a new turn signal switch but I'm not sure yet.

So far I'm liking the tires they remind me a lot of the bfg k02 but for a much more manageable price. The whole CAD thing isnt worth the tiny bit of fuel mileage it might give, I hope to put 1 piece chromoly shafts at some point but hopefully this will last me the winter.

alot of stuff happening to the truck the past few weeks. Unfortunately i think i left my keys in the truck and they were either stolen or misplaced, i still havent found them so to be safe i replaced the ignition cylinder. Me and a few friends decided to cover the old crappy spray paint job with a slightly less crappy spray paint job. Here's a pic after we finished the front half. Not bad for maybe 45 min from a few 17 year olds. Hoping to do something more permanent once i have the drivetrain figured out and a few extra bucks. Thinking about RAM Delmonico Red Pearl. Also found out the 4 wheel drive wasn't working so i investigated and turns out the CAD shift fork sheared off so I did a bit of redneck engineering and held the collar over to one side with some hose clamps and it seems to be working fine. Also replaced my old garbage mud tires with some nice new General Grabber ATx's in the 33x12.50r15 flavor. I'm currently working at a tire shop and got a pretty good deal on the set.

So my 86 2.5 came with the dummy light gauges and I would like to install some aftermarket gauges so I know at least temp and oil pressure. I'm curious if I can use the factory gauge sending unit locations or if the ECU needs them to work properly. I know if I can't use the factory coolant temp location I can use an adapter that splices into the upper or lower radiator hose but if i can't use the factory oil pressure location I'm not sure how I would make the oil pressure gauge work. I would prefer to just swap the whole cluster but that's out of my high school kid budget.

I finally decided to start on my own build thread. Ill get pictures together at some point but for now here's the history until now So i bought my 1986 2.5 5 speed around late November of 2019 . I bought it from a guy up in Great Falls for 1000 but it had some issues, the head gasket needed to be replaced and now that its driving around the transmission may be meeting its fate pretty soon. The truck came with everything to fix it so after a few weeks and 2 garage fires it emerged and i drove it around for all of 2 days until it all the sudden died. I was busy around then and i already had a daily driver so it just sat around for a few months until my parents got tired of it taking up our driveway so after the entire fuel system was replaced and a Zone 4.5 inch with some IRO parts installed it was finally driving and I have been daily driving it for awhile now. As of now the only real issues I have are some rattles, a PS fluid leak and a roughish idle. My current plans are to make it a really nice daily and a good adventure rig, I would like to swap the motor as the little 2.5 is a bit of a pig. I would like to swap a tdi but I think a LS or Chevy 350 might be more within my budget. Maybe lift it a bit taller, maybe 35s, all depends on money and what i actually end up needing/wanting from the truck. I'm not much of a guy for taking pictures hopefully ill get around to finding and taking some pictures to add to the thread. Ill also try to document what I do more if I can remember.

always thought dropping a mj on a frame would be cool, only issue is it would sit super high unless you cutup the unibody rails off the mj and convert it into a body rather than a unibody. Hope to see more of this project though looks really sick.

i think it could look pretty good on the hood but i think the doors would be a bit much.

Ok so the issue was way more anti climactic as i thought, it wasnt some weird wiring or anything like that it was just a hypersensitive horn button and a broken horn. The clicking sound was just the horn relay going on and off super fast and the horn wasnt going off because its disconnected. So i "fixed" the problem by just removing the relay and ill figure out how to get the horn to work properly after i fix other more important issues. I honestly didnt even know horns had relays even though it makes sense that they would. If/Whenever i fix the horn button ill try to remember to put it on the thread incase anyone else has this issue.

ok so i drove it around after work today and its definitely the flasher relay but whenever the horn just barely moves it triggers the relay and the horn doesnt work. I'm assuming i wired something funny so I'm going to dig into my wiring and figure out exactly whats wrong. i also might get a new turn signal switch and redo the wiring being more careful. ill update the thread whenever i get around to fixing it, hopefully this weekend. thanks everyone for the help I'm pretty new to working on jeeps and my troubleshooting isnt very great, i was spoiled with my last truck being OBD2 and i could figure out the problem with my phone.

its not original i believe its from like a 92ish, i got it from a junkyard on ebay. It looks identical other than a different steering wheel itself. Me and my dad used crimps, yes it has tilt steering. both ways i'll add pictures and maybe a video tomorrow after i drive it around some more. not quite its a very strange noise ive never heard before, its not consistent like a flasher relay. I'm kind of thinking something like that but I'm not confident tearing into the column because the reason i replaced mine was because i destroyed the splines where the wheel connects. Thanks! I'm hoping i don't have to tear into the column but this will be helpful if i have to.

So my Comanche if finally roadworthy and running well but i did notice a clicking whenever i turn the wheel. I'm 99% sure its not a wheel bearing or suspension or steering because it sounds like its in the steering column. Thats all i can remember right now but when i get home from work tomorrow ill drive it around a bit and see if i can try and troubleshoot more. Anyone know of some sort of clock spring or switch that could make that noise? I should also mention i did have to hardwire about 10ish wires that came from the column that controlled my turn signals so I'm not sure if maybe i could have wired it wrong and done something weird. I will also try to get a video if i can remember.

Another good idea is to weld where the ball and its bracket attaches to the frame of the trailer (I'm not sure the correct term) some of them are bolted in and are easily removed and replaced with one from the store.

x2 on car-part.com, ebay is also a good place to look thats where i got mine.

maybe if you keep shaking it you'll find even more!

Looks really nice I'm just not sure about 13k nice though lol.