BeatCJ

I'm willing to be your guinea pig, no worries. I'm also willing to pay for it on a materials + labor basis, so you don't have to get upside down while you are figuring out if you can build them at a price point people won't cringe at. I have enough vehicle in my driveway that if it sits undriven for a couple of months, It doesn't hurt me. I just like driving the Comanche better than my DRW GMC.

So, if I send you my covers, you take those apart and use them as a pattern? I might have to find a pair of buckets first, so I can drive it while things are in process. Of course, I have been thinking about buckets and a console. So wishy washy.

I am close(ish) to SMS, I wonder if I could take mine there and see if they have something close to matching my interior. Probably not with COVID. I like your material choices, but don't enjoy sitting on a vinyl seat in 100 degree weather, with no A/C.

It's way easier to do if you drop the tank. I was in and out of my tank several times when I got mine running, and I thought the effort to drop the tank was worthwhile. The replacement O-ring that came with my fuel pumps was too thick, I got one like the one above. Pretty sure I have the same thing going on with my son's Cherokee.

I started your book last night. Thanks for persisting and putting it together. I'll probably load up on copies for my kids for birthdays this year.

My suggestion of $20 per hour was intended for him to use to calculate cost, I expected him to add his markup AFTER that. In my mind, his labor has to be before he adds overhead and profit.

The news has been talking about our impending Snowmageddon for the last few days. The Portland Metro area becomes paralyzed when the roads get covered. I get it, we have a combination of terrain and snow usually packs well, but are people so un-self aware that they can't see their limitations? Where's the Rhetorical Question Smiley? Roads already have a covering at my place, near the top of our terrain, rural Northeast of Portland Metro. National Weather Service is predicting anywhere from 2"-12", with periods of sleet freezing rain. Thank God it's supposed to warm up Monday. Last big winter event we had, I shoveled snow on other people's sidewalks 11 days straight for work. I'm too old for that $h1t anymore.

My OEM seat is cloth, with vinyl around the sides. Can you do one like that?

I disagree, because no matter how much money goes into their campaigns, the person we are choosing to vote for (or against) is still the same. Our system is has become vastly different than what our founding fathers intended. We have become a system that keeps the good people away from office. Would you expose your family to what politicians endure? It used to be that politics was like different divisions of an automaker. Sure, Light Trucks wanted more money to go into building their product, but they weren't opposed to Cars making money. Now, it's like a gunfight, and as Bill Jordan said "There ain't no second place winner". And this is what we choose.

It's really not a question of what WE would want, more a question of what you would want to make. In general, you need to take ALL of your costs, materials, shipping, labor, and double that to be a business. That's a really rough rule of thumb. Could you make a go of it for less? Of course. Your niche, at this point is custom. That always costs more. So, as a starting point, paying yourself $20 an hour, I come up with about $440. And that's pretty close to what I have paid for seats on my fleet at work to be recovered. Of course, that's drop the truck off, and pick it up in two days with seat reinstalled, driver side electric 10 way bucket, but high end leather. So not necessarily apples to apples. I think I priced a replacement cover for my 87 bench, pretty much the same as yours, at like $320? Shipped to me to install.

Probably not, but if you got that, it would make it easy to move on to the next one. Yours is probably worth $1000 more than mine, I figured my "pester me until I throw out a number" price is $6000. I could buy a project a parts truck and new and still be money ahead.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of crazy throw it down price did you say?

Hmmmm, made me throw up in mouth, just a little bit....

So, after doing yours, any more thoughts on cost? What you did looks good. Would you just sew up the back and bench covers and send them, or do you need the seat?

I met a guy in Tigard yesterday, picking up a set of wheels. Said he has had a couple, and is an inactive member here.

Yup. I got a second set, with tires. I like them. Now I have a set of brand new 235/75-15s Load Index 109 that I don't need. The problem is that the bearing hub is shaped quite a bit differently on the 2 wheel drive. They work fine without the center cap, and it will fit when I get it swapped to a 4wheel drive axle.

@mnkyboy Did the post say where it is now?

So I finally figured it out. The Icon 16 wheels are cast quite a bit differently than the original equipment cast wheels. But the real difference is between 2 and 4 wheel drive spindles. They do fit, without the center cap. Center caps fit on Dana 30s, though.

Are those OEM Colorado Red body color fender flares?

Wow, that looks really clean.

Probably related to building the motor. Bearings, too loose or tight will do that. Or he used all 644 ponies at once, and something bent. Just because it went boom at low speed doesn't mean it was always there.

Or just build a new frame out a of 2 x 3 0.188 wall tubing. Relatively speaking, pretty simple.

I sent a little bit. I hope a little every now and then will help.

First off, I know little about how the NSS works in a Comanche, but it sounds like the linkage is slightly out of adjustment. Most likely happened when you swapped columns. If a switch is plugged in, and worked by hand will it start?

I would think you would have to do some tunnel bodywork to get a NV4500 to fit.