pizzaman09

I needed to make a work trip up to VT, 8 hr drive each way from Erie, PA. Instead of grabbing a rental car I decided to drive the MJ. It has been a delightful trip, particularly this time of year driving through the Adirondack mountains of upstate NY. The MJ has handled the trip well, I did lots of 70+ freeway driving and a few hours of hucking it around the sweeping turns of the mountain state routes. I bet I surprised more than one person keeping up with them in far more modern vehicles. Lots of thumbs up from others on the highway and the folks at the customer I visited loved the truck too. Rolled over 282k miles. Even achieved fuel economy over entire tanks of 19.9, 21.4 and 22.4 mpg, of which I consider very good with the way I've driven.

I found these to be super easy to bleed, I let it gravity bleed for 15 minutes and my clutch was perfect.

I would at least bleed the clutch and make sure you are getting it fully to fully disengage the clutch. I could see where it is it struggling to get into the gear fully from a standstill in first. I am not confident this will fix it but it is way easier than tearing into a transmission.

I agree with a lot said here. I bought my Comanche for it being a small truck with serious payload, good looks, low accessible bed, comfortable ride and a fun drivetrain, IE a manual with the inline six. It has hauled a lot of stuff and towed a lot of trailers. I love the bumper mount ball hitch, it's so much more stable than most any other vehicle I've towed with. I do also own an imported 1999 Suzuki Carry, it is incredibly functional. It's way smaller in outside dimensions compared to the Comanche yet it has a slightly larger bed and no wheel well humps so big stuff fits beautifully. Also you can easily step up and out of the bed without any issue. The bed sides also all fold down. It turns on a dime, fits everywhere, is a beast off road with low range and a locking rear diff. The 660cc engine is fun to rev out and zip around town. However, it's not capable of fast road speeds. It can do 65mph on a flat, but there are hills where 40-45mph is the end of the world. Both serve a purpose, both are awesome. I'll never part with my Comanche.

Fully agreed. I have found one issue with the drums on my d44, they were particularly challenging to source, I couldn't find any store locally that sold them and the one I ordered online, Raybestos brand, were so poorly fitting that they didn't work. I ended up getting my original 280k mile drums turned and fitting them back on the truck with new shoes. They now work awesome and I have a strong working parking brake!

That's super cool, almost makes me want to do that swaybar setup on mine.

From an engineering standpoint, those pins should only be utilized for alignment of the pressure plate to the flywheel. The torque should be transmitted through the friction between the pressure plate flange and flywheel when the bolts are tight. Assuming the bolts locate the pressure well, then there shouldn't be any issue. I'd be a bit worried about it being perfectly centered from a balance standpoint.

Did you actually put a wrench on the manifold bolts? It also might not hurt to check the head bolts. If there is any leak in the exhaust system before the O2 sensor it can do stuff like you are describing.

Awesome truck and awesome story! I've had a car from my grandparents on both sides of the family. My Oldsmobile was my first car, given to me by my grandparents, it served me well for 17 years and I always kept it waxed and polished as my Grandpa did. Sadly the underside succumbed to rust beyond repair. The other is my Austin Healey Sprite, been in the family since 73 and I hope to keep it forever, lots to fix up just like your truck.

Trying to make my new to me 97 BMW M3 sedan drivable. It is an amazing car with a 6 speed manual transmission swap (has an overdrive gear unlike the factory 5 speeds). Unfortunately the whole drive line needs help. Driveshaft U joints and flex disc were shot. Also has an awful lightweight flywheel and heavy dual plate clutch. The clutch hydraulics don't have enough oomph to disengage the clutch fully all the time. It was owned by a young guy that bought it as his first car, he had it on historic plates and didn't maintain it. It was far from road legal.

I managed to fix my oil fill cap leak on my 1990 by applying more vacuum to the rear port. This was accomplished by up sizing the vacuum line to 1/4" and drilling out the orifice that plugs into the rear head port. I no longer have oil on my filter and no oil leaks out of the vale cover, everything internal to the valve cover is stock 1990. The reason you have oil leaking is that there is more pressure in the crankcase than outside. Adding vacuum fixes this.

It's been well done. I wonder if it has any other XJ elements to it.

Agreed, I replaced my stock linkage with one like above, it allows for much better shifts of the transfer case.

Making some more progress on the power side of the snow blower. We have put together 32kWh of grid storage LiFe cells. There are four identical packs running 16 series and 2 parallel on the cells. We procured an EG4 12000XP off grid inverter to charge the batteries and act as a home backup power supply running off of these batteries. There will be two identical 20hp brushed DC 48 volt motors driving the blower via V-belts.

There is no tow rating that I'm aware of. It would not be legal for me to tow anything with it on the road in PA on the antique plate anyway. I've towed several things with it on private property and it works great at low speeds. First gear is a granny gear so it's super easy to maneuver around.