elpoffroad

Major progress over Thanksgiving break, had a chance to drop in the motor into the Comanche and man she looks pretty good for a 4 banger. Wanted to make sure the 2.5 keeps nice and cool so found a deal for a few items I needed in the build. In the package of parts I picked up I did get a power steering gear box with a 3 in drop pitman arm and a brace from Rustys. Still in the process of gutting the interior. Just got the dash out , now need to pull all the heater and AC box. Also got the truss welded in and had the chance to make some u bolt delete plates that I still have to burn in. Back to work and making sure my students keep learning. Lets see what I get done this weekend.

Yeah , I figured many things were going to change on this Comanche but I don't mind the little 4 banger. A little anemic , yes but its all about crawling. If Toyotas can do it then so can we lol.

Well one step closer. I got a chance to have the day off on Veterans day so took advantage and started assembling my motor. Header had to be modified and so did the power steering pump since it interfered with the header tube but its almost all together. I had a chance to port the intake. Hopefully it helps it breath a little better including having the EGR delete. I'm hoping to drop motor in tomorrow evening. Lets see how well everything comes together.

Right, prep is so important but its a lot of work. I forgot to mention that I already got some wheels and tires for it also. Some 36in iroks on some steel wheels. I look forward to assembling her.

Next step is to breakdown the Dana 44 axles and weld on the Barnes 4x4 trusses on them. I am going to go with Aussie locker and 5.39 gears so once the trusses are on then I will concentrate on the internals. I had been waiting on my Luk clutch and it is finally in so soon I will start bolting in the motor trans and tcase. I do need to order a trans poly mount just don't know which one.

I decide to gut the interior since its going to be a basic rock crawler so ripped it all out and discovered a little bit of rust , so some patching will be needed. The painting started and man it made a big difference. One of my friends just so happen to have a 2.5 motor he was swapping out for an ls motor from his wrangler so I bought it and started cleaning it up and putting new gaskets on it. Also wanted to upgrade the motor mounts so decided to go with brown dog motor mounts. I found a great deal on some ORI's with reservoirs while picking up a long arm kit from rustys and a claytons trans crossmember for the long arms, Had to clean up the transmission and transferase which I got also as part of the motor deal but the awesome side of it it is a Teraflex 4:1 transferase to help the crawler ratio.

So about a year ago I had the opportunity to trade some rims and tires for my 88 Comanche. We came to an agreement and in came the Comanche to my storage garage. Due to travelling and eventually lack of space at my old home , it sat and waited for my new house to make it whole again. I bought it knowing that the engine was seized and had a few rust issues. Fast forwarding I finally got my new house and started the journey of making it whole 4 months ago. First thing that had to happen was pull the whole drivetrain. Once everything was out I decided I wanted to clean up the engine bay and throw some new paint on it. As I was pressure washing, I incidentally discovered that the raptor liner it was sprayed with was stripping off with the pressure washer. Soon afterwards I started collecting parts and getting everything ready to put back together.