JZLAJeep

Finally getting around to registering our Comanche. Tried to get the specs right. 1989 Jeep Comanche Pioneer long-bed 4.0 Renix, originally had Peugeot BA 10/5, Aisin AX-15 after transmission swap, NP231 transfer case, Dana axles, 119.9 inch long-bed wheelbase Build date: 2-89 Current Location: Ada County, Idaho Status: Back on the road after sitting for at least 5 years. Notes: Front and gas tank skid plates. Front bumper off of a 95 Cherokee. Rear bumper off of a 1st generation Dodge Dakota. Sliding rear glass window. Exterior color is white with Pioneer livery. Interior is dark blue with cloth bench seat. Manual transmission floor shift. What else… upgraded wiper arms from a 97+ Cherokee!

Nice of you to bring the MJ to Idaho. The Idaho and Montana border on I-90 from the looks of it.

We dropped the oil pan to replace the oil pump this past summer. Without knowing exactly which video you saw, the answer is probably yes. We ended up disconnecting much of the front suspension to get enough clearance to drop the oil pan. The suspension has to be disconnected to get enough clearance to get the oil pan in and out without hitting the axle in the front and transmission in the back.

Nice! Are you going to use the fleece blanket trick to recover or what are you going to use? One of my visors is mouse eaten from the pickup sitting in a field for 5+ years before we acquired it. We'll likely try to replace both with visors from a junk yard, but may need to recover.

Busy week of Comanche repairs for us. We have had access to a heated pressure washer so my sons wanted to pull out the bench and pressure wash it. We ended up also taking out the carpet and pressure washing it as well. The carpet is not in great shape (two mouse eaten holes, stains, etc.). Since it's out and drying, we are considering replacing the carpet with black 1/4 inch thick, self-adhesive, army surplus vinyl flooring. O The flooring doesn't stretch so I don't know how well it will mold to the floor, but the price is right... My bro-in-law, uses it as flooring in farm trucks. We are ok with a more utilitarian, functional MJ. We keep telling ourselves that the repairs only need to be as good as the rest of the truck. Has anyone gone from carpet to a plastic flooring? If so, did you use a kit or do it yourself like we are considering? Other considerations are that the floor has no significant rust concerns (advantage of living in a dry climate), but the wiring under the carpet has issues. The parking brake is also non existent, so considering removing the parking brake conduit from the cab floor.

My 16 year old repaired the headliner the past couple days. Here's what he did with photos. He'd previously done the same thing to our '94 Cherokee. We had previously purchased gray fleece from a fabric store to recover the headliner. Got the headliner out and used a plastic brush and vacuum to get the old foam off. Sprayed Permatex headliner adhesive on the headliner and what would be the back of the headliner fabric. It's stingy glue. He sprayed the headliner one direction and the fabric the other. Two of us held the fabric above the headliner while my son adhered it to the middle and worked out to the edges. Trimmed off the excess, leaving a couple of inches overlap. Folded the overlap over the back and installed in the cab. The last photo shows half the headliner installed because I couldn't get the camera far enough away in the cab.

My sons did the work, but here's the report. Took the week off to work on the Comanche with my sons. They figured this out yesterday. Replaced the CPS with no change. Just installing the cheap, poorly constructed CPS was an ordeal... Purchased and was prepared to install a new ignition cylinder since the key worked intermittently. Took the steering column apart and adjusted the previously installed ignition switch and that solved that issue. Found that jumping a relay solved the issue of getting the fuel pump to run when the key was in the on position. Ended up permanently jumping the relay. So the fuel pump now runs whenever the key is in the on position. Bottom line, back to having a running Comanche!

In other news, the 4x4 shop finished the driveshaft. Needed to remove about 1" due to the AX-15 and transfer case being slightly longer. Came back looking good. I would have been happy with getting the rusted driveshaft back, but they replaced the U-joints, cleaned it up, and painted it. It will be the nicest thing on the Comanche. Course I had to pay for those extras...

Guess we've lucked out. Have two XJs with factory AX-15 and was lucky enough to find a 3rd manual XJ in a junkyard to swap into the MJ. Apparently we skipped many of the issues mentioned above by taking the AX-15 from a XJ. With that said, we are still working out the kinks on the MJ.

When we acquired our Comanche, the driver side fender was removed and in the bed along with the driver fender liner (and a bunch of other junk). The fender liner was folded and torn and not worth putting back on. I ordered a replacement from Amazon for $27 or something like that. Not sure if it was the 96 and after plastic or not. I did need to use the felt from the old fender liner. Glad I didn't throw away the old one before I had the new one installed.

Going back to the original title of this thread, could this be associated with the crankshaft position sensor? We used the crankshaft position sensor and flywheel from the Peugeot transmission in the AX-15 as we understand we needed to do, but it's got me wondering if that is part of what is causing the issue. Seems cheap enough to replace it just to rule that out, but what else are we missing?

Still running into issues. After removing the relay the Jeep would run, but would still shut off after a few minutes. Based on the tips, bypassed the fuel pump ballast resister with a piece of wire between the clips and it seemed to work if the connection was just right, but would still shut off. Tried again today clipping off the clips and no better performance. So it seems there is still something else that keeps it from starting reliably and stay running. Encouraged by the progress. Discouraged by not solving the issue yet.

I just pulled out this relay because it was clicking almost constantly. It was way to the left in the drivers footwell. Now the jeep primes the fuel pump, starts, and stays running. Hallelughah! I have no idea what this relay does, other than keep my jeep from running. The numbers on the relay are 8343 and 25523703.

Thanks! There is power at that pin.

We just tried these tests. It did not have power at D1_5 or D1_6, but did have power at D2_4 during both key on and crank. What does this mean?

That is probably our issue for why it won't prime up. But even when we bypassed all that and gave the pump straight constant 12v, it still wouldn't stay running. So doesn't that mean its a spark issue? What we did is unplugged the fuel pump from the comanche and just stuck wires in the connector. One straight from the battery, and one straight from the transmission housing for ground. It was very audibly running before the engine started and after it died. We did double check that it was building pressure at the rail.

Working on the Comanche more tonight. We've confirmed that the fuel pump gets 9 volts while cranking(is that about right?) but no power when key is turned to on. Definitely does not prime the pump when first turned on. We thought that was the problem, so we tried hotwiring the fuel pump with constant 12v. This made no change, so it must not be a fuel problem, or at least that's not the only problem. Is there anything that could cause the jeep to lose spark after about a second of rolling the key back to the on position? We've also noticed a clicking noise from the drivers side dash that wasn't there before. Could that be a relay related to our problem? Are there any relevant relays in that fuse panel in the drivers footwell?

Getting back on this. Replacing the starter relay (same as ignition relay?). I'll check wires for fusible links.

Did the draw remain after the key lock cylinder illumination turned off? I have the same surround on my 95 XJ and it turns off after a few minutes as I recall. I don't think I've ever had a problem, but perhaps after almost 30 years your had developed some problem. There were likely many Dodge models from the mid-90s that had the same surround illumination. My sons claim the Dodge Viper of that vintage has it. So I like to say that a Viper and my XJ are practically the same...

I'll be happy to share some photos of the process. The fleece worked great on the XJ and looks really good. I think it looks as good as the foam backed liner and will hopefully last longer. We had to go to a fabric store to buy a couple yards of fleece that was wide enough and that was more expensive than I would have liked ($35 or something), but much cheaper than foam backed fabric. Less concern about the width for a Comanche because the width of the fabric only needs to be the distance from the windshield to the back window rather than door to door like on the XJ. Our "new" family car is a Ford Expedition and it previously had a DVD player/TV screen in the ceiling that a previous owner had removed. So there is just a hole in the headliner. I'm thinking about giving it a similar treatment. Find a stiff piece of cardboard, cut it a little bigger than the hole, glue some tan fleece to it and glue or velcro the patch over the hole. I think that will work out OK.

Taking a break from troubleshooting and after a quick search, didn't see a direct post on headliners. If I missed one, I'll gladly accept a cross-link. A couple months ago my 16 year-old refurbished the headliner in our '94 Cherokee with the ol' fleece blanket and can of 3M spray glue trick. It turned out really well (picture below - prior to reinstallation) and we want to do the same to the '89 Comanche. The headliner in the Cherokee wasn't glued in, but the Comanche headliner does appear to be glued to the ceiling. We have been hesitant to use too much force and haven't yet gotten it out. Do we just need to do it? Stick a plastic puddy knife between the headliner and ceiling sheet metal to separate the two perhaps? Once refurbished, does it need to be re-glued to the ceiling?

I like it. I've owned 3 XJs (including my original that I still have, a '95 2-door manual) and finally have a MJ. I've thus far steered clear of anything that is not 4.0, but low miles and good condition. I bought the '95 used before any of my kids were born. As my oldest sons got to be teenagers they said to me, "Dad, the Jeep is really cool. It's two door and manual. Do you know how rare that is?" Ha ha

We replaced the ignition switch earlier in the week. Unlikely that two are bad. More likely that both are good. We'll try the other suggestions.

I cleaned up the terminals on the ballast resistor with no change. The fuel pump is getting power and seems to prime up well. I really don't think it's a fuel issue because of the way it dies. It doesn't sputter out like it's losing fuel, it really just sounds like you turned off the key. Is there any reason it would have spark when it's started but not immediately after?

Hope so. Getting a frustrated with it at the moment.