Awesome

Yes, the linkage could be off. One of the things to check. It's an AX-5 so it needs GL4 gear oil like all other AX-series transmissions. Yellow-metal safe. The synchros are already flaking off so I'm putting 10w-30 in it despite my better judgement. Gear oil is far better for a transmission because of how sticky it is (gears and engines have completely different loads), but whatever. GL4 is stupidly expensive and I put a gallon in my AX-15 a few weeks ago.

This is a couple days of progress. We got the rear diff drained, lube locker from the other D35 installed and filled. Proper bolts used this time. Checked the transfer case. It was full to the point that it leaked when I pulled the fill plug out. The ATF in there looked and smelled fine, which I'm not happy about. Last time I tried to put this truck into 4WD it made an awful racket. Checked the transmission fluid. It was low enough I couldn't tell if there was any in it. Drained it. Came out brown and VERY golden. It was shifting fine so I'm hoping the synchros aren't too far gone. It's getting fresh oil tomorrow after it drains overnight. I grabbed one of the spare lower fender brackets I had and installed it. Fixed the fender flap issue. I may end up using the junkyard fenders I have sitting around, since they are perfect and these ones aren't. I spent the afternoon breaking down the header panel that I had already JB-Welded. I sanded and primed it as well as the headlight buckets. The kids helped with this step. Painted satin black. Reinstalled after a few hours of dry time. Need to pick up some screws, but the truck looks fantastic already.

Picked up a new clutch master cylinder today. I have no idea how to bleed the system so I need to look that up. I used a stripped bolt/nut kit to get the Torx bolts off the diff housing and got it opened up. It smelled foul and looked even worse. The axle tag says it has 3.55 gears. I suppose it could have been worse, even though that's disappointing. Oddly enough, the gears look fine. They are worn, but worn very evenly. I also fixed the front fender gap. I need to work on it a tad more to bring it UP to the level of the hood, but it's way better than it was. I noticed I'm missing a bracket that attaches to the bottom of the fender at the front. I think I have some extras, but if I don't, I'll just make one on the plasma table. Tomorrow is paint-and-JBweld the header panel day. It might also turn into swap-the-clutch-master day if everything goes smoothly.

It's been leaking for a while now. It didn't leak when I first got it, but I guess moving it around a few times flexed the housing just enough to where it started to leak. I'm not sure there's any oil left in the diff anymore. But, as I said... I think the D35 off the TJ had a LubeLocker on it, so it should be cheap and easy to get it to stop leaking.

I spent some time this afternoon adjusting the hood and the header panel so the hood could close. It closes and opens quite nicely now. You can tell from these two pictures that the drivers side fender is not lined up properly. It's not the original fender and doesn't quite match, so I think we may be able to adjust it and get it to fit. I took a look inside the cowl since the cowl cover is broken anyway. It was installed with wood screws. But... No rust! I was worried about the cowl while I was opening it up, but it's nice and clean. I was doing that while my daughter was tasked with removing the rear differential cover. Turns out that the differential cover was installed with torx bolts and two have stripped heads. I had her try to weld a nut to them but she got frustrated and gave up after a few tries. I'll have to deal with it tomorrow. The good news is the broken D35 I have out back has regular bolts and I think it has a lube locker. Also, I registered and insured it today. The girl at the insurance office said "I know your title says Jeep, but it shows up in our system as an AMC."

Today, eldest daughter sealed the underside of the truck while I worked on the topside. I had built the new seat mounts yesterday and gotten them welded in, and she'd done the priming after I got the seat mounts done. While she was finishing up the underside of the truck, I installed the passenger-side mirror. I guess we weren't making much noise, since the hammock-dweller didn't move. I went under the truck after the daughter was done and she missed a bunch of spots. I'll have to go back over some stuff tomorrow. We'll give the polyurethane a few days to dry and then we'll hit it with more primer, then spray the underside with undercoating. I think we're going to go ahead and use Raptorliner for the floor on the inside of the truck. Should be done with all of that later this week.

Ok so that confirms that swapping the flywheel won't work unless I swap the entire system over. I have a feeling that the sending unit I ended up with is post-Renix. The fuel gauge is pegged full when the tank only has a couple gallons in it. Adding fuel makes the gauge go down. Renix sending units are unobtanium. I have 2 old ones now but both are rusted beyond what I believe to be repairable. I don't believe the current speedometer works. I haven't driven the truck on the road in a year so it's hard to remember, but I don't think it was working. So I need to pull an '87-90 cluster from the junkyard and swap it to an electronic gauge. Get rid of the cable altogether. I checked Ebay and they are all quite expensive.

Yeah I assume the flywheel is different (it shows different part numbers) but the only difference is the hall effect ring. So is the hall effect ring only used for the tach on an '86 or is it used for ignition? I'm unfamiliar with the details of how the Renix system actually works.

Alright so I have a cluster of information that I need to put together. BoxyJeep makes an electronic speedo conversion kit. They say it does not work with the '86 cluster. Ok, why not? Well he says the '86 cluster has the wrong mount for the new speedo, plus the gauges are different. Since I'd be swapping an electronic speedo in ANYWAY (91+ cluster), why would I not be able to use the rest of the 91+ cluster? To get the tach to work it sounds like the pickup needs to be different. I'm assuming that the hall effect sensor actually needs a different flywheel. Ok. Why can't I just buy a 91+ flywheel and swap that in? New ones are kind of expensive but not really all that bad. Actually there's one in a junkpile near me that I could grab really easily. Does the Renix system rely on the hall effect sensor (CPS) for injection pulse timing? If it does then I guess swapping the flywheel would be out. To get the fuel gauge to work I need an XJ sender or I need to add a resistor, right? I went through the trouble to find an MJ fuel pump but I'm not really convinced it really is an MJ fuel pump. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's really an XJ fuel sender that was labeled wrong. I had to bend it a bit to make it work right. I think I have the wires hooked up backwards as well because the gauge reads backwards. Whatever, why wouldn't I be able to make that work? I HAVE an '88 cluster that I can use for the swap, but I kind of want to be able to use the '88 MJ as well later on. I think it just has the idiot lights too so it's not really much of an upgrade besides the electronic speedo. And there is an '87 XJ in the junkyard that I could pull the cluster from....... but again, it only has the idiot lights so it's not really an upgrade for me. I suppose later on down the line I can pull all the Renix stuff out and swap to a later model OBDI system and that would solve the gauge problem. But that's a later problem that is very time consuming and I'd rather not do it if I don't have to.

I did use the search and didn't immediately find anything relevant (first 3 pages). Can a later model cluster be swapped to the '86 (Renix) dash without rewiring the entire truck? I saw a few good clusters in the junkyard, and have a complete donor XJ just begging me to grab the cluster out of it. I know there's the issue of mechanical/electric speedo. I remember there being an adapter available for that years ago for Wranglers. Anyway, if it's not possible I'll just keep the idiot lights. But would be nice to have real gauges in the dash instead of in a console pod.

Been spending the last couple of weeks getting all the floor welding done. Should be 100% done with that tomorrow. It's almost completely done right now. The passenger side is finished, and I welded some gap-fillers in between the frame lip and the floor pan on the driver's side this afternoon. Hit the motherlode earlier today. Wife and I hit up all the local junkyards for parts over the last couple of days. We came up dry. The only thing we found useful was an '87 Cherokee that was pretty complete and had a TBI four-cylinder, and I could have used the air box from it but I didn't plan on that and hadn't brought the tools to pull it. On the way home wife remembered seeing a yard near where we live with a bunch of junk Cherokees in it. We pulled up and asked the owner about them and he told me I could have whatever I wanted. He just gave me all those parts. The donor Jeep still has a full dash, and had factory air conditioning. I asked if I could maybe pull that too and he said to just come back and ask when I'm ready. The only part I'd be missing would be the condenser, but I think that's something I could easily obtain. Pretty awesome.

Other daughter got involved today too. She decided to help her sister. She normally doesn't like using power tools at all, but she was fine with a die grinder with a wire wheel on it. Also got the passenger floor tacked in. Will probably weld most of it out tomorrow after work.

Been working on the project for the past week and today the driver's side floor was finished (as far as welding goes). You can tell in this picture that there's some kind of body seal up under the clutch pedal that's been leaking. We could see water getting in there when the truck was getting rained on. I need to pull that sealant off and reseal it. I'm not sure what's on the other side of it. Daughter spent her time prepping the passenger side for the new pan. Passenger side is going to be much, much easier to weld in. It should only take a couple hours to get that side finished. Hard to tell in the pictures, but there are some parts on the driver's side where the floor didn't come all the way down to the frame rail and there's a gap. I think I might end up adding a piece of sheet metal there to close up the gap, because I don't think I can fill that whole gap with seam sealer and get away with that. There's some other places where there's a bigger gap as well, but no easy way to fill it except to pump it full of seam sealer. Daughter is going to work on finishing the prep on the passenger side, then I'll have her clean up the welds on the driver's side, do some sanding, then hit everything over there with etch primer. Then we'll use a bunch of polyurethane caulking (seam sealer) to fill and smooth things. She's getting her driver's permit in a few months so she's anxious to get her truck finished up.

Been a while, but I finally ordered an aluminum valve cover. I got it installed today. It came with a used Fel-Pro dual-material gasket and the bolts. Installed the used gasket in case it was fine, and it does not leak. Valve cover upgrade complete. No more oil leaking everywhere. From the engine, anyway. I started and ran the truck again for a while. While I was doing that, I heard a "ping" and a clatter. I was wondering what had just fallen off the truck, so my daughter walked around for a bit then found a bunch of catalytic converter on the ground under the truck. It blew a few more chunks out the tailpipe while I was running it. On the plus side, it doesn't smoke as badly now AND it idles fine now. On the downside, it smells as bad as ever. LOL. Still has an exhaust leak from the manifold gasket, I think. It smokes pretty good still from that area. I did notice there are two bolt holes on the head in the manifold area that don't have bolts in them and haven't for as long as I've owned the Comanche. Are all the bolt holes supposed to have bolts in them? How do you like my temporary vacuum hose solution? Hahaha. I'll have to get adapters for these. One of the chunks.

Lol wow that is baaaad. No wonder these things were throwaway trucks.

Battery box patch, rivnuts installed, battery box reinstalled. Welds are embarrassingly bad. Last week I went ahead and ordered the stuff I needed to convert one of my welders to .023 wire. I got that all hooked up today and did some test welds on the floor. MUCH better. Wish I'd waited to patch the battery area. I also finished hooking the exhaust back up and making sure the motor mounts were bolted on good. Truck starts up and runs beautifully until it gets warm. Then it acts like it's having a hard time idling. Revs up fine but acts like it wants to die at idle. The throttle solenoid thing will actually kick in sometimes and it blows a bunch of oil out of the bottom of the broken valve cover. I did notice the fan clutch needs to be replaced, as it never kicked in. If anyone has an aluminum valve cover they aren't going to use, I'd probably be interested in buying it off you.

Alright, picture time. Here's the modification I had to do to the frame flange: Took the valve cover off as it was leaking pretty badly. I don't see anything wrong under here. Looks fairly clean, actually. Valve cover is badly damaged from someone torqueing the bolts down too much. All of the holes are deformed and cracked. New radiator and hoses installed, valve cover gasket install is in progress.

I'm a professional welder, which is why it's so embarrassing. Turns out thin rusty sheet metal is hard to weld. I got it to fit, finally. I had to beat the frame flange up out of the way with a hammer. It's all installed with the proper shroud. I'm not positive the swaybar won't hit it. I may have to space the swaybar down away from it.

I got the fenderwell under the battery box cut out and patched today. Much better if you ignore my crappy welds. Worked on modifying the radiator I bought in order to make it fit. It won't. I'm not sure what to do now. My options are to modify the truck itself or just buy the Crown radiator and hope that IT fits.

Oh gross. My '86 came with a Cherry Bomb too. Sounds soooo bad.

I taught several people how to drive in my YJ. One of them was the girl who became my wife. Before her, I had no idea that my YJ could burn rubber in second gear. Hahaha She didn't burn the clutch though. Starting on the tractor is a bad idea, in my opinion. They don't shift anything like regular vehicles. Start out in 4 low in the MJ and go from there.

Can't wait.

That's insane. You can't get a running, complete MJ for under 10 grand here in Texas. Since I left Norcal, 3 different places where I used to live over there have been within 300 yards of burning down. Absolutely devastated for you bro. My in-laws were on evacuation notice for a long time. They need to throw the guy who started that fire in front of it and let him burn.

Just my opinion, but that grille was the ugliest thing to ever sit on the front of a Jeep until the "angry eyes" thing started happening. Sell it for profit and get a single beam header.

Wish MY California truck looked that good. (The '86 is from California)