COMANCHERED

I have a phone, I know how to use it. They don't have a snow phone, just an internet site that says what days they are open, supposedly. It's supposed to be a daily report and it does well for showing new snow, just doesn't let you know that they are open or not. I have told them quite a few times how I and many others feel. I was assured that this was the last time they'd be closed last time it happened. I know all of the people that work there and the owners really well, I worked there for 4 years under the last owners, we had a skeleton crew and always were open when we said we were gonna be. I know it's out of my control and nobody on here cares I was just miffed this morning and felt like writing it down. Besides, it's to early to go to the bar and rant so I went to the Pub!

O.k., this isn't the typical "I'm sick of snow/shoveling rant." This rant stems from the fact that we have a little locally owned ski hill about 30 miles from me in the heart of the Rockies. I love this ski hill, I've had a season pass there since I was in the fourth grade, every year except the last two. They were closed last year and I decided not to buy one this year because there are new owners and I wanted to make sure they were doing things right before I gave them any of my hard earned money. Well things have been going pretty well for them as far as business goes, the hill has been pretty busy everytime I have been there. I've gone at least ten or eleven times, enough to buy a season pass and be skiing free from now on. This isn't whats bothering me as I don't mind paying and helping their new venture. My problem is that they started out the season 7 days a week with live music 3 nights a week with a new restaurant and the best selection of beers that I have ever seen in Montana. Again that wasn't so bad, a little to enthusiastic in my opinion but they were pulling it off. Now that its towards the end of the season, they have to close by April 15 because of the grizzly bears waking up, they are really becoming unreliable. THIS SUCKS! This is always when the snow is the best, huge amounts of snow almost everyday. In the past week and a half I've got up and got ready and headed towards the hill 4 times only to find out they're closed, again. This happened to me today, that is why I am writing this. They have had 12 inches in the car park since last night, 18 at the top of the hill. 2 1/2 feet in the last 48 hours and 3 feet in the last 72 hours. All that means is that it would have been an epic powder day for anyone that might care about such things. I care. Sorry for making you all read this. I'll still be going when they do open, just sick of the inconsistency. At least I feel better!

http://montana.craigslist.org/cto/2237131159.html

Sorry to dredge this back up, but I am experiencing the exact same problem. I have tried everything I know to get the lights to work but can't figure it out. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Forgot to add that I've already switched from dummy gauges to a full set and neither have worked. I've got the blinker lights and high beam light and warning lights but no gauge illumination.

I am still at a loss. I think I'm gonna need to post in the tech section to pick the brains of others!

Sorry, these are not mine. I would follow the link and go from there. They are on craigslist and I only posted this for people who may be interested in calling the guy/girl themselves.

Thanks 500MJ, I thought that it was going to be a fuse issue. Today I spent a few hours working on the MJ. I still have no instrument lights. I replaced all the fuses and only one of them looked like it had been there since stock. I checked under the dash and the fuse panel is all good, atleast it doesn't look like its had any brake fluid on it. None of the fuses were split or cracked. I do however, have a tail light that is only blinking on one out of the two bulbs on the passenger side. The bulb lights up when the brakes are applied, just not as bright as the other one. I read somewhere on here that someone had a tail light out and they replaced that and their instrument lights came back on. I'm wondering if that doesn't have something to do with it? Anyway, tomorrow is another day, a day for chasing electrical gremlins!

I guess I never thought about that 500MJ. The gauge lights never have come on, even with my old gauge cluster, that's why I figured it might be a fuse. I should say that the blinkers and bright lights all work, just not the lights for the gauges themselves, none of them, not just the tach. It's just something I don't think about until I'm driving after dark an can't see the cluster. I have a GPS in it as the speedo because with the big tires it's off a bit. I guess that's why I haven't gotten to motivated to do much about it. So if I understand you right, the cluster is like a string of christmas lights, so when one bulb goes out, the rest go out? I think I'm gonna pull it back out and check the bulbs. I still have the bulbs from my old cluster, so I should be able to come up with enough to get it back to lighting up. Thanks for the tip, and thank you for the cluster!

The link tells about them. http://montana.craigslist.org/pts/2202386640.html

You don't see anything! No I am not holding out...

Well the big MJ was down waiting for new injectors and the little MJ was down waiting for the front end pieces to get painted, so I drove around in the Cherokee. It snowed about 12" last night and the wind blew it around a bit so there's gonna be some nice and hard drifts out there once the temp drops to well below zero. I'm sick of it!

Well, I have gotten a bit more done to the truck lately. I got a full set of gauges and the sensors so I installed them. I really like having a tach again! I still need to figure out why the gauge lights don't come on with the head lights, but that might just be a fuse. Not much pic worthy about that but I'll throw one up of them installed and all working. Gauges installed: The truck started smelling really "gassy", as in it smelled like gas all the time. I got to looking around and found that one of my injectors was leaking so I ordered up rebuild kits for all of them and rebuilt them. When I did a leak test, turned the key on so the fuel pump would pressurize, one of the injectors was spraying fuel everywhere from where the metal part connects to the plastic part. That was that, so I went to the computer and ordered a set from Precision Auto Injectors. Let me tell you, the price was right, $80.00 compared to $400.00 to $600.00 from NAPA. I ordered them on Friday and they showed up today. I would definetly order from them again. They came with a flow sheet and packaged nice and cleanly. The truck runs and idles really nice now and no gas smell. In all it took me about an hour to put them in. New injectors as they came packaged: Flow sheet that came with them: The new injectors installed: A pic showing how much snow we got last night: That's all for now, but I'll keep posting as I get more done. I might get to drive it for awhile now!

Here's a few pics of the carpet and headliner that are in desperate need of replacement. I had the interior torn apart today so here you go. The drivers side carpet, I say carpet because there is no metal underneath: The whole carpet: The mini console torn apart: The headliner, at least an attempt:

I got the snorkel mounted up the other day, I think it looks good. I still need to replace the filter on the top and get a prefilter to cover it. I am going to get rid of the factory air box and put a second battery in it's place. Mounted to the fender: A look at the whole truck: The new seat and cleaned up interior: I did a lot to the truck today. Not much pic worthy, just time consuming cleanup on the inside. I managed to get all the tint off the windows using razor blades and Goo-Gone. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be! I am really happy how it turned out considering that it was so hashed out. I need to order new carpet or a vinyl mat and work on those rusted floor boards.

Good advice, I had planned on tearing apart the seat and stashing away all the metal parts. You never know when somebody might need a piece.

My girlfriend and I spent all day with the MJ. We took apart the interior down to the carpet and dash and cleaned it as good as could be. She really shined up nice for a twenty plus year old truck. I haven't got the floors done so I left the carpet pretty much alone so it still looks like crap. I installed the new seat I picked up and it is so much nicer than it was. The last seat was all broken down and moldy so I wasn't sad to see it go! I'll post some pics in a bit.

Well shelbyluvv, the bench seat is both. It has cloth on the seat backs and where you'd sit, but the sides and trim are vinyl. I'm not to sure if I want buckets or not, the bench is quite useful as I've got kids.

Hey there, love your truck. I've got that cargo light and switch and I am interested in trading for 4.0 renix era gauges and sensors that go along with it if you've got 'em. Got a pm from a guy that has what I'm looking for but I said that it's only fair to give you the first shot. P.M. me if you want and we will hash something out. I am interested in other things as well so don't be shy with the offers. Sorry for posting this here but I'm new to the forum stuff. Thanks!

I would trade the cargo light and switch for a full set of renix era guages and the associated sensors for a 4.0. I'm not sure if that's a fair trade or not so just let me know what you all think! I would also like to know how well the plastic paint that Dupli-color sells holds up. Any feed back would be appreciated on this. I think maybe SEM sells interior paint as well. I got a new black bench seat that's in really good shape and was considering painting all the interior plastics to match. I have a really worn out tan interior and would like to spruce it up a bit. I would just put a dash mat on the dash, not to worried about it being totally blacked out, just have some kind of color coordination. Also wondering if anybody has a factory/aftermarket rubber floor covering instead of carpeting. I think that it would be easier as far as upkeep goes. We get a lot of snow and general bad weather where I live and the carpet seems to hold the water, water leads to rust and if I go through the trouble of redoing the floors to eliminate the rust...well you know where this is going! I was just thinking of an alternate route.

Well actually my sway bar and links already on the truck hit the coils so I'm hoping that this will cure that. I'm gonna have to get rid of the sway bar drop that's on the truck already and put it back to factory, then the new links should bolt in and clear everything no problem. I thought people were pretty crazy over those factory cargo lights so I pulled it in hopes of maybe selling it or trading for something I need/want. I think I'll keep it around a while and see if I might want to use it in my build, but I think I might go a different route. With the topper I have, I'd like to run some kind of track lighting inside of it for camping and such. Anyways thank you all for the replies and I will post some pics of the snorkel all mounted up and the parts installed as it happens. I really need to address the totally rusted through floor boards in the truck and get on with the insulating and sound deadening! Those big mud terrains sure like to make themselves known out on the highway!

Picked this stuff up off of craigslist today. Went to town to look at a black bench seat out of an 86' comanche for $50.00 and came home with all of it for $75.00 total. I got the 2" lift shackles, fixed lower control arms, sway bar disconnects and the "like new" bench for $60.00 from the guy. Shackles: Disconnects: Then I went to the wrecking yard and scored a factory MJ cargo light with good rubber gasket and the switch with the cargo lamp emblem for the dash. I also picked up a nice rear view mirror. The wrecking yard cost me $15.00 bucks. Cargo light and switch: Not bad for an afternoon and $75.00 bucks!

Thanks for the replies. As for the snorkel, I think they look good. I'm not to sure if I'm going to be fording any major rivers or anything, but I think it will help with dust. The plus side is that it was cheap, and i like the look. I know it may be a shame to cut up my truck, but I can always repair or replace that fender. I'm kind of shooting for a rugged overland type vehicle when I'm done. I just want to have fun with this truck and make it my own, I got it cheap so I have lots of room to do that. I don't like the cone filter in the cowl idea, it seems like a lot of work for not much "reward." Thank you for the input and keep them coming.

Picked up a Safari Snorkel off of craigslist a while back, so I Installed it today. I took some pictures of the layout and holes drilled. I'm still not used to working on something and taking pictures so I only remembered to take a few. The more I work on it the better I'll get at remembering to take the photos. I got the template from ARB, they sent me an email and just printed it out. Laying out the first part of the template: Template all layed out: The holes in the fender all cleaned up: The truck is really quite rust free so it is nice to work on. I will post more pics as I get it mounted and all plumbed in.

Bought the Comanche last fall and have been working on it since we got it off the car trailer. Its a 90' Sport Truck with a Trail Master lift kit and 44 rear end. When I bought the truck I was in Seattle picking up the kids from their aunts house. I own a 96' Jeep Cherokee and was in the market for a truck. This truck was sitting in the neighbors drive when we showed up and I thought that it would be a really fun project. We ended up staying for a few days so I was fortunate enough to make a deal with the owner. Arrangements were made for me to come out a month later from Montana to pick it up. That was a long month! The bad part is that it hadn't run for 4 years and had just been sitting there unused. When I got it home I spent quite a while just getting it to move under its own power. I replaced damn near everything. Now it runs and drives quite nice. I guess I'll just make a list of the stuff that I'd like to do, seems that's what most do. Exterior: JCR front bumper Home made rear bumper Safari Snorkel Home made roof rack/maybe a JCR unit if i can make it work with my topper Autopal head lights Spare tire carrier in the bed 3000 watt power inverter Hella lights on the bumper 33x10.50r15 BF Goodrich KM2's 15x7 Cragar Soft 8's Dual Battery setup Interior: Gut it and clean it Repair rusted floors Insulate everything Recover headliner New carpet Bench seats and console or recover the bench Swap in a full set of guages, get rid of idiot lights! I'm sure there's more to happen and it is a project so I'm sure I'll change more than I can think of to put in this list! My goal is to make a reliable DD and hunting/fishing and camping rig. Basically something I can get in and drive and not worry about it.

Hey, just wondering what anyone thinks about this setup? I'm still not sure if this is the factory setup or aftermarket. i can post more pics if needed.