James92

Dang... I did see in one of the other threads that the fog light harness potentially changed in 90. Thanks for confirming. Maybe I can repin it or build a new harness. At least the connector appears to be the same(?) And yes I did see that the under dash lights are also year specific. Later on in the day, I found a really nasty 94 or 95 with the underdash lights and snagged those ones as well. I didnt grab the tweeters, but looking back maybe I should've. They're kinda cool!

Oh wow, thanks for pointing that out. I bolted it back together exactly how it was when I took it apart, so it must've been wrong for a little while. Easy fix, thanks!

(Part 3/3) Hopefully this is my last update needed to catch up to present. I'll try my best not to get this far behind in the future! 6. September: I finally got around to the front and rear differential fluid flushes. After digging around here a little, I learned of the awesome Lube Locker gaskets. My least favorite part of this job is cleaning all the old paper and/or RTV from the sealing surfaces... and this solves that issue! Heck yeah I threw them on. Idk if yall have seen the Torque Test Channel's video on counterfeit products, but man it's scary. Lube Locker seems to be suffering from it. There's fakes a over ebay. So I bought them straight from their website. A little more expensive, but I want to make sure my money is supporting their factory in the US and not some counterfeiter... anyway rant over on that. Interestingly, I noticed my rear diff cover is stamped from 1988... I'm fair sure this axle is original. Most of the bolts under hear look like they were never turned, it's still got the original little metal tab specifying limited slip fluid, and the LSD Dana 44 is on the build sheet. I'm wondering if either the cover got swapped at some mechanic down the road, or if Chrysler just had ordered a bunch of these in 88 and since it was a relatively uncommon option on MJs, it just took awhile to make it into my truck(?) I dunno! The rest of September was super fun. I took the truck on two huge camping trips, covering over 2000 miles. One up to Crater Lake and back through the Lava Beds, Eagle Lake and even did some minor off roading out to Bowman Lake. Then just a few weeks later, we did another trip out to Yosemite! This truck looks so awesome and it just does everything I ask. It's just as happy cruising 85 on the highway as it is off roading. 7. October: Only a few days in and it's been a busy month! I managed to snag a very rare factory short bed skid plate locally from another comanche enthusiast. Earlier on this year, I also got the transfer case and radiator skid plates from a junkyard XJ. I borrowed another friend's nutsert tool and got all the factory skid plates installed! Still haven't done the tow hooks yet, but that is on the list to do soon. (This one I technically did back in January but forgot to include it) And, finally, I hit the yards last weekend and scored some goodies. A complete factory fog light harness (for an 89.. I hope it works on my 92) Underdash lighting! Map pockets Underhood lamp This one made me sad. A full R134 conversion, except it was on an 89 and wouldn't work with my 92. Dangit. And thats it for now!! With rainy and cooler days coming, I've got a few big projects planned. First, I can't do another summer with no A/C. I got a gage set and vacuum pump last weekend and started diagnosing my existing A/C system. It's got a very slight leak and I noticed metal glitter in the compressor oil. I think I'm going to take out the checkbook and do new compressor, lines, condensor, receiver/drier... Additionally, I've started attempting to track down some of the cabin water ingress leaks. They seem to be coming from everywhere along the firewall. I might be looking at pulling the whole dash. Especially to replace the foam seal at the HVAC seal... we'll see! Always more to get done! If you actually read this far, thank you and I hope you are having as much fun in your Comanche as I am!

(Part 2/3) Alright, continuing on... 5. July: My first smog in the truck was due and it unfortunately failed NOx at 25mph pretty bad (measured 1027 ppm, max 609 and average only 200). After a bit of digging, I discovered I overlooked replacing the spark plugs. The truck had been running fine and I hadn't given it much thought. Unfortunately, lesson learned. They were probably 25 years old and completely destroyed. Chunks of the ceramic insulators had cracked on 5/6 plugs and were eaten up by the engine - probably looong before I got it honestly. And cylinders 5 and 6 are buuuuuuurning oil. (How was this even firing still?) Unfortunately, the inside of the engine doesn't look great either. Lots of vertical scoring and some visible surface rust. Well.. I figured I didn't have much to lose at this point and decided to throw all the snake oils at it. I did a Berryman flush where you pull the plugs, fill each cylinder up with B12, rotate the engine all the way around and let it soak for a few hours, then repeat. I did this probably 2 or 3 times, then replaced the oil with some supertech. Then I moved onto phase 2 - poured a can of seafoam oil additive in the fresh oil and then also ran a seafoam top end clean through the intake. I drove the truck hard about 2-300 miles on the seafoam, then dumped the oil and installed fresh Valvoline Restore and Protect and a new wix filter. After all this work, I did a before and after compression check and scope. Compression greatly improved and the truck was running noticeably better with the new plugs. Unfortunately, cylinder 6 really looks like it's burning quite a bit of oil. This is the plug after only those 2 or 300 miles. Finally, I figured now would be a good time to check the fuel pressure and replace the filter. Pressure checked out good and new fuel filter installed. The old one looked like it was probably from the late 90s! It was marked Fram, but also had an OEM P/N on it. Well, I figured at this point I may as well bring it back in and see what this work has done for my emissions. And... passed! With flying colors. NOx went from over 1000ppm down to a whopping 18 ppm. Factory catalytic converter is still there and working great! *Knock on wood*. I don't really know what I'm going to do about the state of the engine, but as long as it passes smog and keeps running, I guess I'll just leave it be. To reward myself and the truck, I snagged a crazy good deal on some basically new KO3s in a bigger size. The KO2s I got back in February were only 195s and looked way too small on the truck. These are 235s, which is what was on the truck when I got it! Much better. Additionally, while mounting the tires, I decided to strip the clear coat on the wheels and clean them up. They were looking very dull. Luckily my friend had some old methyl chloride paint stripper laying around. Job was still tough, but at least doable. They still need a little bit more elbow grease but MAN they look great! (Before and after) Thanks for reading! Still a few more updates to come.

(Part 1/3) Oof, where has this year gone? Time for a much needed update. Picking up where we left off, there's been lots of updates! 1. February: Well, I know I just went through all the work to ship those Eliminator wheels across the country, buuuut of course a slightly better set comes up for sale about an hour and a half away WITH newish KO2s on them for a price I couldn't turn down. How could I say no? 2. March: Took the truck on the first of many awesome camping trips. Got to finally use the 4wd and new trailer hitch to move a tree out of the way that had fallen over the winter and was blocking our camp site. Everything worked great and the truck did very well. 3. April: I managed to score a set of factory XJ tow hooks from an absolutely beautiful 97 2 door, 4x4, 5spd XJ with relatively low miles. It was tragic that someone scrapped it, but at least I was able to salvage the hooks for my truck! (Look how little wear there is on this clutch!!) 4. June: Unrelated to wrenching, but I scored some absolutely killer deals at a garage sale. Two Yamaha Zuma 2 stroke scooters. Both with less than 1k miles! And an old REI tent that just so happens to fit perfectly in the bed of the Comanche. I'm going to stop here and separate July off into another post as it was a big month. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have been well!

Yeah we'll see. I like the look of this form though!

Alright, I can't believe this hasn't come up yet so I'll make a post. Sounds like Jeep is working on an SRT (V8?) two door pickup with IFS. And they're calling it the Scrambler. I'm dying to see what the renderings look like. Rear facing seats? Sounds really cool! What are your guys' thoughts? https://www.thedrive.com/news/jeep-is-building-a-wrangler-scrambler-srt-with-removable-roof-backward-facing-rear-seats-and-probably-a-v8

Almost the same options as my truck, and not too far away. Sweet!

Thanks all for the kind comments. This group is the best. Haha I know right! I should've taken it on film, would've been even better. Thanks, I replied to your PM.

Welcome! I love this truck. Must be siblings with mine. Curious what route you are going with for adding AC?

Alrighty, been a busy few months. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Hope you all are enjoying the time with friends and family. I'm a big fan of Sears (RIP), so I couldn't resist a photo op at this Sears Auto Center. Most of my garage time has been taken up by the Barracuda recently, but I did get a chance to replace all my *original* heater hose with really nice Gates green stripe heavy duty hose. I bought 50' of it on Rockauto for all my projects. Now I kind of regret it. The stuff is almost too nice! It's so thick that it's very hard to route it around curves. But I was able to get it all to work well. Finally, I'm very excited to report that I found a set of Eliminator wheels while home for the holidays. I've been looking since I bought the truck and wow these wheels are hard to find. The ones I bought aren't in the best shape, but I think I will try to bring them to a wheel shop to see what can be done. I got them all packed up and shipped out last night. Will also need to find some center caps... That's all for now!

Noo I have yet to get a roll of Portra 400. This is just basic fujifilm 400. Which is rumored to be rebranded kodak gold now. I do really want to try Porta 400 though. Yep, the parking lot of Brushy Peak.

A couple of pictures I took this weekend on film. Thought they came out pretty awesome!

Yes! Thanks! I'm glad I saw the recommendation on here. I also had a felpro on hand, and it doesn't comlare to the Remflex. Much much nicer!

Thanks! And let me know if you're serious! I'm from NY originally. About once a year, a couple of my friends fly out to visit me for a week or two (usually around Christmas) and we buy a couple cars and drive them back east. It's a hectic trip and a lot of fun, but it's absolutely the way to go. I just saw a sweet white 92 eliminator sell for like 3k (4.0, ax15, 2wd though)... I wish I could save them all I'll keep an eye out for the duct tape crimps. That's pretty wild. I don't think I've seen any before. I'll ask my dad about them too - he's been working on mopars since the 60s.

It was originally metallic blue, which I like quite a bit better. Apparently a few years ago he was sick of looking at the blue and painted it lime green in his garage. Fair enough - he owned the car for almost 60 years! But one day, I'd like to bring it back to the blue.

Thanks guys! It's way shinier and way less rusty than anything I'm usually used to haha

Well... I tried to limit myself to two cars. I really did. I live in a townhouse with a small garage and just a little bit of street parking. I barely (don't) have time to stay on top of the work needed on the Comanche and my Charger. But I couldn't turn this down. I've always wanted a 67-69 barracuda, and this is the ultimate one. Original 383 big block car, 4 speed, formula S, original owner! So, for now, the Jeep must be street parked I'm a sucker for that fast back. Dual quads! Picked up some cool stuff for the car at the Goodguys swap meet last weekend: I don't even know where to start with this one. It runs and drives pretty well right now, but it is mostly original. It's pretty daunting! And every part costs a heck of a lot more than Comanche parts. So for now, I'm going to put this on the back burner and focus on the Comanche. I will say, it doesn't get old coming home to see this face in the garage. I still can't believe I got it.

... and that wasn't all I did last weekend. I decided that wasn't fun enough, so I took apart the doors and replaced all the weather stripping. The old felt was pretty brittle, and the window scrapers were almost non-existent. The Precision Replacement Parts kit was great. It's pretty cheap and fit very similar to OEM. Out with the old... And... oops.. I don't have any pictures of the new. I'll grab some, but you get the idea. It looks a lot better now. One of the big things I was looking forward to with this job was finding the build sheet inside the door panels. Unfortunately, no luck. This is all that remained: Thanks for reading!

Well, labor day weekend was busy for me. I decided to finally take a crack at the exhaust manifold. It was pretty straight-forward. It seems like most people report that all exhaust manifolds crack eventually, even the fancy Banks headers. So, I bought the cheapest ones on ebay and threw them on. I used a nice Remflex gasket, which worked great. The worst part, of course, was the rear stud was broken deep within the head. I had to get a new tool, right hand drill (oh no what a shame more tools!), and luckily enough that took it right out: Along the way, I found the power steering pulley had a chip in it, and the lower radiator hose was barely held on by the hose clamp. Whoever replaced the water pump last put the hose clamp on the very very edge of the hose. I'm lucky it didn't blow off. I ended up replacing the hose and flushing the coolant while I had it all apart. Also, the heater control valve was extremely brittle and snapped apart while I was manipulating the hoses around. And I figured I'd replace the valve cover gasket and clean it up. So all in, new: exhaust manifold, valve cover gasket, power steering pulley, serpentine belt, lower radiator hose, heater control valve, and fresh coolant. After all this work, I took the truck for a test drive... and the CEL came on. Code 51 - lean mixture. Very disappointing. I checked all the vacuum lines and the manifold bolts. Nothing. Checked the O2 sensor wiring - also fine. So I bought a new O2 sensor and diagnosed the old one. Grounds all checked fine and the heater wire was getting 13V. The signal wire seemed a little off potentially, but it was hard to tell. So I swapped in the new O2 sensor, and so far no codes! The O2 sensor I took out still had the original Mopar PN on it, incredibly. I don't quite understand how it's possible that before all this, there were no codes. And after all these issues were fixed, now I get a code? Weird... Here's the crack, pretty gnarly! The truck is a lot quieter now, and it always feels nice finishing big jobs like this. After 30+ years of 4 owners, you never know what's going on under the hood. Each job makes you more familiar with the truck, giving you a little more piece of mind that things are done right. Happy Jeep up in the mountains:

Well that was quick... turns out these tabs are pretty easy to get bent. It must've gotten bent outta wack while I was wrestling it out. Bent it back and it lines up now... Unrelated question, might be better for a new thread - but any advice on removing the windows (1992 for me) that has the plastic retainer? This job would've been a lot easier if I could've removed the window. And I still need to do the other side.

Hey all, I'm deep in battle with my triangle window currently. I embarked on replacing all my window seals this evening and didn't realize the hole I was digging myself into. I was able to get all the rubber installed without removing the rolling window. (It's one of the ones with the torx bolt and plastic retainer that just spins...) But now I'm on the last step trying to reinstall the triangle window. It looks perfect and the upper screw holes line up fine. But the lower bolt hole isn't even close. I'm at a complete loss. Any advise, please? When I try to grab it in and line it up, it still isn't even close. It needs to move at least 3/4" or so down... Thank you

Found on offer up. Looks like a very clean HO! https://offerup.co/dHJqacwqmUb

Thanks, I'll definitely be cleaning up the floors before I put in the sound deadening and carpet. Not sure if I'm going to paint with POR15 or just grind down the rust and repaint red, but we'll see. I'm in Minnesota now visiting a friend and we swung by the junkyard. There was a really sweet loaded maroon on maroon 92 XJ there. I pulled a few parts that I should be able to fit in my luggage or ship back. I got a spare gauge cluster (to hopefully fix my odometer issue), the dual note horns, cruise control(!), the brackets to mount the center console, and an underhood light. I wish I was local, I would've pulled the power seats and interior. Maroon is sweet! The original chrome grill and headlight surrounds were in great shape too, and the chrome door handles. But I think I prefer the black plastic look personally. Hopefully someone else can grab them and make good use of them.

Thanks! This weekend I had to fix my seat bracket. The previous owner did a really hack job installing the XJ buckets, which I didn't notice until I sat down the other day and the seat was very loose. They had cut off the stock mounting bolts and drilled a hole next to the OEM one to put a threaded rod through it. Since there wasn't any room, they just put a threaded rod through the hole with some washers and a nut. The washers had tilted and the nut ended up clamping against the brake line!! I don't have a good picture of it, but this is the threaded rod, and you can see a little bit of wear on the brake line where the washers had worn against the brake line... I ended up drilling out the factory threaded rod and tapping the stock welded nut. I filled the hole that the PO drilled with JBWeld StickWeld. I know this isn't ideal, but the brake lines are RIGHT there, so I couldn't weld it closed. For the other side, I got some threaded rod, cut it to length, then welded a washer to it. Then, I welded the washer to the floor pans in the stock location. I know my welds aren't great, but I'm working with what I got! It'll hold for now. I grinded down the welds and painted it so it wouldn't rust. Again, I know the red looks terrible, but it was what I had on the shelf. It'll eventually be under sound deadening and carpet, so I don't really care. Bolted down the seat with Krustyballer's seat bracket and now it's not loose anymore! Much better.