taddraughn

Boom finished design Pretty happy with this now. I was able to eliminate the additional baseplate (green) and band (red) by instead adding some heat serts I had laying around for 3d printing into the flange on the two unused holes. These are only unused because they interfere with the first flange mounting to the truck, but it should be okay. Added mounting for the chime box connector and the 552 flashers. Have it on the printer now so I can test and make sure everything is going fit tomorrow after work. Hardware I need is en route from mcmcaster for delivery tomorrow as well.

Looking really good! I cannot bring myself to do the bodywork to paint the rest of my truck after doing just the engine bay.. maybe one day I just hate bodywork too much. What color is that by the way? A little hard to tell in the photos if it's blue or grey or somewhere in between? My wife also says I can't see colors so could be just me

Worked on my lunch break to finish up wiring the fuse box replacement. I was just a little short on space to only use one GEP fuseholder so using two. It's still more compact than the fuse block so not mad about it. I just need to add mounting for flasher wiring and chime box connector and I'll be done with the design I think. Still need to tweak the attachment and design of the bracket that holds it to the DRB flange but should be able to do that this afternoon and get stuff ordered. Anyway, here's it all wired up less the flashers and a shot with the DRB bolted in place with the adapter I printed. Will have the final adapter laser cut or machined (has counterbores for the #14 screw heads) and here's a picture of the rest of the design that I'm still working through Yellow part has latches that clip onto the fuseholder body. Typically GEP fuseholders are sectured by the sealed cover that accepts a little sheet metal part, but that would be bad for accessibility of the fuses in this application. I may still use the sealed caps just in case I have a leak of brake fluid down the road etc.. Not all wire entries are sealed because they use SWS and on a few occasions I crimped two wires in one terminal. But certainly more sealed than before... Red and green parts will be laser cut and bent my sendcutsend in SST and then I'll either weld them together or figure out a bolt on method. Either should be fine but red bolting onto green gives a little better flexibility if I need to service anything.

The induction heaters have gotten a lot cheaper in the last couple years so I picked one up recently but haven't used it much yet except to test it out. Welding has always worked for me in the past though. Maybe it takes a few tries but the additional heating and cooling probably help loosen things up to. The shoulder on that seat belt bolt looks pretty gnarly though!!

Okay so got my HVAC box rebuilt with a new heater core and evaporator. Ran into the same problem everyone else seems to have with no hole for the temp probe. Ended up bending it so that it could run into the box and then turn 90 into the fins of the new evaporator. Hope it works! Got the box installed. Was missing two of the nuts so subbed in some rubber washers, fender washers, and m6x1 nuts in two locations. Next I moved onto the wiring issue I mentioned since my DRB connector arrived. Some discrepancies between the jeep pinout and reality here. There are several wires that are present on one side and not the other which I'm sure are just related to this loom on either side being used in different applications. I was able to eliminate a few of the connectors that aren't used as well while I was at it. Bonus pic of my helper Since I now have to work up the mounting situation for the flange to the truck and the fuse box to the flange, I think I will take the opportunity just to redo the fuse wiring to new fuseholders that use the smaller form factor fuses. I have these fuseholders laying around already so just cost me a little time to do it. Only exceptions are the two flashers, chime, and 4.8A circuit breaker for the wipers, but I'll figure something out and report back here with the conclusion.

So starting to go in the opposite direction and start assembling things here.. I might be moving in the coming months so I have motivation to get it moving under its own power again. I think one of my biggest hurdles is what to do with the wiring. The state of my cinch connector behind the fuse box is disgusting and I don't think I can reuse it. Obviously no new replacements are available that directly bolt in, so I am contemplating developing a replacement using Deutsch DRB connectors or something similar. If I go that route, curious if that's something the community would be interested in. Edit: Did some measuring of all the wires in my bulkhead and confirmed a Deutsch DRB can support all the connections keeping all wires sizes the same. It does require using size 16 contacts for some of the 20AWG wires, which is fine since size 16 contacts are made for 14-16 AWG and 16-20AWG. Will go take some measurements and mock up what the adapter would look like to make sure everything will fit, but so far this is looking like a straightforward connector swap. And I already have all the tooling for Deutsch contacts.

Okay despite not posting in 6 months I have actually been busy making progress the last couple months. Got the floor replaced.. Few images here from that process. I stripped the engine bay because I'm stupid and didn't realize exactly how much work that would be. Got it completely stripped, then painted with epoxy primer, mixed up base to match PE8 paint code, then clear on top. Looks pretty good but I don't think I'm motivated enough to paint the rest of the truck.. just going to have to be clean in the engine bay and patina on the outside for a while :) And just yesterday I got the carpet fitted pretty good. Likely everyone said... takes a while with a few brand new razor blades, but overall not terrible.

Long time no post, but finally getting back to work on this thing after not having time for it for several months with tons of life stuff, home projects, and work travel getting in the way. Engine is basically done so next order of business is to get the engine bay prepped and get the welding on the passenger floor done.

Got my new crank in, and fortunately it looks great! Again, shoutout to Clegg's customer service. They were super responsive and quick to make things right. Unfortunately my efforts this weekend have been re-directed to home renovation efforts. Had to remove popcorn from our master, rip off all the trim, skim the whole ceiling, etc. etc. but basically means no time for the jeep this weekend. And no time this week either as I'll be in Vegas for a trade show :/

I'll take a look. Thanks for the recommendation. I saw a youtube video and looked like you just have to swap a couple brackets over and then weld in some tabs near the top of the dash. Didn't look too bad from my computer chair

When you say HO swap, does that mean just the HO head and newer intake but retaining the Renix? Luckily for me and maybe not so lucky for my neighbors, I have no one stopping me from cutting up an XJ in my yard :)

Engine bay almost all the way stripped down now. After a just a little de greasing I found there is some color under there lol! Also have the interior almost completely stripped now too save for one of the seatbelt bolts that someone stripped out. I'm actually starting to lean towards just buying an XJ so that I can swap in the interior and heater box etc. from a 97+. Thinking the advantages here are having a good R134A AC system, OBD2, and more modern interior. So much of my interior is completely shot I'm pretty sure it's cheaper just to buy an entire XJ than piece it together with good used parts from ebay. Like just a set of seats on ebay is 500+ dollars.. I wasn't really itching to get away from Renix, but a wholesale swap seems like the only way to go. Most cars around are auto though.. would much rather find one that's already a manual so it's basically got everything I need for the Comanche. Although I could probably make this work swapping the interior and harness from an auto car and then just sourcing the manual separately. Let me know what you guys think or if you have any leads a manual 97+ that has a good condition interior

Just a little update about the crank. Cleggs is working with me to swap it for another. Really happy with their customer service and how quickly they're rectifying this for me. Should be able to get the piston rings gapped this weekend and that'll be about all I'm able to do while I wait on the new crank to come in.

Was feeling like Christmas until I opened the box the crank was in.. Guy at Cleggs was super fast to respond and is going to check on the stock he has to see if the others look the same or are better. Really would have expected these to be coated in a wax or something but this one is definitely just bare. I could chuck it up in my lathe and polish it, but I paid for one in good condition...

Thanks for the info guys. I had seen they claimed it was only compatible with the certain year intakes. I figure I'm good with the banks exhaust since they claim any aftermarket exhaust will work. For the intake I'll see how my Renix one fits up. If for any reason that won't work I was just planning to use the later year intake they claim is required and then adapt the throttle body to the later intake somehow as seems like that changed and I assume I need to keep the TB if i'm sticking with the Renix ECU? As for the exhaust I was thinking about just running a wideband and then using my REM to convert to narrowband and feed that to the ECU.