ComancheX2

Ah, no 121 for me, but I worked on a few DoD systems as well. So I share the proud of what I worked on.

Sorry if I hijacked this thread! And Derf, sounds like you worked on 121 category aircraft? I got into aviation flying with my Dad as well. I soloed at 16, (I was at the World Boy Scout Jamboree on my birthday so I had to wait until I got back to solo) and got my private at 17. Took my instrument checkride with a dual Nav, single glideslope, and ADF. (And with the ADF you could still listen to the ball games enroute!) Much different than today's 'children of the blue line'. Somewhat of a tangent being we're talking IFR here, but the last private student I had was fixated on looking inside to determine the attitude of the aircraft. After trying a couple other things, eventually I had to take a towel to completely cover the panel and say 'pitch the airplane to Best Rate of Climb and tell me when you think you're there'. A couple of times doing that brought some balance into his scan. But to keep it MJ related, the PA-30 is similar. Not the best at one specific thing, but good at most things. The Ford Lightning is faster (Barron), the F-250/2500 will haul more (Aztec), but the MJ (PA-30) is very useful and good at just about anything. My Twin Comanche was almost as fast and could haul 4 people and luggage while still having 6 hours worth of fuel at 15 gallons per hour.

Didn't sell it. Long story, I'll just say Garmin, their dealers, & A&P's aren't what they used to be.

Another (former) Twinkie owner...

Yeah, good times with my grandpa, my dog, & my Jeep! Nice action shot fiatslug!

Does it have to be an MJ? Will an XJ work since it's the MJ's 'half breed cousin'? :) This was my blonde haired, blue eyed badger hound who went almost everywhere with me in my Jeep. One particular memory was when I was taking my grandfather out on his farm when he was 96 or 97. She treed a pack rat and he got such a kick out of her, he wanted me to cut down the tree so she could get it. I'm wanting to get another best friend, so maybe now that I have an MJ I can update this next spring.

That looks nice! I have to say I prefer the pre-97 center console that you used as compared to the 97+ the prior owner(s) used for mine. For me, it just looks right. But then again my first vehicle was an HO era XJ. So I'm probably biased!

I'd be interested as well. After seeing this, I was just reading your other thread. It's all Greek to me, but I may even have an old unit that could be refurbished if I can manage to clean out the garage!

Yep, both stock HO era 4x4's, so the HO may definitely be a factor. If they like a little more RPM's then that does make sense as it was doing about 1600 or so at 60 mph. I know my IO-320s liked to be at 2400 RPM, but that's a different beast. At the moment I'm driving about 115 miles per day. So with 17 mpg and $3.69+ fuel it's creating a little more of a hit than I expected. Looking for a decent FWD KL for the daily drive until I can get out of that situation. While talking to a co-worker, he told me about "Kansas Rocks" and said he wanted to take his kids sometime. I'll likely go along with him sometime before deciding if I want to keep the lift long term. Right now I don't plan on doing a bunch of rock crawling, so not totally necessary for me.

Thanks Pizzaman and Ghetdjc, Good to know. Knowing that the FOD in the crossmember isn't insulation, I'll pull it out before I put a coat of paint on it. I was going to look at cleaning the throttle body and IAC, I'll check the header bolts while I'm at it. For full disclosure, my mpg values are highway at 60-65 mph. In over 250K miles, my stock AW4 XJ would easily get about 20 on the highway, and the AX-15 slightly better. So that's what my frame of reference is based on. It's probably due for a tune up and I've ordered some new higher efficiency parts. Hopefully that and doing (re-doing) all of Cruiser's Renix tips will help. I was also looking into the REM the other night. Found it kind of interesting that he talked about the ability to get component parts and the tariffs. I deal with that to a small degree in my day job. I can only imagine how much of a pain all this would be for a small entity like that. In the mean time, made my first trip testing the payload. Got a 1/2 cubic yard of top soil to try and fix the poor job the county did when installing a new water main. It squatted pretty good, but handled it okay.

Thanks James, I actually tried to upload a picture into my profile, but something didn't work. Then reading thru the rules it talked about 3rd party hosting. I'm somewhat of a luddite, so I'll have to get my nephew to help me with where to host pictures. I'll get busy and start going through things one system at a time. I was able to learn some working on my other Comanche (Not an MJ) but I don't have a lot of experience with automotive maintenance. Part of the reason for getting this was to have something I can work on and learn. The PO had commented that on occasion it would have a high idle and I did experience that once so far. Said he'd replaced the IAC but it would fix it for a while, but always come back. I'm wondering if it could be a small vacuum leak. So I'll get the experience to learn. Today I've got to go get a load of top soil to address drainage issues at my mother's house, then get down to my farm to do some work. I'll get some pictures to have ready to post. It's definitely not a show truck, but it's a good starting point. Maybe this will work to post a pic...

Hi all, New member here. I recently picked up an '87 Chief and am starting to get to know it and figure out what I need to do. It's a 4.0, 4WD, BA10/5 manual. First question. It came with a spare AX-15 along with the appropriate crossmember and NP231. As I was cleaning up the crossmember there's what I believe to be a mouse nest in the center accessible by the lightening holes. But just to be sure, since it looks like compressed cotton rag, they didn't come with any insulation inside it did they? I'd think it would just be a moisture trap, but stranger things have happened... Next question. It has a 3" lift and 31x10.50 tires. Driving home it only got about 16 mpg. It runs really smooth, so I don't think there's anything significantly wrong, but I was surprised at how much less it got compared to my H.O. era AX-15 XJ. I ended up pulling the wheels off the XJ and putting 235/75's on the MJ. Still didn't make much improvement, only getting about 17 mpg. My XJ would get at least 21/22 and occasionally up to 24 mpg. Would the lift cause that much of a drop in mileage? An alternative, or maybe additional factor based on some searching, the temp gauge didn't get anywhere near as warm as my XJ, only about 150/160 at 60mph. Haven't been able to test yet to see if the gauge is accurate or if it really is operating that cool. If accurate would that be the primary cause rather than the lift? The prior owner said that he'd gone thru Cruiser's tips. I'll start doing the same and may find something, but if anyone has any suggestions on what to look at first, I'd appreciate the guidance! Oh, and the turn signals stopped working too. They worked on the test drive, but driving home after turning on the headlights, the left turn in the instrument cluster stayed constantly lit. Then when turning the switch the actual turn signal wouldn't flash. Right turn signal did flash however. After getting home, two days later neither worked. I'll have to dig into that too. Other than that, it's got a few things where the prior owner(s) had little dents here and there with a largeish one on the bed sidewall where the paint was knocked off and it's starting to get some surface rust. I'll get those places taken care of to protect it from becoming bad. In the mean time, I'll have some fun with it. Thanks, Robert