DirtyComanche

What's the ultimate goal here? And what are you using the truck for? I just feel this route might be wasting money and effort if you have eventual plans to swap to 4wd. I guess the other clarification is if you want 3" of lift over what you're at now, or if you want a 3" lift? An actual 3" lift would likely be 4" taller than it is now, as lift components are based off 4wd components as the established 'zero' point. IMHO 3" is a very awkward amount of lift to get out of the Comanche, as you're reasonably at the point that adding a leaf (or an actual AAL) combined with a larger shackle is fairly well at its limitation, especially since you're starting with flatter 2wd springs. So you really should get a set of fairly expensive new leaf springs, which if your current springs are trashed is a reasonable option, but if your springs are in good shape it's a lot of money to spend. The other problem is if you purchase new lift springs, and then later decide to go higher, you're fairly well guaranteed to be going SOA at that point and reverting to your factory springs, or finding another set of factory springs, so it's money down the drain if your intentions change later. Otherwise 3" is too little lift to match with a SOA; mine with bagged factory 2wd springs and a SOA is still fairly noticeably raked with RE 3.5" coil springs in the front (most RE springs seem to sit high too). Personally I want the truck raked, because as I said they're supposed to be that way, the intention is that when you put things in the back of the truck it will level out or not sit noticeably front high. At 3" lift you're going to want new control arms (uppers and lowers, you can get away without the uppers but it doesn't make it right), track bar, swaybar links, shocks, extended bumpstops, longer brake hoses, and maybe a few other things. Ride quality will suffer from the increased static control arm angle, and again the 3" lift is an awkward place where it does not justify going to long arms, and long arms generally won't fit that easily, but they certainly would be a lot nicer. You're also probably going to have to replace the u-joints in your rear driveshaft, as they likely have taken a set and will not be happy with the new angle. Unless they're already fairly new. If they're worn out anyways then it's no loss to be doing them, but it's one more thing. If you're somewhere with rust, be prepared to break the ends off the brake lines when putting the new hoses on. In summary, I'd leave the damn thing alone.

Putting bigger tires on a 2wd truck is like wearing hiking boots so you can ride the city bus.

Overlap the pieces. Unless you're trying to hide it, but then only if you can put a doubler on the inside (generally far more complicated of repair at that point). 90% of this will be prep and fitment of the pieces. If you haven't done much work with steel, you might want to enlist professional help for the whole process. As Eagle pointed out, that spring hanger has already been mucked with, IMHO at this point it should be removed to determine what is going on under it.

You are correct. The spring hanger should not be welded around the perimeter from the factory. I'm guessing they cut it off and moved it up to try to cover the hole?

I'm guessing book time would be in the 1.5hr range. So whatever shop rate x 1.5 is, and add other BS charges, tax, and marked up cost of parts. I'd not be surprised if I wound up paying $350-400... It should be less in the US though, maybe $100 for parts, $120 labour, $10 shop supplies, tax at %? $240 maybe? I'd say you should do it yourself/with him.

That's been gone for a long time. Check the other side. It's probably similar. Even if it doesn't look it. I'd take the bed off, drop the tank, pull the rear axle, pull the brake lines off the inside of the frame, then do some exploratory cutting on the bottom portion of the frame to see how far the rot extends. Make sure the spring hanger is still solid, or it will need to be replaced too. As a repair I would template the whole frame rail that is affected in cardboard, being sure to extend 2" past any area deemed to be rotted. Remove all rotted metal, clean to bare all exposed metal within the repair area and a couple inches past it. I'd cut the repair pieces out of 1/8" flat bar, ending the repairs in a point. I would weld it on with 3/8" plug welds pitched 1" from the edge of the repair on a 2" pitch, and then depending how I felt I would weld the entire perimeter or do 1" stitches. The bottom would also have to be welded in, which I would definitely do as a continuous weld to the two side pieces. Use weld through zinc primer on all surfaces that are to be covered over. If you need it to not look like it was repaired, I would do similar, but I would go 4" past the damaged area and plug weld it with a staggered pitch and do the exact same repair on the other side (if it needs it or not). I could take an example picture of other repaired/reinforced areas I guess. This gives a reasonable idea of acceptable standard practice while welding to the uniframe, even if it is a ZJ/WJ reference. It's not totally right, I believe Kraqa will admit that if you corner him on it now, but there's nothing in there that won't work.

It applies vacuum to the 'motor' on the CAD actuator. And yeah, to a vacuum switch to turn on the 4wd indicator light. You can just leave it unplugged if you don't have CAD. No idea about the comment that it doesn't have a true neutral, AFAIK all 231 cases use the same shift cam and have a neutral position, but I could be wrong since it isn't something I've ever needed.

This. It's the transmissions that are drilled differently. If you look at an AX-15 you can see where there is extra meat on the tail/adapter housing for it to be drilled the other way.

Hmm. The top one should work. It will bolt to your AX-15, ASSUMING it is a 23 spline input. I believe if it's from a 4cyl application it will be a 21 spline. Count it to make sure before purchase. I think the bottom one is bastardized, and is a later style output shaft put into the earlier style tailhousing. If this was done for a good reason, or out of ignorance, I'm not sure. You can see the red/orange RTV on it, that's not factory, it has been apart. It looks like it's bolted to an AX-15 right now, so it would bolt to yours based on that, but your driveshaft will not work with whatever is going on with the output shaft/tailhouing. The difference in the planetaries has to do with if you need to swap the input gear. 94/95 was the change IIRC (by build date), and you can not put an early input in a late planetary set, and vice versa. If that top tcase is a 21 spline input, you would not be able to put the 23 spline input gear out of your early tcase in it. Do NOT be fooled by people telling you that you can, always look at the gears side by side if you are doing it and make sure the teeth are the same angle and profile. You can physically jam it in there and bolt it up but it will blow itself apart, however there is people out there that have heard you can do it, likely from people that assembled a tcase that way and have not yet run it to find out it won't work.

They're not the right injector for the HO. Edit, missed the 'non' - the Volvo injectors are correct for a Renix (non HO).

SOA, hybrid/bastard packs, Ford/Chevy springs (and/or SOA with them), or move the mounts. Leaf springs are very much something that can be tuned, and as long as you have an unbent pair of main leafs you've got a pretty solid starting point. Otherwise the sky is the limit, there's a couple solid looking options for using basically the factory spring mounts from both Ford and Chevy, and if you're willing to move the mounts you can use just about anything.

And this is why I don't believe in aftermarket lift springs... Or part of the reason.

It's often easier to just snag a lower mile tcase. However, that might not be terribly possible anymore. SKF makes a bearing/seal kit. It's decent. You need to get the correct one for whatever year your tcase is as the input bearing changed, IIRC. It might be worthwhile to snag some wide chain parts out of a 231C and get that chain if you want. Cloyes makes chains for all of them, IIRC, and Omix does for the J variants too (wouldn't risk it), and you can probably still get one from New Venture? Plus there's some eBay offshore options for even less (I'd do that before the Omix one, they're probably the same part).

Before I tear my columns apart I'd like it confirmed I can put the older (correct) AMC key accepting ignition cylinder in a newer (it's out of a 93 or 94 XJ) column. Yes, no? Ignition cylinder interchange is 91-95 for the new style, and 85 (probably 84)-90 for the old style. Looking at pictures on Rockauto I think they're the same internals, just the 91-95 uses the bisexual key. If not I'll buy the new style cylinder, but they're more money.

The chances of a Rugged Ridge parts actually fitting is probably lower than the chances of a Chicom eBay part fitting... At least that's my experience with them, I have not purchased that header.

Well, I can go butcher the one off my axle outside if somebody promises to measure a 91+ one. The reason I was going on there being two different tapers is I was told multiple times that aftermarket track bars would not work in my 86 chassis as the bracket has a smaller (or 'wrong') taper. If it is smaller it will be not by a lot, they're all the same taper (Morse), but it's a matter of how deep they cut it, and you may not be able to get the nut into safety or have it thread bind, depending which way it's wrong. AMC certainly used a multitude of different sized TREs/DREs on their other products, because AMC.

I'm 95% certain there is two different sized tapers. I don't have a factory track bar or bracket anywhere to compare... Actually there might be one on the axle outside off a 90ish, but I definitely don't have anything else here.

That tank is junk. Buy a new one. Spectra Premium makes one for $130~.

Hose the whole thing down with brake clean and then try to find where it's leaking from. I'd start with it being the back of the valve cover though. You can get away with running without that inspection cover on the street in the summer... I'd have it on for everything else. Easy part to get from the junkyard. Snag the bolts for it while you're at it. Edit - the Cherokee one is the same if you're not aware. Lots of Cherokees in the junkyard, normally.

I believe the taper actually changed in 87, and using the early (84-86) track bar will wallow the taper... I think its mislisted. I'd love to hear if I'm wrong though.

Put cones around it and "Crime scene - Do not cross" tape around it. Chalk outline, big red paint splotch. It's not about making it hard to steal, it's about making it something that somebody does not want to steal.

Yup, it's a simple and sexy photo, where somebody is going to say "Hey! I own one of those!" or "WTF is this? I'm obviously on the wrong page. I was looking for the Fellowship of St James Church page!". Every now and then the blind nut falls out of the tree and onto a squirrel.

Nah, he was having a good first day at his new job of building custom Jeep headers! It's a real step up from the last one, where he was painting children's toys with lead based paint, since he now makes $13 a month!

I have that header on my XJ. Umm, it would probably be best if I go find the pictures... But let's put it this way, it wasn't a bolt on. I filed or ground down the flanges on my intake to be the same thickness as the header. I didn't want to modify the washers as I wanted to preserve their cone shape, and make sure they seated as well as possible to ensure leak free operation. The flange never would fit. I cut it off and welded a V-band onto it instead. It doesn't point the right way anyways, and I wanted a V-band for compactness and adding a flex pipe. I also had to grind the #6 runner on the intake manifold as it was actually wedged against the header tube and prevented the intake from sitting square, which would almost certainly have lead to a leak. Personally I'd probably not buy that POS header again, unless I was again intending to mod it anyways. I believe it's luck of the draw if they built it to spec and it fits or not, although the flange is too thin either way. I bet most guys jut crank the bolts in and figure it's fine.

I'd probably make it as simple as possible, with only a large button directing you to the forum, and maybe a small button for MJ of the month and "About" the site/Comanche. Throw a flashy background on there. Why? Because the Facebook generation gets confused if there's more than one obvious option, and if there's more than 3 lines of text they'll overload, panic, and hit the back button. FSJ network is an excellent example of how to do it, IMHO. http://fsjnetwork.com/