DirtyComanche

So this mod may not make me terribly popular... I needed some mirrors since the ones that were on there were crap, and well, they fell off... More on that later. Amazon to the rescue... With YJ mirrors. Install was not complicated. I just put fender washers/nuts on the back side. Originally I was going to weld some nuts to a piece of flat bar to make the door more rigid, and install/removal a little easier, and I may do that eventually as the mirrors shake a bit and I believe it is partially because of the door. New door hinge bushings and strikers would also probably help. Either way they're a million times better than the old mirrors, and being YJ mirrors I can just order more if I goof them up. The doors are now officially swiss cheese though, as there is a ton of holes in them. I may address that later, but honestly the body work on this thing is so bad it's pretty minor. I honestly think they look better on the truck than I thought they would. Feel free to hate them if you disagree though.

Yes. They interchange.

It will ride terrible. As you increase lift, the control arm angle gets steeper, which means that the front axle has to travel forwards on compression/will not naturally want to compress. You will feel every little bump in the road, and changing shocks or springs will not do anything to help it.

I wasn't going to say it initially, but it is a bojang/lazy/screwit rebuild thing to omit a set of clutch packs to make reassembly easier... I've never personally rebuilt that style of LS diff, but I am told it can be a pain to get the correct number of clutch packs in them, and absolutely terrible to add one on each side above that (common performance option).

A clutch pack type LS like that can only do so much, if there's a large traction differential it will wind up basically just spinning the low traction tire. Do what Don says to see if it is working at all. Without the friction modifier they actually lock up more, and don't want to unlock. If you double dipped by using gear oil that has the modifier in it (many do, read the bottle) and adding it as a separate additive, I could see it slightly reducing the effectiveness of it. Beyond that, yeah, you can screw up rebuilding them. I'd talk to the shop and see if they want you to pound sand, or do something up a rope, and if so I'd pull the cover to see what's going on.

Why are you relocating it? It will most likely run pig rich. Trying to keep it clean, if it runs too rich I'll just put it back on the intake. Luckily I have my R.E.M monitor to monitor the A/F ratio ;). As far as keeping it clean, I'd suggest doing the mods to the breathers on the valve covers. It seems to have helped a bit on my rig, I'm going to swap the air filter to a new one at some point and monitor things.

I'd take the engine apart to see what happened... But if the head is good, it's worth saving, along with the intake, exhaust manifold, engine accessories, oil filter adapter, and probably a ton of small parts off the engine. Otherwise I wouldn't be interested in much off of it, personally.

Why are you relocating it? It will most likely run pig rich.

I was hoping to have a better update, but I don't. The P/S box suddenly blew the sector shaft seal out completely. As in you couldn't fill it with fluid as fast as it would leak out. :rotf: I had two boxes in the shed, so I grabbed the less leaky looking one and threw it in. It seems okay so far, but I will probably order some seals for this box and clean it up so there is a known good spare. Since I was in there I finally changed the motor mounts, which turned into the usual screwing around way more than should be needed. I had to pull the oil filter and adapter off to do the one, so I figured it was time to change to summer oil anyways. Broken stuff, I try to write what's wrong with things in a sorta obvious manner since I hate reinstalling parts that I 'knew' were bad: Cut the bolt down and flipped it around: Anyways, I now have a core set of OEM motor mounts if I want to get the terrible Energy Suspension poly mounts that require you to remove the cages from the rubber of another set of mounts. I might wind up ordering them, since I don't like the engine flopping around, and the other options are rather pricey. :dunno: What else? Well, the exhaust came uncoupled where I had to cut it to do the clutch. I'm going to try to dig up some flanges and repair it properly, failing that I'll weld it back together for now and come up with a long term plan. Unfortunately due to shipping costs ordering an exhaust kit is quite pricey for me, but the whole system on this truck really should be redone. Also I've decided I want to buy or build some long arms, entirely for ride reasons. Unfortunately the set I had originally eyed up that were on my friend's POS Ranger are no longer available, he actually managed to sell the truck. So I'm going to look into that... Oh, and I realized that not only are my sway bar bushings shot, but the swaybar is actually hitting all sorts of things; I forgot to take a picture, but it's quite nifty. Either way I need to do something about it.

Not going to run the heat shield on the intake manifold? I wouldn't worry tooooo toooo much about the block/bottom end, they're pretty tough. Just keep an eye and an ear on things.

The one in the head is only for the gauge. You don't "need" it. Just don't overheat it...

That's a good idea with the wooden block to form them over. Looks like they came out pretty good, especially for using that thick of metal.

Probably more than that. Took it wheeling a couple more times too. It's still happy.

IMHO a waste of money. If you hit the entire suspect area with brakeclean/rags to dry the oil off, it's normally extremely easy to tell what's leaking just by starting it up again and looking with a regular ol' bright light. Also, it might not be an engine leak. The trans could be leaking, auto or manual, and picking up enough dirt/junk that it looks nice and dirty black by the time it hits the bottom of the bellhousing. I identify fluids by smell mostly at that point, assuming if it's a manual tranny that it doesn't have engine oil in it.

Get a new lock ring and o-ring. Lube the o-ring with vaseline. You may need to tweak the tabs where the lock right interfaces on the tank side in order to make it easy to start. You can actually see if the o-ring is seated correctly, so it's way easier than most things. If all else fails you can coat the o-ring with Sealube (https://www.aircraftspruce.ca/pages/ep/lubricants/sealube.php) or Permatex 'Aviation' Form-a-gasket to help stick it in the correct place and have it seal, but it should NOT be needed. If the groove for the o-ring on the tank is damaged, or there is burrs on the lock ring or pickup/sender assembly, you will need to try to clean them up with a file/sandpaper/scotchbrite and replace them if needed.

You broke the back window by accident. What do I win?

Are they plastic or fiberglass? Either can generally be repaired...

I think the gear pattern you settled on looks fine. :thumbsup:

Nice shift knob. :brows:

Nice looking truck :waving:

A breather problem will cause the RMS to blow oil out, no matter how perfect it is installed.

You won't (likely) find any aftermarket cam for a 4L in the junkyard. I was talking GM stuff, if anything they seemed to be the most common converted vehicles out there. And a cam could be had for them relatively cheap, even at that time, so it was common to slap one in as part of the LPG conversion. Same with the Ford stuff, but I don't care much for them. I'd just run more timing and leave it alone otherwise, personally. The cost vs return is poor on doing anything beyond that. If you wanted to make the engine perform I would order an aftermarket cam, the Yellaterra rockers, a HEI and weight/spring kit if you didn't go that route, an Offenhauser intake manifold, a generic Holley square bore mechanic secondary throttle plate, an eBay/Amazon header, and an Impco 425 (and a Model E regulator to go with it).

RV cams aren't "custom" -- there are several companies who offer them off-the-shelf. Swapping a camshaft should be a lot less work and a lot less expense than doing things like decking the head. http://www.cranecams.com/product/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=23907 This was the standard thing to do with propane conversions in the 80s. In fact it was a great way to score a better cam for a SBC/SBF for nearly free, look for a truck in the boneyard with a propane conversion, 95% of the time they would have a name brand 'RV' cam in them just ripe for the picking. I never swapped the cam on my 4L. I just ran the timing on the ragged edge. Same with the current truck I have on propane with a SBC in it. IMHO shaving the head is the more work way to do it, and if you do that and wind up doing a cam swap you will not be able to run as much timing advance as is ideal. The cam swap would also likely make more power than shaving the head. The flame front speed is a little low on propane, timing helps more than on a comparable gasoline engine.

There are ways it could be done -- but very labor-intensive. Several years ago, a friend needed a driver's floor pan for his Comanche. I had an '89 XJ junker. He bought a body shop tool for drilling out spot rivets and went along the entire length of both sides of the frame rail, drilling out the spot welds that attach the floor to the "frame." Then he cut out the section he needed and welded it back into his MJ. The same thing could be done sort of in reverse -- drill out all the spot welds, remove the floor pans, and then cut out the XJ "frame" rails and weld them back in under the MJ floor. They're the wrong shape though; he needs all the way back to the leaf hangers. You would need another MJ as a donor. So short of finding one that went on its lid or had a tree fall on it, it's not likely to happen. Anything is possible. IMHO it would probably be easier/better to start over with some 3x4x.188 HSS, or something like that... I mostly did it with an XJ, but stopped working on it due to life reasons. How the XJ was going: Image Not Found4 Image Not Found The plan was still to stuff a cage into it, but tie it to the roof/pillars/etc. I have no idea how many hours I had into it before I moved (and moved on... :( )

Nope. I don't know the cutoff, but I tried to use an 86 bracket on an 87 and it was different. Must be 84-86 (aka the weird years), then 87+ was all the same. I know somewhere there was an 'early' version that was not the same.