neohic

Not exactly an abundance of fiberglass leaf springs around though... that I know of, anyhow. If I were to want to go SOA without a mile of lift, I'd go with Waggy springs and then play around with removing/adding in other leafs to dial it in.

The fiberglass leafs were intended to have a non-progressive spring rate. They lowered the rear of the Comanche's about 2", but the Archers also used a 1" block and XJ shackles. As far as durability, I was told that these things are pretty tough. So... 2" drop, plus a SOA, equals 2.5" lift? :dunno: Then there's the real question, Don... WHY? :hmm:

Picking away at the list. Body is off, main cage is welded, and I added more to the list. :wrench: Winter slumber. I'm going to have to drive it like this at least once! :driving: Ran around with blue tape to make reminders of holes to fill, holes to make, and other such things to remove.

She seems to always be the "go-to" out there. :yes: Each year people post up pictures of them and Jessi... not that I'm complaining. Just an observation. :peek:

I... love... my... boots!!! :rotf: If I had to choose one pair of shoes to wear for the rest of my life, it'd be those boots. I've had a half dozen or so pairs of the same Redwing boots now and they all get the same toe-guard treatment. Awesome ankle support. Beautiful arches right out of the box too. They used to be my everyday boots but the new job requires metatarsal protection. I really don't care for the stiffness of them so when I work in my shop at home, the old faithful "coneheads" come back out. It's nice, really... spend all week in my "work" boots that's followed up with my "home" boots. Kind of like waiting for the weekend to see an old friend! :yes:

They are!... I hear. I've had the body for the better part of 12 years now. :doh: Back at it today! Redid the rear of the cage and I'm happy with it again. Not sure if I really need to add a spreader bar behind the seats again or not now... thoughts? I found the couple inches of headroom that I needed too. Can't believe I didn't do this in the first place, but I've got no problem redoing something for the better. Finally a comfortable seating position! Very happy I can use the bigger steering wheel too. It's a little more cumbersome to get in and out of the car with it, but it's a lot more comfortable with it than the 13". Yay!... the white wheel can go back to clock duty! Then there's the gauge layout... not sure what to do here. Granted, I knew this was coming, but I can only see the top and bottom half of the speedometer. On the other hand, I've got my priorities set with the tach front and center. The steering column is finally securely mounted too. ... as is the front of the body and the fuel tank. At this point, I just sat and thought about things. I'm pretty sure I'm done mocking up the cage other than the seat belts. Plenty of room for mounts though and it'll be easier to work on those without the body in the way. The hood came off to shed some light on some comfort features up front. Foot rests! I had my wife come out and have a seat in the buggy with me. What I really wanted to see was where she was comfortable at with her feet and legs and what her thoughts were on what would make it come comfortable on a road trip. She's comes up to 4'10" so of course her feet came nowhere near the foot rest on the passenger side. She really liked the seat placement though and really didn't feel a need for it. Should I find my way to the right side of the car, I'll be happy it's there. Both seats are comfortable for me to sit in now! Interior space sure shrank for a 6' guy after adding about 60' of tube! This will probably be the last time it'll look like this for a while. Next on the list is to blow it all apart so I can fully weld the cage and then work on the chassis. Really happy with how everything came out. ... as for the list...

Good to see this truck, BJ. :thumbsup: Just a heads up too, I've got a wedding to go to in June this year that's out your way. Somewhere in PA?... I understand it's a big state. :laughin:

I've got a ceramic coated header on my Eliminator and I like it. No issues with fit up but I always wanted to get a couple nice band clamps for the Y section. The supplied exhaust clamps sealed up fine, but it seemed like each year I'd have to loosen them to push the Y back together. Last spring I was changing the oil and the welder was sitting just a little too close to the truck... sure was an itch just too deep not to scratch. Couple stitch welds later and I don't need band clamps anymore. Next time I have an excuse to pull it out, I'll add a couple nice unions in there instead... probably.

The entire thread?! Pretty sure I was honest as far as I can remember.

Right?

I think every month makes me smile for one reason or another based off of who the member is for MJOTM. Usually, it's Comanche related. Don't get me wrong! This month is no different that it's one hell of a truck! But... I'm going to be blunt here... that avatar. Right?... RIGHT?... YEAR/MODEL ● 1991 Pioneer. Long bed 4wd 230k miles runs like new. :) ENGINE/PERFORMANCE ● Stock 4.0L ho engine. No performance stuff yet. Has all maint done. new plugs/cap/rotor/wires/02 sensor/TPS/IAC valve. valve cover/oil pan/rear main resealed. New Tchain and harmonic balancer. Brown dog motor mounts. DRIVETRAIN ● AX15 trans, fresh clutch 2 weeks ago, new output seal and filled with redline trans fluid. NP231 Tcase,new input seal and output seal and fresh fluid. Dana 30 front with 4.11s. Dana 44 rear with 4.11s and aussie locker. COOLING ● Stock late model cherokee alum radiator. New Elec fan, all new hoses/coolant T stat. New AC condenser and fresh R12. ELECTRICAL/IGNITION ● All stock at current. New ign switch and tumbler SUSPENSION/STEERING ● Clayton short arms upper and lower with johnny joints. Clayton 6.5" springs. Clayton Track bar and drop bracket. Clayton drop pitman arm. JKS quicker disconnects. JKS stem eliminators. Ruffstuff SOA kit in the rear. New moog leaf bushings. Bilstein 5150 shocks front and rear. INTERIOR ● All stock, bench seat. BRAKES ● Stock up front. Rear used to have 9 inch drums on D35. Now has 10.5x2.5 drums. Noticeable difference LIGHTING ● Stock for now. Rock lights and light bar coming soon. EXTERIOR ● Stock with fenders cut. Original long bed rubber mat. WHEELS/TIRES ● American racing D window style. 15x8" 35x12.5BFG KM2 MISCELLANEOUS ● Coming Soon: rock sliders, also rear bumper with sliders. Then front bumper and winch. Spare with mounts and nitrogen tank for airing up. FULL BUILD THREAD Remember That One Time?... Tell Us Your Best MJ Story ● I was heading to emmigrant gap about 3 years ago on highway 80 for a campout i do every year. Truck was bone stock. I had the cap on back and it was loaded heavy with camping equipment/antiques. I came over a knoll and changed lanes to get off at my off ramp, the road was a mess from road work(2 diff levels). It sent the front end into the most violent death wobble ive ever experienced. I pulled it out of gear to wrestle the wheel and get off the road. My offramp was right there. Well it shook so hard it dies... engine is dead. Ive got no power steering and no vac assist on the brakes. I get aimed at the offramp just before it died. Well i hit the brakes and it isnt slowing down... WTF!!! i push them again... near floor and only slowing maybe 50%. pump again... both feet on tiny pedal.... not gonna stop in time. Thank goodness this was an intersection in BFE. rolled right through it and up the onramp on other side. got out, pissed off cause i hate death wobble but laughing cause i was alive and nobody saw the event. look under hood.... Crank sender disconnected. no biggie. recon and started right up. Hmmm.... why couldnt i stop.... touch front wheels....broiling... rears...cold. Look underneath...the rod for the brake valve was off the axle and hanging. So i had no rear brakes at all. JEEZUS!!!! CC is Awesome!... Why Do You Think So? ● Cause Its an MJ only page and all the people are really helpful. Dave... Dave... Dave... you know you can never change that avatar of yours, right? Pretty sure it's kind of a staple around here. Anyhow... the truck, right?! Huge fan if this one! I'm definitely a sucker for a clean, white MJ. Not only that but it sure looks like it gets out there to be used. Real nice, man! -Ben This post has been promoted to an article

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

I thought about doing something like this a long time ago. At that time I was looking very closely at copying a product called the Tire Gate. Here's a link: http://www.pickupspecialties.com/Tire_gate/tiregate_prerunner_series.htm. Perhaps that could some wheels turning for you?

I use PB too... never had any problems with it though. What was the cure for future reference?

^Same.

There's enough... but just barely. Sitting in it and get in and out just fine, but there's only a couple inches between my head and the tube. I would imagine my future self will thank me given a bumpy road.

Well... one step back today, but also one step forward. I ended up cutting out the rear of the cage for now to think about some things. It was really the rear spreader bar that had to go to make way for the seats to move back another couple inches. I'd really like to put one back in as it would add so much in terms of side impact strength, so I'm sure a replacement with a couple of bends will be in its future. The next thing on my list was to figure the front spreader bar/steering column mount. After looking closer at things, I had a little bit of a bind in the column. Seems as though the body lift from last year screwed up the location of the front of the column. The hole was originally put there by whoever had the body in the first place. It needs some cleanup anyhow. I'll come back to that later also. Today I really wanted to get something accomplished after removing the entire rear of the cage. Why not move outwards? My original plan was to have some side protection but I've never liked the look of tube along the side of the interior. Made up a pair of these... ... along with some mounts... ... to hang the new "crash bars" (for lack of a better term) underneath the body. I'll come back add some triangulation to them once the body is off and out of the way. As for now, it'll wait for another weekend.

Only a couple months gone by... not too bad for me getting back to a project. It's been a rough holiday season and, quite frankly, I just didn't want to work on anything. All that's done now, so it's time to get back to work. Ever since I mounted the seats, I've never been crazy about getting in and out of this little thing. I was okay with where the seat was, but then there's the line of sight through the windshield that was filled with more steering wheel than there should've been. So? I had to borrow something from my wall to play around with some numbers... That steering wheel was what was in my '72 Beetle when I first got it. It wasn't all that bad to drive with, but it won't ever win any beauty pageants. I'm sure it'll make its way back to clock duty, but until then it's solving a problem! Then it was to get back to the cage. ... added a bump for some additional headroom... ... and that's were I fell off track again. I threw away a few pieces of tube that just didn't look right to me. Trying to get a nice "roof" line without going too tall seemed all too difficult. I like the lines of where this ended up, but I'm now wishing that I was about six inches shorter. The seats came out, seat tracks cut down, then seat tracks got removed all together... it comes down to I either need smaller seats or I need to start cutting material. Neither of which I really want to do.

Looking very good, sir!

Glad to see you kickin' around here again, Brent! You are correct though that his '86 did come with a 4.0 from the factory. Here... something to catch up on. :typing:

I'd say that it still needs a little more! Not sure how much time that clattering engine has left. Let it get up to temperature and it clacks like a diesel. I know that it's on its second engine already as the first one was firing on five cylinders (for one reason or another) and the replacement is about one oil change behind the rest of the chassis... about 255k hard and neglected miles. I can't help but think I'll be out on some wheeling trip in the future and have another episode like the trans going out. We'll see, I guess. The floor and the roof is another concern of mine. The floor will be an easy fix come spring time (along with rear u joints and rear diff seals), but the corners of the roof are getting some serious rust. It'd be easy enough to treat it like the Kleenex it is and just throw it away and get another XJ, but I can't help but feel committed to this chassis after the cutting, plating, and modifications that its gone through. I wouldn't turn down grafting on another roof, but I sorta like the idea of using it an as excuse for the start of a simple exo cage. I dunno... with more and more talks of picking up and moving, I'm sure it'll just get what it needs for this year. As far as the engine? Maybe everyone can just keep their fingers crossed for me?

Right?! Pretty sure that was put in from the factory. :idea:

Wow! Can't believe I've had the ol' Ape for one year already! :shake:

Wow, Nick! :eek: This has got to be one of my favorite build threads. It's such a fun story from where it was to what it's not turning into. Can't help but wonder what your dad thinks of his old truck!

Easy to duplicate also... http://comancheclub.com/topic/27392-back-to-jeeps-yj-fuel-injection-build/