cocco78

I just run the regular meyer stuff. It did run pretty slow last week below zero but I was just doing my drive so no big deal... I think overall the the E47 is a slow pump.

Nice! I just made a post about my MJ making money for me for the first time today. I can't believe a Jeep that put money into my pocket!!!

Thats fairly rare as far as XJ's go to find a 2 door, 4.0L, and a 5 speed, thats 4wd as well! Nice find, You probably won't see decent mileage out of it this winter but I know you should see low to mid 20's on the highway with that when it warms up this summer...

Well, my work truck blew its guts out of the transfer case last week and won't be getting fixed til later this week or whenever the parts come in. Just so happens over the weekend we got 8-10" of snow, and one of my work trucks duties is to plow the parking lot at the shop. So I made a deal with the boss and took the little MJ to work today and plugged along nice and easy and plowed the parking lot. It handled the snow no problem, chugged along and pushed some pretty big piles. I wish I would have taken some pics or video of plowing but i'm so impressed with how well it worked. The Meyer pump is a little slower than the Boss that i'm used to but I don't think it took any more time with my 6'6" blade than the 7'6" blade. Oh I upgraded the MJ to a 610cca batter and a 105a alt and it works great, the lights don't even dim when operating the plow. Panoramic picture of the parking lot http://i39.tinypic.com/5lartf.jpg The parking lot is probably 100' wide at its widest and 250'-300' long with only 3 spots I could push snow...

Ok this is getting old dealing with this thing, it still has not been above zero so I havent looked at it. Sometimes it starts and sometimes it doesn't, I kinda looked under the dash and i'm guessing I have to remove alot of stuff to see the switch?? Any other pointers on dealing with the switch besides the big screw driver on the starter method, lol

Ok, I updated my profile with my location! Yeah I should have done that a while ago. Oh, I posted what I had in the tittle, its an 88 but I suppose I could have added 4.0L, auto... Oops!

It got down to -19 last I checked before bed, its -11 right now and should reach a high of -3 for the day with windchill of -30 degree's Anyhow I don't think its the battery cables as jumping it did nothing. This weekend i'm going to get a new battery for it, the cold weather pretty much killed it, and a 105 amp alternator to keep the plow happy. But I'll check that switch, sounds like thats the problem to me.

Shouldn't be to hard to shorten them, find some tube that either fits inside the arms or that the arms fit into to sleeve it. don't just cut, bevel, and weld!

Ok, so the manche has a new problem starting. Of course it'll do this with a daytime high temp of -5 degrees :mad: The starter is new as of last year, it works fine. I go to start it and it doesn't do anything, not even a click, same thing in park or neutral. Odd thing is that when I was playing with some stuff in the dash last week I had the tilt wheel all the way down, and it wouldn't start then either. But it started when I returned the wheel to its normal position. Coincidence? Or is there something in the steering column that would cause this? Where is the switch for only letting it start in P or N? This kinda sucked because it stalled in me today when I was backed half way out in the street when it died (it needs a battery and the plow motor killed it). Oh the street had zero traffic on it until the Jeep died, then it was non stop traffic for half an hour while I tried to get it back in the driveway, must have been a game or something at the school I live by that let out :roll:

Well I actually got my plow to work tonight for the first time! I made the whole wiring harness myself and hooked it all up and then nothing!! I double checked everything and was getting frustrated. The damn solenoid wasn't working. So I check the ground, it had power, connections all good... It was a brand new SAM replacement solenoid from NAPA. So I pulled an old rusty Jeep solenoid I had sitting in a box of parts, slapped in it, and away she went! UP, Down, Left, Right, all the right directions with the proper movment of the toggles! Yeah!! But my problems... with the plow down the front of the Jeep comes up enough to make my A frame a little to high in the rear. But it seems to push ok, it hasn't snowed here in the last week so I didn't really have much to play with just some crusty icy stuff. It didn't seem to dig in much, and it tripped fairly easily... My springs are still a little loose though, got the adj bolts soaking in some stuff to free them up. I still need to fix my trip stops so the blade leans a little bit more forward, but overall i'm very happy.

Well the biggest reason is because I had the Comanche! Then the 6'6" plow blade came with an old 72 CJ5 I had a few years ago, I got rid of that jeep a long time ago but kept the plow blade around. I ran across a good deal on an E47 pump a couple months ago, and it just kinda came together. So far I have just under $500 into this with purchasing metal for not only the plow mounts but the bumper as well, purchasing the pump, wiring, and controls... The old manche basically sits most of the time, my gf wheels it during the summer, I wheel it when my wrangler is getting upgraded, it gets put to use hauling everthing I don't want to haul in my daily driver! Actually if your plowing comercial a larger heavier truck would be best, I actually have a 3/4 ton chevy as a work truck with a 7'6" boss superduty straight blade just for plowing our large parking lot and loading dock area at work (work truck, absolutely no personal use). I can tell you its a huge pain in the @$$ plowing around a loading dock with semi trailers parked around with a full size big truck, A jeep would zip around there in no time. But for small area's, driveways, sidewalks, basic residential stuff there is no better plow truck than a Jeep. You only have to backblade a few feet from the garage door with a short Jeep, they stack snow better than any big truck ever could, easier to manuver around in tight spaces...

got a little done today, to cold out for me to actually try to install it...

I have no idea if that is a requirement in Michigan or not. Don't really care tho, the headlights and turn signals are visible above the plow when its raised, not all the way but you don't transport it with it raised all the way only enough so its off the ground. It doesn't get driven around with the plow on besides a couple blocks to the gas station anyway, basically just for plowing out my personal driveway. I'll eventually get some lights up there, plus a cheap rotating beacon and a back up spot light... For lights I was thinking of these I found on ebay, $60 + shipping and includes a wiring harness.

at 4.5" you're looking at almost having to go with long arms, or at the very least both adjustable uppers and lowers to be able to get that thing back in alignment. Long arms will improve your ride over the short arms, they won't be at such a steep angle as the short arms.

Yeah hopefully I won't damage the frame if I hit anything. I'm going to lean the plow blade forward just a bit to make it a little less agressive going forward and to back blade a little better. So far it all looks good but I really need to add something on the hoop to support that upper angle iron and to keep it from twisting or leaning forward. It doesn't move with me jumping on the plow with the plow raised but I could see it happening. I don't have anything hooked up yet just testing to see it take the weight! Plus I had to move the plow from the back yard up to the front of the garage to work on the blade a bit. Those front coils are pretty damn stiff and take the weight pretty good, going to need a few pounds of ballast tho! And if the A-frame angle doesn't come out right I may raise the mounts on the back of the A-frame to fix.

well I started piecing together a new hoop out of some 2x2x1/4" angle iron I had. Other than that I laid some more weld on things I had tacked together, and shot some more paint on stuff. Here is the old hoop, it doesn't look that bad in the pics but it looks like poo in real life...

Didn't get $#!& done tonight, too cold and I have to go to bed early tonight. I did finish up a little work of jaemes on the bumper, grinding down her nice welds and whatnot... I started working on getting that old rusty meyers hoop to bolt down on the winch plate. I was trying to get the damn thing centered on there and couldn't :?: So I started measuring the hoop itself and its @#$%ing crooked and the center tabs where the pump and lift arm mount are offset nearly 2".... So its officially scrap now. After all the work i've done so far there is no way i'm going to use a rusty, crooked, off-center, pile of booger welds :!: I'm going to fab up my own hoop, not sure yet on the way it'll turn out tho... Well here is the bumper anyway.

Man, I recently ran across a complete 5.2 motor from I think a 94 ZJ with 90k miles on it with all the wiring and computer for $500 I though how this would make a great swap into the old MJ, but i'd like to keep with an auto. Not sure what auto trans they used in the ZJ tho, 45re or something? Wonder how the AW4 would do behind the 5.2?

Got the GF out there working on her bumper for her Jeep, cutting and welding... Someday i'll own my on MJ to work on but for now I'll just have to live vicariously through her ;) And her first welds, needs a little practice but pretty good for her first time. I'm having her do all the non critical welds on her bumper to learn how to use the MIG, that thing makes anyone look good :bowdown:

Never fails, soon as I get motivated to be out in the cold and I start laying some beads down.... Out of fawking wire for the hobart :x Its to late to bother going to depot to get any. But I did try and test fit the mount to the Jeep. One big problem, I can't lift it and man handle it into position and hold it and so on. Balancing it on the floor jack was just as bad. All this led me to my next invention!!! And just put Rod "A" in Slot "B".... Its a snug fit just the way I like it... Its pretty much you basic geometric dimensioning and tolerance fixed pin scenario... I nailed the virtual condition of the pin, taking in account the perpendicularity and form tolerances, to the diameter of the hole on the floor jack, and so on. Its pretty standard stuff really :P Oh, and I started welding the tabs on the tube for the plow carriage mounts. I'm a little worried about crushing the tube right there so i'm going to add some plates on the top and bottom to spread out the load more on the rec tube...

The side plates go pack past the sway bar mounts... Not sure where I would mount anything else, i'm already catching that large sleeved hole in the frame. The only possible other place I could think would be to run under the axle and back on the unibody where the lca, mount, but I don't want to do that! If anyone has any pics of what you did post them up! I could use some idea's.

83 GT, carbed 302, 4 speed manual, southern cali car zero rust, but in need of restoration... Ok, back to Manche stuff now

2x4 rec tube for the crossmember that the plow a-frame will attach to. 1.5" square tube for my triangulation. Do you think that is enough or do I need to add more to it? And of the obligatory weld pics...

I'm putting the rest of everything in my build thread.... Check it out. http://www.comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4375&p=135555#p135555