johnj92131

Dino is a regular poster on the Jeepstrokers forum, he is there just about every day.

Who's making side plates? http://comancheclub.com/topic/47686-hitch-plates/ Great quality. Great deal!

Cruiser, I like what you did there! Looks like you had to cut and splice the 2 WJ/ZJ hitches together. I had toyed with picking up a Grand Cherokee hitch just for the square tubing and using Krustyballers hitch plates to bolt it on to the Comanche.

The cost of Dynamat, Boom and the like is why I said to use jute padding on the floor. Somebody has to pay for all the marketing that goes into Dynama, Boom, and products like that. Other areas like the firewall, doors etc will require a different product than jute pad. Roof panel likely should be the last thing you do simply because all the window glass is below the roof and the glass will be a huge source of noise, no matter what you do to the roof. Another cheap area for noise reduction is wind noise. Check all your door and window seals. Use 97+ Cherokee door seals. Replace all the felt around your windows. Don't forget the 97/98+ under hood sound pad. It is thicker than the earlier under hood sound pad (my base truck has no sound pad). The wheel wells are a big noise source because they let your tire noise. Lots of spray on undercoating type material would help here. Talking about tires and noise - think about what tires you put on your truck. Different tires make a HUGE noise difference.

Use the same thing the factory used - Jute padding. It is both very inexpensive and it works very well for absorbing noise. My truck has the base factory rubber on the floor with simple factory jute padding under it. Dirt is not a problem. As far as noise goes, there are many other easier paths for noise to enter the cab than thru the floor pan. If heat or sound is your issue, all those other areas should be addressed first for best results.

Looks like the same decal would fit both the long bed and the short bed? I could be in for one of those!

Have you looked at the Renix engine torque curve? As I recall it shows peak torque at a much lower rpm

Wife had an 89 Escort for years. Cheap transportation.Purchased it new. Remember taking a trip to Vegas and getting 37 mpg. Our son wrecked the car when he was in high school. Rolled it while he was screwing around with it. Both he and his friend crawled out of the upside down car with just some glass cuts on their hands. Car had automatic lap belts that held them both in place. Think there was one panel on the car not damaged. Took my son back to look at the car a few days later. There was another car in the tow yard with less damage. Female driver had been killed in that car. So I have nothing bad to say about that old Escort. Car did its job and took care of my stupid son and his friend. Can not ask for more.

WD-40 is a water dispersant. Here is a neat history of WD-40 and Rocket Chemical Co.: http://wd40.com/cool-stuff/history Take your choice of WD-40, Marvel Mystery Oil, Sea foam or the like. Pull all of your plugs, insert lube of your choice. Turn engine over by hand a few revolutions. Then take the valve cover off so you know when then oil is reaching the cylinder head. Then use the starter motor to spin the engine and pump the oil thru the engine. When you are sure the engine is getting lots of oil - put the valve cover back on and reinstall the plugs. Then you can try to fire the engine off.

Love that Avitar of yours!! Where is the yard with the Comanche? NOLA? New Orleans, LA.?

Didn't 90's Ford F150 trucks use a 3 point holder for the spare? Have to say this is a nice, simple mount system. Like the thumb screws also.

I would not complain about an emissions check on a 25 or 30 year old vehicle. California requires emission checks on anything built/sold after 1975. The ERG system works exactly as described to lower peak combustion temperatures. NOx formation happens at very high combustion temps. Below a certain temp, NOx does not form.

I got the brackets at the yard along with the pump from a wrecked low mileage 04 TJ . Worked great with the ZJ steering gear. Do I need to get the pump to go with the brackets? Or can I reuse the old pump? ZJ box is a bit quicker ratio I know, but are there any other advantages to the swap if why I have is working OK? Seem to recall reading there were some other advantages, but don't remember the specifics at the moment. Down side is more work and more $$$. Should have bought the ZJ steering box from MJRemi when he was moving to Oregon last year. But I had enough on my plate with the Passat TDI. Now that the Passat is mostly done and has new paint I can spend more $$ on the Comanche (or replace it with a Tundra).

The Jeep passed the recheck this morning. Not by much, but it did pass, so I am good for 2 more years. Only thing I did was have the manifold rewelded. New manifold (flex pipe also) and new O2 sensor will come when the stroker goes in. New Neon injectors will go in ASAP and transfer to the stroker. Need to find a couple of brackets that are required to use the 99 and later intake manifold (power steering bracket?). Then send the the spare throttle body to be bored out.

If you already have all of those parts, how do you figure it will cost $5k+ to build the stroker? I bought EVERYTHING when I built mine, including a second engine to tear apart and I 'only' had $3500 into mine. Based on your post you just need some pistons, bearings and gaskets and have everything else. Machine work and getting the engine builder to build it. New cam, headers, bigger throttle body, updated electronics, dyno time, custom ecu tune. And that is just a start.

Suggest you check the harmonic balancer, make sure it is not separating and rubbing on the front of the timing cover. Sometimes sounds like a bad belt. Good thought! But I/we put some belt lube on the belt, sound goes away for a short time. Did this several times to verify the issue. schardein - Yes, should have said the 02 sensor! Thanks for catching that. I can see newbie reading my post and wondering what I am talking about. Don, Thanks for the how to on quickly clearing the error codes. And for the pointer on Code 27. If the code comes back, I will use the Fluke to do the suggested check. Also have a request in to Dirty Jeep Guy for a rebuilt set of the 703 injectors. Time to replace them anyway.

Got the truck back from the muffler shop on Tuesday. Sure is a lot quieter. Now I hear the the belt squeeling. After checking the blink code faults (thanks to Don for his post on the Blink Codes), I have a code 27 which indicated a Fuel Injection control circuit issue, and a code 12 because the battery was disconnected and replaced with a new one. Have not yet ordered a new NoX sensor and am thinking I should disconnect the battery over night to try and clear the error code 27. If that works, I will take the truck back for a smog retest. If not, then I will replace the NoX sensor and see about getting those Neon injectors.

Cheapest thing you can do is stick with the GM v6 family. Lots of them around in salvage yards. Pick up a 3.4 with fuel injection from a rear drive Camaro around 1993. Later model front wheel drive 3.4 V6 have aluminum heads and other goodies you can mount on the 3.4

Fair enough. But the search function on Jeepstrokers seems to work better than on some other forums.

Jackrabbit41 - spend a whole bunch of time reading the information on jeepstrokers.com BEFORE you start asking questions. Any question you will have has been asked and answered many, many times.

Pete, I have used a couple of weight distributing hitches over the years. Best thing I did was bet a bigger cheater bar to tighten up the spring bars. Think they both came with a 12 inch long bar, I replaced it wit a 2 foot plus long bar to make adjusting the spring bars easier. The chains on the spring bars do make some occassional noise when turning corners. Sway control can be added if required. But the most important thing is to keep good weight on the front of the trailer. Get the @$$ end of the trailer just a bit heavier than the front and you WILL have an unstable trailer. A properly adjusted electronic brake controller is really great to have. So are electric brakes. Surge brakes are better than nothing, But they will be an issue when you try to back up the trailer. So make sure their trailer has electric brakes and their tow vehicle has a 7 plug connector.

Mike, This will fit just like a square peg in a round hole. Buy a new tank on Ebay for about $100. Why would anyone want a 25 year old tank with rust on the bottom for any price, even if it did fit?

Fernando87 - Many thanks for your pictures and comments on the Tundra vs Comanche. Didn't know or think about the starter replacement, somehow, I thought only GM was that dumb. Pete M - nothing really wrong with the engine. It just needs a lot of detailed attention. Oil leaks, vacuum leaks, all the general issues that come around after 200/250K miles. I have the spare blocks, the 3.895 crank shaft, an offset ground 4.095 crankshaft, 3 different sets of con rods, a HESCO aluminum head, a couple of different manifolds, etc. 87Warrior - Yes, a 2000-06 Tundra would be much more refined than the MJ by at least 20 years of design. It's ride is very comfortable (for a truck). It's size is small by today's standards for a half ton truck. And the Comanche has done everything I have asked the truck to do for the last 8 years. The one thing I expect the Tundra to do better than the Comanche is tow car trailer. For that purpose, the Tundra is simply a stronger truck. Suspect I will take the easy way out and keep the Comanche.

From what I have been reading lately, the factory cat is best for long life. After market cats seem to be "lighter" in the expensive materials required to make the cat function correctly for a long life. Thus partially explaining their lower price. Remember, Jeep had to meet emissions requirements for 100,000 miles. But, how much longer do we really expect to be driving our trucks with 250 or 300,000 miles on them? My advice? Get a cat that is CARB approved. It should work fine and nobody can say you are trying to evade the emissions requirements. And no state can legally reject CARB approved emission parts. California is the only state that has the legal right to set it's own auto emission standards. Other states can adopt the California standards, but can not modify them in any way.

That Colorado I/M 240 test procedure looks a whole lot like the California test procedure. My suggestion is when you get to Colorado, do a pretest check with the Comanche and see what they pick up. My guess is you will fail the dyno test if you are able to even get by the visual test. This will tell you what you need to do. In California, if smog equipment has been removed, you have to put it ALL back on. Doesn't matter what it cost, you took it off - you have to fix it. If the smog equipment is there and just broken, there are some cost limits and you may get extra time to fix the problems.