Minuit

Never in a million years did I expect a CC member to do this. I was going to write more but I think I'd just be repeating what everyone else has said. Dando, if you see this, you are shameful.

In Which I Actually Fix Things: June 2014 I finally got some time to work on the truck, so I did. I'm going to format this chapter a bit differently. I'm trying to make my adventures more informative and more entertaining to read. Let me know what you think! :thumbsup: Ever since I put the new tires on, there was a disconcerting GGGGGGGGRNNNNNNNNNHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH sound coming from an indeterminate location when I turned at close to full lock. At first I thought it was a center cap vibrating (none of the pictures have shown it, but the right rear hubcap is missing for this reason - it was holding on by one screw) and then I suspected a damaged soft fender liner. And then I took a look at the front mud flaps. That big bolt I broke off when I got the mudflaps? Yeah, it has a purpose. Turns out that Bolt D was used on vehicles with tires bigger than 28" or so to restrain the mud flaps. There's my problem, and there's my solution. I had the diagram, so I decided to more or less follow the instructions for once. About 4 bucks in hardware later, and I was set. The only modification needed was to drill a hole in the soft plastic fender liner for the bolt to go through. Easy. Once I got down there, I realized that setting the spacers up this way would pull the mud flaps a bit further back - I needed quite a bit of room for the big tires. The result? Much better. I ran around the neighborhood taking every possible tight turn and no rubbing! The flaps also hang parallel to the tires and will probably flap around a lot less down there. That's the first annoying noise I fixed this week. The second would take a lot more work, and it's something I probably should have tacked earlier. A few months ago, my harmonic balancer started making what at first sounded like a tick, and then progressed to a chattering sound. Turned out it was rubbing against the timing cover. Prying the pulley part away from the timing cover did the trick for the moment (please don't do this, you run the risk of bending the crankshaft snout) but eventually the serpentine belt started chirping as the balancer came more and more out of alignment. Last week, it got pretty bad. :wrench: While I was on the way to rent the puller tool, I saw this beauty: I think the YJ belongs to an employee at O'Reilly. Anyway, pulling the HB off was surprisingly easy. Lining up the screws on the puller from underneath was the most difficult part. The easiest way to get the center bolt off is with an impact gun. I used a small battery-powered one and it was a tight fit, so don't be surprised if you have to stop the engine from rotating somehow to use a hand tool. There are several ways to do this, including grabbing the flexplate with vice grips, or just jamming a screwdriver between the balancer and the engine block. A few minutes and a crescent wrench to the face later, and it was off! Have I ever mentioned that shade is such a godsend when you're working on a vehicle? Experienced viewers will be able to spot the problem right away. The rubber ring holding the two parts together was screwed royally. The new balancer is on the left. The timing cover was pretty scraped up. A quick cleaning of the timing cover and crank snout, and on with the installation! Installing the balancer was much easier than what the Internet had led me to believe. I didn't need to remove anything but the rubber cover on the engine bay. It can just be folded under the sway bar. Once you get the balancer aligned with the other pulleys (a good guide to use is the timing notch - it should pretty much line up with the little scale on the front of the engine) you can put the center bolt back in. Torque it down to 80 ft. lbs, reinstall the serpentine belt and you're ready to go! The belt can be a pain to reinstall. Once it's almost on, turn the engine over by hand a bit and it should seat. On and running happily minus the electric fan. I was very relieved to see that the crank snout was still true. Total wrenching time over two days was about 3 and a half hours. Don't be afraid to go slow. With things like this, it's very important to get them right. My family needs the truck since we're moving, hence the lack of proper wrenching time I've had. The new house is so much better in every way. Owning a house that nobody can take from you is the greatest feeling in the world - second only to truck fixin', of course! Today we took the last of the things we're keeping away. One of those items is the bed topper that you might remember from very early in this build: I'm going to college this August and I'm expecting to take quite a bit of stuff with me, so it's going on in about a month. I think it was designed for a Ranger - the cab curvature is way off and it ever so slightly doesn't fit the bed, but it's been with the truck since it was basically new, and it works fine still. Unfortunately, moving means saying goodbye to a few things. Including my dad's '75 Oldsmobile 442. I wanted to restore it for him but it just wouldn't have been practical. Much of the right side of the body is gone. I really liked this car, and it'll be sad to see it go. :( It was absolutely loaded with options. I think it had every single one. I also measured my ground clearance at pretty much every point on the undercarriage and marked up my owner's manual! Not a doctor, I promise. I also did the math on how many miles are actually on the truck. The odometer currently is at 152,217. I came up with an actual number of 152,247 - a divide that's starting to bother me. A new speedometer gear will be very, very soon to come. I'll do my best to get the mileage lined up correctly again when I replace my instrument cluster with a full cluster. Anyway, that brings us up to date. I'll probably be making a junkyard trip fairly soon. Hopefully I'll get a chance to make some upgrades! Total Expenditures since January 2014: $2,323.39 Junkyard Parts: Door panels: 1988 Jeep Cherokee Limited Front bumper guards: 1992 Jeep Cherokee Sport Windshield wiper motor: 1998 Jeep Cherokee Sport Tailgate handle: 1989 Jeep Comanche Mud flaps: 1987 Jeep Comanche Interior Quarter Panels: 1989 Jeep Comanche Maintenance Status: Last oil change: 6qt generic 10W-30, 150,580 Odometer: 152,217 (indicated) 152,247 (actual) . :MJ 1: .

"Ho-Lee Shiite! Ho-Lee Shiite! Ho-Lee-Shiite!" :rotf:

:eek:

$220 installed with trim is a good price, at least compared to what I've seen. I had mine replaced in April and it was $231 with me dropping it off there. No new trim either, but they did clean it. Not sure on newer trim or quality of Mexican glass, so I won't comment on that.

I have seen a small number of 87s with 'COMANCHE' emblems (Red Rocker's truck is one such '87). Whether or not they've been changed I'm not sure, but I wouldn't look to the emblem as 100% proof of not being an '86.. Although the 'Comanche' emblem combined with everything else rules out 86 for sure.

Yep. Hockey stick SporTruck stripes (and short bed, although all SporTrucks to my knowledge were SWB) place it in the 87-90 bracket. 10 slot grille means my guess is it's an '87 with a late 1986 build date. Looks like it's got quite a bit of potential.

Knowing this kind of person, his "fix" will consist of some duct tape and unpainted bondo.

This is a very very very VERY old thread but I fixed this a couple of months ago and forgot to update. Turned out the distributor was not indexed correctly. It has not done this since re-indexing it per the FSM. The 4.0 is a computer-timed motor folks, don't mess with the dizzy unless you have to.

I see the addiction's got you too. These stupid little trucks tend to multiply. :doh: No clue on adding cruise control, but there have been a few threads recently about adding A/C. Here's one (click). I've been wondering about cruise control myself recently. Off topic, but is that an Impala in the background?

:drool:

One of them super ultra rare extended cab Commanches.

Hauled off about 3 loads like this yesterday. Who knew that untreated wood doesn't like sitting outside for 14 years? :ack:

Just curious - what kind of deck are you wanting to put in there? A standard single DIN radio fits in the stock location with minor mods to the plastic dash bezel. The dash itself is untouched. Unless you don't want to touch ANYTHING in the interior (which I fully understand your reasoning for) that would be the simplest option. You can get a new dash bezel fairly cheaply at any junkyard if you want to keep your original one intact. Any pics of the 86 in question? Edit: the dash bezel is this:

They look terrible but if it helps, it's not stupid!

Faster than the 85 mph speedometer says by quite a large margin :yes: (sources vary, but a stock MJ's top speed is around 100 knots)

:thumbsup:

This is a pretty bad@$$ little truck. Every time I see a shortbed with a roll bar it makes me want to get one for mine more.

Love the simple look of this. The airspeed indicator is just cool. :thumbsup:

Just Screwing Around: Early June 2014 I haven't updated this thread in a while. The MJ has been hard at work hauling stuff between houses so I haven't been able to take it on the road for the mechanical work I've been wanting to do for a while now. I did buy some stuff from some CC members, though. But first, I decided I'd try to tackle rust on the tailgate's seam. Again. I graduated high school in the middle of this so this process took over a week. This looks familiar. I sanded it down again to the best of my ability. This time, I tried a rust converter on it. We'll see how well it holds up. Long story short, it looks like this now. I finally decided that 6x9s attached to plywood spacers fastened to the rear panels by velcro wasn't going to fly anymore, so I decided to do something about it. I bought these brackets from yellaheep and they arrived very quickly and exactly as expected. They take 4x6 speakers. I decided on Polk Audio speakers for the rear. The brackets fit behind the interior panels, so I decided to go ahead and start before the replacements arrived. The 4x6s really aren't that much quieter than what I had in there and sound quite a bit better owing to not being smashed up against the seat. I've wanted to add delay headlights to the MJ for a while. Module courtesy of schardein. Install was extremely easy. I forgot to take a picture of the "new" interior cab corners (purchased from TheDude) so here's one of them in the truck. 5 minutes of Dremel action per side so my lights could fit. No more jury rigged speakers! ...and everything's back together. Total Expenditures since January 2014: $2,319.64 Junkyard Parts: Door panels: 1988 Jeep Cherokee Limited Front bumper guards: 1992 Jeep Cherokee Sport Windshield wiper motor: 1998 Jeep Cherokee Sport Tailgate handle: 1989 Jeep Comanche Mud flaps: 1987 Jeep Comanche Interior Quarter Panels: 1989 Jeep Comanche Maintenance Status: Last oil change: 6qt generic 10W-30, 150,580 Odometer: 152,142

I'd prefer a weekend but I could manage a late night. Preferably not too soon, I've got a couple of things to do to the truck before I feel confident driving it that far from home. With that said, I'd love to attend the next meet-up. :thumbsup:

Congratulations on MJOTM!

Honestly, at first I wasn't too crazy about a green '92 long bed getting turned into a trail rig... how very wrong I was. This truck is absolutely fantastic! The level of skill and craftsmanship that's gone into this is just incredible. Congrats with MJOTM, and I'll be looking forward to seeing more of this badass rig in the future! . :MJ 1: .

:needpics:

:yeah that: If I'm remembering right the bed looked like it had been stored in a salt bath for the past 23 years.