binderbart

well, it ain't happening. :headpop: the insurance company told him that he should have told them the first day he was interested in buying it back and its to late to do so now. Imagine that.....

did quite a bit of reading on the four link, not sure if thats the route I want to go, I did a bunch of searching in here about lifts. Didn't find a whole lot on body lifts??? is that tough to do on a comanche?but I did find a lot on lifting the suspension, to much actually, now I don't know what to do. I was going to pick it up last friday, but we had drifting snow and the comanche doesn't have rear brakes and it won't shift into four wheel drive (due to a rusted shifting lever I'm sure). hoping to go after it this friday. Once I get it home I'll pop it up on the hoist and go from there. It would be great if a set of scout axles would work under it. but I know the front has a drivers side grab on the transfer case , so thats not a option. I ask about the body lift because my plans are to pull the bed and put the flat bed on, the cab would be my only issue with lifting.

just a quick update, he talked to the insurance guy yesterday and they totalled it. He is suppose to get back to him today with a "buy it" price.

oh.....great, now ya went and did it......now I started thinking of another project to add to the 3 projects I got going on right now, and I'm thinking "this would be easy, the damage is already done....sawzall, torch,welder.....beings you put this idea in my head, if I go this route, you got to come up and help me with it. :cheers: :D what is the wheel base on a 94 grand cherokee? ;)

He talked to me at work last night (3rd shift). His girlfriend was driving it and it was rolled. He says that he thinks its totalled. Right now he is just waiting for the insurance company to get back to him. He doesn't want the vehicle and has plans to buy something else right now. He told me whatever the insurance company wanted for it to buy it back, I could have it for that. Once this is known I'll let all of you that replied know. I'll probably want the front coils and steering. I plan on sticking with the inline 6 mine has, thanks for all the replies. One last note, when he went to get it, he said it fired right up and he drove it about 150 feet to get it out of the way. The roof is smashed down but everything else seemed to work alright.

I should probably mention also, I'm planning on doing some what of a lift on the comanche. I'm wanting to get enought clearance for 32x9.5x15 swampers. I'm already looking for parts rigs and I havent' even picked it up yet, If I find cheap cherokees for parts rigs I'll buy them and part them out for spare parts. always nice to have spare parts.

not to sound stupid, but what does LO stand for ? also, could you go into some detail on the steering upgrade? I'm planning on using this truck for everday driver/offroader. is the rear axle a not usable at all? wouldn't bother me if I had to weld in spring perches one bit. and some of the grand cherokee had 44's under them.

well, the plans to go and get the comanche back fired yesterday, we got snow and blowing snow. drifting and the works. The comanche doesnt have rear brakes and the four wheel drive lever won't move, so I decided to go after it when the weather straightens out a bit. My question is, a guy came into work last night and said his girlfriend rolled his grand cherokee in the bad weather, and asked me if I would be wanting anything off of it for my comanche project. So, I call upon all of you, what will swap and what will be useful. the grand cherokee is a 94 and my comanche is a 88, will the axles be worth the trouble? how about the rims, are they a direct swap or not? the cherokee has the v-8 but I'm thinking I want to stick with the inline 6 that is in the comanche now. also, the comanche is a stick and the cherokee is an auto.

That ain't his; he's never owned anything that nice :brows: :roll: :D This ones mine (well, one of my three): Both are very respectable MJ's. The more pictures that get posted the more anxious I get to go after mine. I just got some many irons in the fire right now that I asked the guy to hold it till the end of the month, he will, I've know him for 11 years. I was upstairs at the shop today and saw mine nearly new swampers up there and started day dreaming again. Here's a delima for ya, my two lads gave me a aussie locker for christmas, I originally planned to drop it in the front of the trail scout, now I'm thinking of maybe holding off for now and see if I can drop one of my scout dana 44's in the rear of the MJ when I get it and put the aussie in there. My trail scout has a welded rear end and works well now.....and I can always order another aussie later :D . I didn't get a chance to do any searching yesterday and probably won't yet today, if I lay down now I'll get 5 hours of sleep before work, and we got wood to cut tomorrow. I usually do most of my surfing sat. morning after I get off overtime at 5 am. probably look up the four links then.

I was already planning on plating and welding, I apprieciate the "heads up" on the ground wire also. Now I need to do some more searching on 4 link systems :hmm:

This is something I've ran thru my mind alot, From what I could see from searching, the MJ has a removable bed, if I were to just remove the bed and install my flatbed I shouldn't affect the structural support any. Yup, the bed is definitely removable. That is a nice looking MJ. I especially like what you did with the exhaust ;) Is the frame work I see part of the original frame or did you add that in?

If I do anything it will probably be your mentioned Option #3. I'm planning of taking plenty of pictures myself. I'm going to pick this comanche up at the end of the month, I'll probably make a decesion then of what i'm going to do, just lots and lots of research right now. Look forward to your write ups.

if this helps any, to convert metric to standard simply multiply by .03937 example: 13mm X .03937 =.5118->13mm is a tad bigger than a 1/2 inch wrench.

I submitted some photo's of the flatbed I using a few post up, my departure angle should not be a problem once this is installed. I'll probably just wheel with it standard length first to see how bad it is and go from there. Unless it looks easy enough to shorten it right away.

104" would suffice, right now I just need to get this bought and home and on the hoist to see what my options are. I just don't want to go thru the trouble of fabbing my flatbed for the longer wheel base to fit and later have to re-fab again for a shorter wheel base.

Here's a pic of a 34 on 3", no trimming. The tire rubbed the flare just sitting straight, couldn't turn it more than 10* Rear wheel well opening was big enough to fit it, but it would have rubbed when stuffed. A 34x9.5 tire on a 15x8 with 3.75 BS fits right under the flare, and tucks nicely inside the fender. It avoids the sheetmetal, after I trimmed I had to remove the small sheetmetal strap that supported the fender, the tire will stuff all the way into the wheelwell until it rubs on the inside sheetmetal, I flattened the pinch seam up front and fiberglassed over it to make it smooth. Here's what it looked like while I was hacking at it. The curves were the biggest PITA. Here's what it looked like ready for the road with 3" of lift. i've since shackled and spacered it to 4", but it worked fine at 3, I just wanted a bit more lift because the LWB breakover angle sucks. Which lift is this and what did it cost? Looks good.

This is something I've ran thru my mind alot, From what I could see from searching, the MJ has a removable bed, if I were to just remove the bed and install my flatbed I shouldn't affect the structural support any.

I don't want to make a four door, I want to stick with the 2 door and install my flatbed. here's some pictures of the flatbed I'll be using. http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c321/ ... ras020.jpg http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c321/ ... ras019.jpg

whoa....I was just looking thru the tech to see if I could answer any of the questions and saw the post for "cheromanche" :huh???: Okay, this opens a whole new can of worms....what are the possiblilites of buy a junked out cherokee.....cut behind the front doors.....weld in the back cap of the comanche.....mount the flatbed and have the shorter wheel base????do-able or not???? how much support or structure would a guy have??? I'm counting on the MJ Gods to point me in the right direction....give me a sign almighty ones!

I've read all the post since yesterday, good replies that are greatly apprieciated by the way. New ideas in my head also. I should probably explain the kind of wheeling we do so everyone can get an idea of where I'm coming from. I live where Iowa,Wisconsion,and Illinois meet on the greater Mississippi. So most of the trail riding our club has is in what I would call "bluff country". Lots of rocky, hills to climb and creek beds at the bottem. So to give you an idea, picture a creek bed about 20 feet accross that you have to get thru. Once you entrance is done getting back out it is beneficial to have a shorter wheel base, once you get your front wheels over the top, the sooner the rear tires come in contact the better. Longer wheel bases seem to leave you "hung up". We have some cherokees that run and do fine, but they are 10 inches shorter between the wheels(see, I did some searching ;) ) After reading the post, I may just run with it stock, do a 3-4 inch lift and put my flat bed on with maybe a aussie locker in the rear and see what happens. I remember about 7 years ago we had a CJ-8 that ran with us for a year, he was much longer than most of us and did fine, sometimes better in certain situations. the majority of our club is CJ's, wranglers, cherokees and sami's and some early bronco's.....and my scout (100"). I'm always up to a challenge, so I may try this first and build from there. I did find in my searching yesterday a blueprint of the MJ frame, not a lot of options for cutting,shortening and re welding. while I'm here, any opinions on which lift is best and why??? In my search yesterday I found anything from booty fab to high dollar lifts, left me thinking "so which way do I go now?". Keep in mind that this is a cheap-budget builder that will be a everyday driver. And last, I'm anxious to get this thing bought. I'm looking forward to upgrading from the 4 cylinder toyota engine I drive everyday right now to the ever dependable inline six that jeep offered, did you guys know that scout had the 258 in some models? I once owned a 74 scout that had the 258, started and ran all the time with a lot of low end grunt. My 76 CJ that I had was equipped with the 304, and the cherokee that I owned had the 2.8 chevy-no offense to those that have this engine, but I don't want to deal with that again, I had to many gremlins with mine. another thing I found in searching was a good write up on fender trimming, it was a blue MJ with diamond plate, I know now I'm probably not going to replace the front fenders, but trim them instead. If I sound like I'm rambling on its because....I am. I just came from shooting the B.S. with a buddy about this "project to be" and he got me fired up. Don't know what it is, you'd of thought I would have grown out of this at the ripe old age of 42 and being a gramdpa twice in 6 months, but I love to build and fabricate.

No reason to raise the CoG if you don't have to. As for the wheel base, you're going to be bringing the tires quite aways forward for 100". Without a bed, I believe this would mean relocating the gas tank and moving the spring and shackle hangers forward. You may have to remove a section of frame, depending on how much up travel you want/have. I extended my Toyota's wheelbase 6" (to 116") last spring, and this winter/spring I'm shortening it 16" (to 100"). I'll agree with that, not to mention the axle wrap that can happen from going SOA. I fit 34x9.5 TSL's on the MJ with 3" of lift and cutting the fenders back to the pinch weld. It doesn't rub at all in the rear, and I added a hockey puck to the coil bucket to keep the tires out of the inner fender. Right now a I have a 89 toyota which has around 103 wheel base and a 77 scout with a 100 inch wheel base that I trail ride with. This seems ideal for the wheeling we do. My oldest lad-(long story short, bought the toyota for him to fix up, he went thru a year of stupid, I ended up with it, now he has straightened out and wants to buy it)-so I told him give me a chance to find a comanche and he can have the toyota for a cheap price. Now I found one and I'm rolling all these ideas thru my head before I get started. I figured I was going to have to cut a section out of the frame. I'm okay with that if it can be done in a strong and not cobbled look. Also, I'm going with the 32" tires because I already have them and they only have about 4 trail rides on them. The original bed is coming off due to rust and I already have a flat bed built. Any pictures of the one lifted with the 34's?? Also wanted to add, I do come in here and search when I get a chance, but that takes time and I have a busy schedule with two jobs and a new house. I usually only get about an hour a day to do some searching if I'm lucky. Just wanted to make mention of that, I know how it can irritate people if they think your to lazy to search, I was just hoping to get some quick links.

went and looked at the comanche today, its a 88 with a 4.0, manuel 5 speed tranny, I told him I would buy it :cheers: . the price was right....cheap. He is a fellow club member and they run a jeep dealership so I told him I would probably pick it up in a few weeks. It has some rust, which is expected for Iowa. it runs great. If I remember right the mileage was 140,000. One idea I'm working on right now is shortening the wheel base when I get it. 113 inches is to long for what I want to do and I would like to get it closer to 100". Anyone ever done this??? if so did you do a write up on it? I'm planning on running 32x9.5x15 swampers when I trail ride so I'll have to do some front fender trimming and I have a flatbed plan for the rear. any comments would be helpful.

http://comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopi ... hlight=faq Good read,very informative. I go thursday to look at a 89 short bed with a inline 6 and manuel tranny. If the price is right I'll probably buy it.

Appreciate it, I'm shopping right now, our offroad club has their card party this weekend, thats when we schedule our events for the year and it's held at a jeep dealership. The owners of the dealership have been in the club for 30 years. I'm going to check their used lot for any comanche's while I'm there. gotta start somewhere. I started on a toyota pickup...or my boy did and I ended up with it. Now it's a year later and he wants to buy it, for real this time, as he said. So I told him once I found a comanche I wanted he could.

Just read the whole link, thanks alot, puts things into perspective for me. Now I have a better idea of what to look for. I have a flatbed built already for the one I find, I might even consider shorting the frame in the rear a little more to get a shorter wheel base for the trail riding we do in the woods. It all depends on what I buy and how it measures out to the current flatbed.