1bolt

Anyone know if anyone makes a pre formed or pre bent whatever, hard brake line kit for long bed comanches? I know Quadratec has stainless kits for Wranglers, doesn't need to be stainless, but pre bent to keep it OEM. I'm hoping to avoid bending them myself, they just never fit in place right unless you spend a hell of a lot of time fitting and removing them and tweaking over and over. I did one of Quadratec's kits for my YJ and it was blissful compared to hand bending...

yeah pics would be cool, if you're doing work you should consider making a project thread for your build. That is one of the few street MJ's I've ever seen.

Shandley off topic but whats up with the convertible MJ in your avatar? I quick searched your posts and don't see anything about it. Looks very cool (for a street build)

What CW said. My 97 recently decided it wanted a new water pump the block and head and inside the rad are 100% corrosion free, being all relatively new, so was the pump, not a spec of rust or coolant scale on anything. The thermostat was a 195 which I replaced with a 185 at the same time as the new pump because as CW observed highway cruises can get things heated up above the T-stat temp... In both cases the T-stat temp is maintained at idle and low speed driving. No matter what is done it wants to run well over the T-stat temp at 65 or over... usually 210-215* but as much as 220-230 (this is confirmed by a Scangauge II which reads the engine sensor) fighting the wind takes work and the stock pump just doesn't keep up, especially in summer. It probably doesn't help that a stock 97 radiator is a single core design, but I feel the stock pump is the real weak link. This is with no mods, bone stock 97 XJ, even has stock wheels and tires with a fresh and strong engine. My stroker XJ has a Flo-kooler water pump and it never goes above the temp of the T-stat. Even at 75mph which is as fast as I would want to maintain with 33/12.5's and 4.56 gears. due to the RPM's being fairly high at that speed. So IMO a higher flow water pump is a good upgrade, at least from my experience.

nice thread, seems there are always the same familiar "faces" in any Cheromanche thread. Kittrell did you originally post those photoshop jobs to NAXJA? I saw them there a few years back. I am partial to the full on crew cab with short bed. Of all the XJ/MJ mash ups I've seen none has gotten the proportions just right. The old burgundy 4 door MJ (2wd) was well done but the propertions were aweful and made even worse by the lack of a lift. That red Ebay job didn;t have great workmanship but the proportions were close... A little too short a bed for my tastes. TNT those white ones might be the best I've seen, but some (all?) of them look like photoshops, is that your work or some custom shop that decided to try and do Cheromanche's? Do you have any more info on those?

Then there's the really hard way, I went about this with an early full cluster from an XJ, a late XJ cluster and my 89 Comanche's cluster and I was neck deep before I realized I should go get a full guage cluster from a renix Comanche. I had to hack in the MJ speedo into the early XJ full cluster (so the speedo cable would mate up, and also because the old XJ full cluster speedo was thrashed). Then hack in and glue the shift indicator, and because I hate those old gray faces and I have some Autometer's I'd like to match I whipped up some overlays in photoshop. to cover them up. I was going to go 5" Autometer tach and speedo but they would have required hacking the dash up for a recessed mount, or mounting flush on a fabbed mounting plate like sheet metal or plastic; which looks ultra hacked most of the time (think drag racer) and sucks if the sun hits them. So I compromised between hacking stock clusters together in a way that doesn't look hack, and making the stock ones appear closer to the autometer (Pro-Comp series) guages I plan to put in for trans temp and oil temp. (and later Pyrometer and Boost/Vac). At some point I may put 3 3/8th in-dash Autometer tach and speedo in so I can fit 2 1/16th support guages. All in all a carbide burr an angle grinder and a dremel make quick work of plastic fabbing and some super duper "Plastic Surgery" brand plastic glue (good stuff) and a couple screws made secure and fairly easy if a little more invloved than the "unscrew and rescrew" operation I was hoping for. Took an evening, not counting photochopping.

Man did Lee give you another free part? Pete we have speculated at length on jeepstrokers forum on just what that assembly was, my guess was it was a gear drive on the end of the cam like the fuel pump drive on Barney Navarro's turbo indy car AMC I6. Very cool.

This almost feels like cheating but I think it's the ultimate, not a Comanche but is a Comanche:

Saw this on NAXJA just surprised that the guy would do all that body work when he could have bolted on the front fenders/header and swapped the doors (minor welding) and bolted in the dash/interior. There's a ridiculous amount of sheet metal work that could have been totally avoided. I do like the work in the back to make the tail blend with the 97+ front. And fresh water droplets aside it looks like he did a good job. Can't stand what he did with the rear bumper ends... they look bent down, obviously he had to do this to suit the higher wheel arch of the MJ... But still if you're going that far with custom work might as well section the plastic bumper ends and add plastic or re-do them in fiberglass. the bend looks bad. Well done otherwise, just not sure why he did all the extra body work... If you're going to splice an XJ and MJ together you need to end up with at least 2dr Doors for a King cab, or 2 extra doors for a quad cab and a short bed :)

Can't believe I missed this thread so many times, guess I should have figured this build would be here somewhere as well as jeepstrokers. At some point this weekend I hope to have simulations of individual runner intake versus a single plane style carb intake.... Without totally spilling the beans.... Pete what are the chances you can afford something like a custom tunnel ram? I know you've mentioned putting a plenum on top of the IR runners, if the plenum is tuned (sized) correctly it will give you Helmholtz wave tuning effects which a plain IR intake can't do. The IR intake sacrifices reflected wave tuning effects for inertial ramming effects, a tunnel ram gives you both and is pretty much the defacto standard intake form factor in any racing where they are legal and big hood bulges are allowed (where stock appearance isn't a factor). Anyway look for some simulated experiments in that thread that Pete linked to later this weekend (tonight hopefully). I don't know what a TR will do for the simulation but it should be interesting.

It's all good thanks for the explanation, hopefully I can get in here soon.

says I'm not authed :dunno:

Okay Pete's setting up a private forum for us, but I think it was a bad idea to lock down the original thread because BMJ if he ever decides to log in again his link to the thread will be dead and he won't see all the consteration and BS he's putting us through (assuming he cares, which doesn't seem a safe assumption) So for the moment stay tuned here until Pete gets a forum for us set up... Pete I didn't see it so I posted here.

Coolant system change over lead to a nasty surprise (that I'm still not completely sure about). As you can see the old closed pressurized system had been perdiodically overheating (boiling in the overflow) after long trips. The color was my first red flag: WTF? that looks like coffee! Straight away I assumed blown head gasket. The truck ran so well when I got it and time/work/familly kept me from ever changing out all the fluids which is a ritual I observe with any vehicle I get. So after pulling everything out this is what came out of the rad: Yep head gasket is leaking, no other explanation for the burnt smokey coolant, it's obviously an operable gasket failure and only starts leaking after longer drives. I suppose there's some possibility that the thermostat stuck leading to those boil overs but I can't explain the black coolant. The oil is fine and never milky so it's a small leak between a coolant jacket opening at the head, and a fire ring that's losing seal as it heats up.. The old renix is woefully underpowered compared to my other 4.0's. So anyway I went ahead and changed over to the open cooling system, back flushed the system several times over a couple weeks But like I said the truck runs like a champ starts every time and since flushing several times the coolant has come cleaner and cleaner. So when it goes I will upgrade the exhaust, and intake and put a ported HO head on it. So I went back to the fun stuff, customizing, I decided a while back that the XJ grill with the smaller thinner slats and wider openings wasn't beefy enough, the chrome 10 slot grill had the right proportions but they only came in chrome, and a black painted chrome one off Ebay just didn't quite work, too many lines, not simple enough to look beefy. Started in on that and the nasty headliner: And all the interior plastic which just needs to be black instead of tan:

Updates coming, managed to punch out some of the things on the to do list pics and write ups should follow: Black Interior makeover mostly done Headliner didn't turn out well New injectors idles smoother jury still out on fuel economy old ones looked like this: Tuneup mostly finished, need to drain all the driveline fluids still. Knock Sensor replaced, no change in fuel economy Open cooling system and found what is probably a small head gasket leak Re-install AC system (deleted by PO) blows cold now Full gauge cluster (need to get on this, I can't stand not having Oil and water gauges Minor custom treatment for the grille done Intake sealed to Cowl opening Tow package Springs front and rear New Rear (44 or 8.25) Detriot Truetrac LSD's front and rear Borla header (not done but bought one off Ebay for a hundred bucks... can't beat that.) Higher Flow exhaust Rear disc upgrade dependant on what rear I put in Front Speakers, rear 6X9's, rear small sub + amp done

you know it crossed my mind that you might have left it that way on purpose. anything you can do to improve search would be cool not in a rush or anything though.

Pete not trying to be a smart @$$ but this forum is misspelled :eek: reason for posting is to request the search option of searching only titles of posts instead of only the message body. This is the easiest way to cut out irrelevant results when searching for something specific.

JeepStrokers.com spun off that Yahoo email group just like Comancheclub spun off its yahoo group. Lots of people from that list are on the forum, it basically just started up but there's an assload of tech already up. A lot of recognizable Comanche folks already over there too, drop by the pub forum and check out the show your ride thread.

I really like the stock restoration look, because it's so rare. I can classify all the MJ's I've ever seen in my area as either unrestored or lifted... Of these the unrestored ones always make me wonder how long before the owner sends it off to the JY not realizing there are people out there that love these trucks and want to keep them from the crusher. Here's my restoration/mod (restomod) mostly stock build I'm hoping to do a 2wd street Comanche build in the future which is even more unusual of a build. http://www.comancheclub.com/forums/view ... sc&start=0

How NOT to remove door Windows: Pull the panel off Roll window down Try to unscrew the torx style zinc plated fastener Spend twenty minutes trying Cuss at fastener Cuss at Torx Cuss at bean counter that changed the fastener from hex head to torx Cuss at Engineer who decided this fastener needed 200 pounds of torque (the backing is basically a nylock nut and washer combined so it slips before it lets go.) Break window with nearby ball peen hammer (see pic) Pull whole assembly and try to remove nut from regulator using a vise Cuss at the parents who spawned the evil genius who designed this clever torture device slash window fastener Grind fastener completely off and pry off nylock backing while cussing... Replace with older style fastener from old 1989 regulator. Thought I'd give you some inspiration.

the grille and headlight bezels are painted body color but the metal trim strip at the header panel is not.

Maaaaaan that thing was knocking on deaths door, I admire your determination, replacing floors is common among Mustang enthusiasts, nice to see someone saving an MJ though. I've got some un-asked for advice as an amateur body guy and sheet metal fabricator I would square those patch holes so to the biggest size and most simple shape you can before you start cutting patch panels. It's going to make cutting the patches a bazillion times easier and fitting will go much faster. They aren't going to make any more MJ's and they aren't too common to begin with so :cheers:

Man you guys are going overboard, the pictures are setting me up! Sooner or later one of you will see it in person and see all the mistakes and dribs and drabs that don't come through in pics. I didn't even sand the PO's paint mistakes off, I left them knowing they would show through. It's a ten footer if I wet sand some more! but hey it's a work truck! ;) Thanks for the compliments just the same though, I like the color so much I may paint another Jeep that color, the next time though I'm going all out sanding and body work and shooting for 5 footer paint :) I could dig on an early 80's Fleetside (stepside) Honcho J20 360ci With the same basic scheme, or maybe an M715 hahah now that would be BA. The Hood is written up on NAXJA here: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.p ... +brew+cowl if that link dies (NAXJA screws thread numbers up sometimes) just search using "home brew cowl" in titles only and it will be the only result you get back. Some details about it are at the beginning of this thread, it was made for my XJ but the XJ is getting a new and improved version here soon.

PM'ed you about it... I've even got the perfect set of wheels laying around for it :)

Pics: How does everyone like the Icons and BFG's? In the sun that color jumps right out at you Here's a series of thumbs going around the truck showing the metal flake pop: The tailgate Jeep decals are matt black and are so close to the Krylon Semi-flat it's hard to tell I didn't paint them.