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Bonneville Comanche


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Most of the work over the last 6 months have been on the engine, and has been documented pretty well over at http://www.Jeepstrokers.com

 

We are getting pretty serious about the body, the roll cage is pretty much done, and the body was painted last week. (Black) Work this weekend was on the suspension. We need to drop the Comanche 4" at least.

We have a 2wd. Actually most of the Comanches built were 2wd. I thought the subject of dropping it would be interest ot some of the other people on the board. Not everybody is into 4wd and massive lift kits.

 

To drop the front, we came up with the idea of keeping the stock axle in the same location, and just raising up the C pieces. I thought of cutting off the C pieces and welding on some kind of machined part that would go inside the tube and fit in the C piece. It turns out the the spring is almost right up against the c piece, so no room to put anything in there. Plan B, Purchase another 2wd axle and cut it about 8" in from the C pieces, just the other side of the spring buckets. The cut off the C pieces and spring buckets form the original axle and stack the tubes. This would make kind of a drop axle. The problem is that the coil springs would be 4" too long. You could cut the stock springs down, but the suspension was way too soft for what we wanted to do, soi purchased some Eibach stock car springs that were 9" long ( 600 ldb rate) the stock springs are around a 200 lb rate.

 

The front axle tube is only 2.5" in diameter, so if you put tube on top of the tube, it would only drop the truck 2.5" , I wanted 4". We also needed a way to align the two tubes. I came up with the idea of using some 2" channel iron that would sit on top of the tube and give me a flat surface. The flat part of the channel was up and the open part of the channel was down straddling the tube. I used about an 8" piece. Now i had a flat surface , and it was about 5/8" above the tube. I was looking for 1.5" to get the total drop to 4" So i inverted another piece of channel on top of the first, and ended up with about 3 3/4" drop. The inverted channel also served to line up the upper tube. it created a nest for it to sit in. Looking from the end, the two pieces f chanel looked like an I beam turned sideways. I will take some pictures tonight so you can see what I am talking about.

 

For the rear we will be using a 4 link with coils overs, but that is another post.

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I got my hopes up when I realized you were in IL, then I found out it's a 6 hour drive from me, a little west of StL. One of these days I'd like to pop on over and check the truck out.

I would really like to see pictures of your roll cage, and how you routed it, if you don't mind.

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:rock on: What are you using for a power plaint in this thing ? Just wondering about your clearance under the motor

 

 

The axle under the motor stays in the same place, only the C pieces are moved up and shorter coil springs are used. The suspension connection points and the geometery are all the same as stock.

 

We are using a 4.0L bored and stroked to 5.0L So the engine sits the same as stock.

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You can come out, finding a place to stay is a problem, everything is booked up. You can camp for free off the access road to the salt. They have Porta potties, and there is a truck stop about 1/2 mile away where you can get a shower and they let you fill water cans or water tanks on your camper. they also have a dump station.

 

From Chicago you can fly to salt lake for about $200.00 You would then have to rent a car, and if you camped the cost would be minimal.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I live close and still haven't been for speed weeks... Then again, I have been to Moab yet either and only managed parts fo the Pony Express Trail. Might finally get me out to the salt to see a MJ run it... :cheers:

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Great progress Peter. Been following the project off and on over on Strokers. :D Couple of questions:

1. Did Lee at Hesco provide any good usable advice and/or equipment for you?

2. Are you planning on adding any kind of belly pan? Or is that allowed?

3. Are the specs for the stroker build over on the Stroker forum?

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