Yet Another Money Pit... (Pics Be Warned!)

[BeenJaminJames]

So a good friend of mine got me a pickup this past X-mas.  Knowing how much I've always loved these things, when he saw a guy loading this one up on a trailer to haul it to the scrapyard, he cut the dude a deal on it and drove it to my house announcing "Merry Christmas".  Needless to say, I'm a lucky guy and have good friends! :)  It's an '88 Pioneer model, 4.0/AW4/NP231 and what I *think* are D30 front/D35 rear axles, but I don't know enough about these things to tell them apart by looking.  Now I've got lots of experience building and driving sportscars, but since this is my first jeep, my first 4wd, and my first pickup, I intend to take time to document the process and hopefully get some much-needed advice from you guys.  It's the questions I don't know to ask, that worries me.  Never dealt with leaf springs before, or track bars, or transfer cases, or... you get the drift.  So feel free to ask questions and pitch in with any advice if you think I may be overlooking something important. ;)

 

 

First order of business was letting it sit all winter because I'm a pansy and don't like working on things when it's constantly cold and raining and snowing.  Only thing I did was yank out that old drop-in bedliner and stare in astonishment at the complete absence of rust underneath!  Apparently it hadn't been there long, because paint had been worn off and bare metal was showing, but no rust had started to form yet.  I can only hope the good luck continues.  Now that it's warm weather, it's time to dig out the wrenches! 

[88whitemanche]

Sweet deal what a good friend you have....and that he helped keep another Manche out the junkyard!!!! Welcome to the club!

[partsmj]

Nice score. Pioneers rule!

[BeenJaminJames]

Sweet deal what a good friend you have....and that he helped keep another Manche out the junkyard!!!! Welcome to the club!

 

Not junkyard, scrapyard.  That beautiful, rust free, running and driving, dent free truck you see in those pictures was about to get crushed and recycled for $9.50/100lbs.  The guy apparently had court fines to pay or something, and since the jeep had been sitting for a few months with a bad starter it apparently made sense to scrap it instead of one of the dozens of other cars he had that were in far worse condition.  Either way, the truck and I are both very lucky! :banana:

[BeenJaminJames]

Apparently these tailgates are expensive and hard to find.  (Of course!)  So while I fully intend on getting a proper tailgate to show off the JEEP moniker (someone accused my truck of looking too much like a ford ranger the other day!) I plan to dedicate time and resources to more important things for now, like the lack of operational 4wd.  So a trip to the hardware store and a couple hours later, I at least have something that performs all the same functions.  Ugly as it is, I'm 6'6" 245 pounds and it doesn't creak or bow at all when I jump on it...

 

 

Now that I have that done, I've got a lovely no-start issue.  Last few miles it was running horribly rich (blowing black smoke every time you put your foot in it, looked and sounded exactly like a cummins) and getting about 4mpg.  Now it won't start at all.  It's definitely got fuel, spark seems a bit weak/erratic but not to the point that it shouldn't at least try to run.  Started digging into the wiring harness and found out that whoever was the last person under the hood seems to have made some, er, subpar electrical modifications. :rant:   Time to start hunting down vacuum leaks, short circuits, burned wires, and other general nonsense that I've come to expect with cheap too-good-to-be-true vehicles like this.

[BeenJaminJames]

I LOVE MY JEEP! :banana:

So I figured out why it wouldn't start.  Weak/erratic spark, started looking in the usual places and found the cps pigtail melted by the exhaust manifold.  My first thought, "What a goofy place to put a cps, back there on the bellhousing where you can't get to it with the wires running across the exhaust".  My second thought, "Wait a minute, now I gotta tear this thing apart to get to that $&%@# sensor! :grrrr: "  After 3 hours of cussing and procrastination, I crawled underneath and set to work, amazed that I didn't even have to jack the thing up to crawl under.  15 minutes and 4 bolts later, I'm holding the cps in my hand, cutting out the burnt section and stripping wires.  20 more minutes and I had it soldered up, reassembled, and engine idling.  I'm officially in love!  Other than these darn torx bolts this is by far the simplest and easiest vehicle I've ever worked on.

 

While I was under there I also discovered why I don't seem to have 4wd.  There's a hole in my front axle!  You can see two halves of the passenger side axleshaft, and a sliding collar.  Apparently there's supposed to be a shift fork, cover plate, and some form of linkage attached there, but it's all missing.  I couldn't find any dangling wires or cables nearby, nor anything on the transfer case shift linkage that looks like it might be related, so now I'm missing parts and don't even know what I need.  Wonder how many miles that diff has been driven with no fluid (and probably quite a bit of muddy contaminants)?  I know I've put about 50 miles on the truck since I got it, including blasting down my long muddy driveway, plus no telling where else it's been like that before I got it. :doh:  

 

Think tomorrow I'll try to slide the engaging ring over and put a couple spot welds on the splines just to keep it in place for now, until I can get my hands on a bigger front axle.  That little bitty d30 just looks fragile, not to mention the goofy engaging ring they put in there.  No sense putting money or time into something that's just going to shatter the first time I get in the woods with it.

[1tonMJ]

You can use a delete plate to cover the hole and use a long side D30 axle shaft to fix the disconnect issue. Otherwise you are right on the D30. Definitely get the shaft at a JY.

[yellaheep]

6'6" and 245 lbs?!?!?  How the heck do you even FIT in that Comanche?????  LOL!  You are one big sumbich! 

 

Congrats on the neat MJ!  Friends are good, but good friends are the best. :thumbsup:

[BeenJaminJames]

I made a cover plate out of an old car hood, with liberal amounts of rtv.  Instead of paying money for a 1-piece axle, I put a couple spot welds on the splined shafts to limit the engaging ring from sliding back over.  Total cost of repair: $0.00

 

The comanche is the only non-fullsize truck I've ever been able to find that provided me sufficient headroom.  It's about as comfy as an 80s fullsize chevy, which ain't bad.  And can haul/tow nearly as much.  And nearly as lightweight as the venerable Toyota hilux.  And about as maneuverable and offroad capable as a hilux.  Oh yeah, and it looks better too!  Could I ask for anything more in a truck?  ...Turns out I can, which you guys will see what I have in mind as this thread develops. ;)

 

I seem to have a bigger 4wd problem than I thought.  Now I don't know the first thing about 4wd trucks and transfer cases, but with the t-case in 4wd, trans in park, and back wheels on the ground, should I be able to spin the front driveshaft by hand?  Even with the engagement ring locked over on the axle, I'm still not getting any power to the front wheels.  I just got stuck in my front yard (grass, hasn't rained in weeks, 31" all-terrains) and had to get my compact nissan sportscar to pull it out with a chain.  Talk about embarrassing.  :help:   The shift linkage looks fine, and it goes into lowrange without any problems.  Not too sure what to look for aside from pulling the case and taking a peek inside.  Not really sure what to look for in there either, but I assume it's most likely a fairly simple contraption.  Seems like I spend 10 hours researching for every hour I spend actually working on this thing haha