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Just Acquired: Engineless '86 Comanche Custom


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I just tow-dollied a new-to-me 1986 Comanche Custom 4x4 longbed home yesterday. In the bed is the automatic 207 drivetrain. It can stay there. The 2.8 threw rods years ago and the previous owner buried it with due respect. C'est la vie!

 

The truck came out of WV, so I'm surprised the body is so blessedly pristine. There's minimal surface rust from external damage, but no rust-through from salt or standing moisture, even in the floor. Woohoo! Except the lousy perforated tailgate and rear bumper. The truck was off the road for 10+ years.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to the junkyard and hoping to come home with a 51k-mile LS4 5.3 Chevrolet (303 hp!) V8 and an NSG370 six-speed. I already have a couple NP229's leftover from my full-size (man, I miss my Grand Wagoneer!) days. I plan to use the truck for hauling & towing, not off-road rock-climbing.

 

I'm all ears when it comes to good advice. Being a low-option 1986, it has vinyl buckets, crank windows, and manual door locks. How retro! I didn't get a door key either. Just a single GM ignition one. The seats are OK, but I wouldn't mind more modern creature comforts and I'm not cranked about the interior color: dark red. So I'm wondering if the best route to power door locks, power windows, and a plusher dashboard would be to find a later donor Cherokee and transplant freely? I understand the doors are pretty plug'n'play, but how about the whole dashboard? Anybody know what years are best or off-limits? Will any Cherokee do? For the sake of the drivetrain, apparently I'll be doing practically the whole underhood wiring harness anyway. How plug'n'play would a whole dashboard be? (The vinyl top to mine is cracking up pretty badly.) I'll need manual clutch & brake pedals, so I'm thinking a donor is just the right ticket. But I'd like to limit myself to just a single donor if I can, so as not to clog up the whole driveway with a glut of gutted Jeep carcasses. Beautiful as that might sound, my neighbors have different aesthetic tastes than I do. Of course, if you've got a carcass with just the right parts I need, I'd be happy to haul it away for you if you're within shouting distance to improve your neighborly relations.

 

Incidentally, does anybody make a plug-in trailer wiring harness, and/or trailer hitch for these trucks? A quick check of a trailering website found a big, fat nothing.

 

Thomas

SW Virginia

 

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Your truck is most likely already wired for power locks and windows, you just need the equipment. Any high-trim XJ up to '95 will have most of what you need and will swap in without too much trouble but the higher you go up in option levels the harder it is to find a manual. The Comanche does have several specific interior components, but a good portion of the interior will swap directly from an XJ. I believe you can also swap for the 91-96 front clip, which is a little easier to find parts for in my experience.

 

Avoid a '96 donor if possible, it was a weird year with a lot of non-matching parts.

 

:needpics:

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Gotta say your braver than I am, jumpin in with a V8 swap on a vehicle that most find a challenge just droppin an I6 into.

Good luck and tell us how your progress goes.

FWIW lots of support here on the board.

If you don't mind my askin, why not just do the I6 swap, way easier in the long run especially if you can get a complete donor to help with the swap?

And welcome to the club

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A V8 is a lot shorter than a straight 6, and length is the problem with the straight 6.

 

The problem with a V8 is going to be cooling. The front of a Comanche simply has not been designed for enough airflow to cool a V8.

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I just signed up for this forum. I haven't figured out how to do pics yet. Most other forums I've been on don't allow them, so that's a pretty novel feature for me. I'll get some up when I figure out how.

 

I'm also the proud owner of a 1964 Rambler American convertible. I also have a fuel-injected AMC 360 built and ready to go into it, but for some "final" prep, like painting & wiring & adapting the motor mounts, etc. Small stuff.

 

But while researching that swap, I ran across the curious fact that while AMC did install their small-block V8 in later Americans, during the first years of that body, they only used the I6. When they did get around to installing the V8, they lengthened the engine compartment 3" to allow extra room for the A/C accessories at the front.

 

With that background, I wasn't surprised when I began reading the Novak Adapters website that says one of the most difficult swaps into an '84-'86 XJ/MJ is a Jeep 4.0 I6. What??, I said! Apparently AMC had to modify the firewall to fit the I6 when they finally got it into the engine compartment. So a Jeep 4.0 isn't an especially easy swap into an older Comanche that wasn't designed for it.

 

So once freed of the notion that I had to stick with a Jeep drivetrain, I went "shopping". I'd much rather use a Pentastar 3.6, but apparently the aftermarket hates Chrysler computers when it comes to swapping things around. And for that reason, nobody wants to makes the rest of the hard parts, like engine & tranny mounts & bellhousing adapters & clutch parts, etc. On the other hand, Novak in particular, and other suppliers in general, are practically delirious about how "easy" it is to fit a Chevy into a Comanche, and how great the results are. For sure, after you read the Novak website, it looks like they have practically everything covered, although some of their solutions look a bit pricey.

 

I'm also the proud owner of a Buick 215 V8. If I could figure out how to get that engine under the hood, I'd consider that, too, but plowing the ground on that is a little daunting since we're talking about a mating it to a potentially hostile 4WD drivetrain.

 

Oh, and Novak promises you'll be in hellish hot water trouble w/o their super-duper (expensive) custom aluminum radiator & fan setup. I kinda believe them, but I sure don't want to find out the hard way if they're right. Burning up a "new" engine isn't my idea of fun.

 

 

 

Thomas

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By the way, about those power door locks:

 

What's the electronic wizardry that makes power door locks work with a remote transmitter? Is that part of what "body computers" do? If so, where are those body computers usually located?

 

Minuit says power door locks & windows are available just by plugging in the right parts from a later XJ. But my semi-defective memory says cars didn't have remote lock transmitters that far back. So would there be wiring for that too?

 

Oh, and I looked around for pic-posting directions or an obvious link somewhere. No dice. How 'ya do it?

 

Thomas

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  On 5/13/2013 at 1:30 AM, mvusse said:

A V8 is a lot shorter than a straight 6, and length is the problem with the straight 6.

 

The problem with a V8 is going to be cooling. The front of a Comanche simply has not been designed for enough airflow to cool a V8.

I've been thinking about this, and i don't see much difference between an xj and a zj...and they came factory with 318's and 360s? Wheres the huge design difference that lets the zj keep a 5.9 cool?

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  On 5/13/2013 at 3:42 AM, mpace6a said:

 

  On 5/13/2013 at 1:30 AM, mvusse said:

A V8 is a lot shorter than a straight 6, and length is the problem with the straight 6.

 

The problem with a V8 is going to be cooling. The front of a Comanche simply has not been designed for enough airflow to cool a V8.

I've been thinking about this, and i don't see much difference between an xj and a zj...and they came factory with 318's and 360s? Wheres the huge design difference that lets the zj keep a 5.9 cool?

 

I've seen quite a few 5.2 and 5.9 ZJs at the junk yard that got there by means of fire, ie, the engine bay and hood were toasted remains of an engine...  Not sure if there's a link to the cooling design, but just putting that out there.

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  On 5/13/2013 at 3:42 AM, mpace6a said:

 

  On 5/13/2013 at 1:30 AM, mvusse said:

A V8 is a lot shorter than a straight 6, and length is the problem with the straight 6.

 

The problem with a V8 is going to be cooling. The front of a Comanche simply has not been designed for enough airflow to cool a V8.

I've been thinking about this, and i don't see much difference between an xj and a zj...and they came factory with 318's and 360s? Wheres the huge design difference that lets the zj keep a 5.9 cool?

 

I believe a ZJ radiator is much taller than an MJ/XJ engine compartment allows, but never looked that closely at them. Even so, they had to install hood scoops to loose hot air on the 360 equipped models.

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I bought my niece a 1998 5.9 liter Jeep Grand Cherokee. There's no room in that engine compartment. But cooling isn't as much about space as it is air flow through a radiator. Our 71 Chevy Kingswood Estate with a 400 engine overheated all the time until we got a large enough radiator in it. Can't say that problem was caused by a too-tight engine compartment.

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  On 5/13/2013 at 10:37 AM, mvusse said:

 

  On 5/13/2013 at 3:42 AM, mpace6a said:

 

  On 5/13/2013 at 1:30 AM, mvusse said:

 

A V8 is a lot shorter than a straight 6, and length is the problem with the straight 6.

 

The problem with a V8 is going to be cooling. The front of a Comanche simply has not been designed for enough airflow to cool a V8.

I've been thinking about this, and i don't see much difference between an xj and a zj...and they came factory with 318's and 360s? Wheres the huge design difference that lets the zj keep a 5.9 cool?

I believe a ZJ radiator is much taller than an MJ/XJ engine compartment allows, but never looked that closely at them. Even so, they had to install hood scoops to loose hot air on the 360 equipped models.

Didnt think about rad height...

Well at any rate, i plan on a 5.2 magnum for my 86...from what ive read any engine swap in an 86 is a royal pita...so go big or go home right?

Planned on a hood scoop...maybe an electric fan under the scoop to help pull hot air out, similar to what pete has in his

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Some ideas on larger rads:

 

http://comancheclub.com/topic/3219-project-black-betty/

  On 1/30/2011 at 10:46 PM, shelbyluvv said:

I had to chop out the stock cross member. These things are super weak with that thing missing. I put this one in and gained some more room for a larger radiator.



The next move is the trans mount and chopping a hole in the floor for the transfer to fit.

... Two core aluminum radiator. It is the perfect size at 22 w x 19 h.

 

http://comancheclub.com/topic/17566-360-fuel-injection-build/

  On 2/10/2010 at 4:30 AM, 360MJDude said:


Should be no problem keeping it cool like all the other guys say. Def was not wasting my money on the $500.00+ radiators on the internet. Specifically 98 Grand Cherokee 5.9 two core, currently doing heat transfer analysis at school to verify radiator sizing for fun!!!! Flow once grille is on should be comparable to grand cherokee

 

  On 2/10/2010 at 2:13 PM, 360MJDude said:

... i made a new cross member (stronger than the oe)...

 

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