extended cab Comanche

[gogmorgo]

I have yet to see a quad-cab XMJ that doesn't make my OCD twitch. While some of the photoshops aren't bad, it's the ones that have been done in real life that bug me.

The problem is that the angle of the back of the MJ's cab (and the b-pillar vents) matches the end of the front door, and it's window. The back of the rear XJ doors and their windows are an intermediate angle between the near-vertical rear edge of the front door windows and the slope of the back of the XJ, which is much steeper than the back of the MJ cab.

So if you add material to the back of the XJ rear door to match the MJ door's opening, then you end up with an awkward V of material between the vent covers and the window, as with the one above. Same as if you modify the door opening to match the door, then the awkward gap is just in the pillar instead of the door. One guy on here cut the door down the middle and added the back of the front door to the front of the rear door, which should work, except the front edge of the rear doors is slanted forward, resulting in an awkward trapezoidal window opening that's wider at the top than the bottom, which is incongruous with the general profile of the cab, also a trapezoid, but one that is wider at the bottom.

 

What I think would be better would be to leave the rear door alone (except for filling in the wheel opening), modify the rear pillar to match and adjusting the angle of the back of the MJ cab to match the XJ rear door window. You'd likely have to leave the vent covers off (and find a new solution to the cab pressure vent) or else create new vent covers to match the new angles. Or I guess you could do the retro thing like older crew-cab trucks did, and just use two sets of front doors?

I know a lot of work goes into making a four-door MJ, so I don't want to criticize people who've gone through with it, but at the same time it doesn't sit right with me to do all that work and have a finished product that doesn't match itself. It's a bit the same as the '97+ conversion that leaves the rear flares and tail lights mismatched with the front of the truck. Sure it's your project and you can do it however you want, but I know deep down in there somewhere you'll have to suppress the twitch as well. I guess it's just easier for some than others.

 

The extended cab that just adds material to the pillar or that expands the door opening to accommodate the longer two-door XJ's doors? Spot on. No twitch there. :thumbsup:

[HOrnbrod]

I've never an extended cab MJ, or anything else, that looked good. Even the factory efforts. They are built to serve a purpose, a special requirement, not to look good. I think they all look like crap, especially with the older boxier styling.

 

 

[Doc.]

I don't want a 4 door anyway. So cutting up and XJ certainly won't be what I would do. I would like just a little more leg room and maybe a little extra storage space behind the seat in a nice short bed MJ.

 

I did some measuring from a 2 door to a 4 door again. The 2 door, door, is basically 8 3/4 longer than a 4 door front door. I think I have my sister talked into doing a photo chop for me. If she does I'll post them up to see what people think of what I'm contemplating.

 

BTW, I think that custom Chevy extended cab looks pretty nice.

[Doc.]

This is close as far as longer doors, but the extended cab looks like cut up XJ to me, clearly not the back of an MJ cab. I'd only want to do one stretch or the other, not both.

[Eagle]

IMHO Jeep really screwed the pooch when they came out with the MJ. There is no usable storage inside the cab. They had the 2-door XJ, so they could easily have based the MJ on a 2-door XJ unibody, provided a smidge of interior storage space, and given better access to the space behind the seat all in one shot. Doing it the way they did was, IMHO, incredibly shortsighted.

[HOrnbrod]

I agree with this somewhat but I don't think they had much choice. Back in the mid-eighties compact pickups were super hot sellers. The GM S10 / S15 and Ford Ranger pickups were selling like hotcakes along with the foreign Nissan/Datsun and Toyota offerings. AMC conceived the Cherokee-derived Comanche in an attempt to grab a piece of the action. And it did pretty well at first, especially after the 4.0 engine became available. Then other manufacturers came out with variances like extended cabs, more powerful "sporty" versions, and everyone was doing pretty well. By then AMC was dying, and because of economics they never could never offer more than the original LWB/SWB/2WD/4WD versions with only two engines to pick from. So the Comanche eventually stopped selling and died, and soon thereafter the compact truck market died out all together. They (AMC then Chryco) did what they could with limited resources, so I give them kudos for that.

[87MJTIM]

I agree with this somewhat but I don't think they had much choice. Back in the mid-eighties compact pickups were super hot sellers. The GM S10 / S15 and Ford Ranger pickups were selling like hotcakes along with the foreign Nissan/Datsun and Toyota offerings. AMC conceived Cherokee-derived Comanche in an attempt to grab a piece of the action. And it did pretty well at first, especially after the 4.0 engine became available. Then other manufacturers came out with variances like extended cabs, more powerful "sporty" versions, and everyone was doing pretty well. By then AMC was dying, and because of economics they never could never offer more than the original LWB/SWB/2WD/4WD versions with only two engines to pick from. So the Comanche eventually stopped selling and died, and soon thereafter the compact truck market died out all together. They (AMC then Chryco) did what they could with limited resources, so I give them kudos for that.

 

The "mid-size" pickups ultimately took more steroids than Lance Armstrong.  When our MJs were "new," they were equal size to the Ranges and S10s.  The small pickups, Toyotas and Nissans/Datsuns, were just that: small.  Even VW has a micro pickup.

 

Jump to today, my MJ is small compared to the smallest that Ford/GM/Dodge/Toyota/Nissan have to offer.  Heck, even those 4 door things called Jeep Wranglers are bigger than my MJ.

 

I wish that Jeep (AMC then Chrysler) had offered an extended cab version.  But, alas, they did not.  I will keep my MJ looking the way it came out of the factory.  My 2¢.

[johnj92131]

Don beat me to the point I also would make.  The Cherokee was desigined in the early 80's by AMC with very tight financial resources.  They did a great job of expanding the XJ market into the bigger than mini truck market with the MJ.  AMC just did not have the financial resources to do most of the things the wanted to do to expand their products.  Everything at AMC was done on the cheap - because it had to be done  that way.

Since the mid 80's, just about everything in this country has been SuperSized, including half ton trucks.

 

Doc, I think you are really spot on by just expanding the Comanche cab by the length of the longer door and NOT tacking anything on to the Comanche B pillar.  Most interested in how you are going to mate the two different floor pans and the seat mounting points.  Because the Comanche floor pan starts to change just ahead of the rear inside seat bracket. (And why we have MJ specific rear bucket seat brackets).  This will give you a Comanche that will be very, very hard to tell from stock and just a couple of inches more wheelbase than the  stock long bed.

[Lowrange2]

 

Honestly,  I think it'd be pretty silly to build an Extended cab MJ when you could easily chop the back off of an XJ, close it in and build a tailgate with MUCH less effort and end up with basically the same thing. 

 

It depends on your point of view, doesn't it?  I see jacked up trucks driving down the street and I think they look very silly.  Not to mention when you see one of these lifted trucks in an accident. I see lowered cars with air bags and I wonder what is the point of going down the street with 1 inch of road clearance.

 

No way to get a decent size bed on an XJ conversion.  Also, XJ conversion lacks the proper factory transition to a cargo box frame.

The XJ conversion is just a weakened unibody structure with the top cut off.

 

So if you want to convert an XJ to a truck the "proper" way - you should follow the example of the factory engineers.  I am quite sure they did the math.

 

Seriously Lowrange2, don't you think if it were just as simple and easy as you propose, the factory would have done it your way?  They must have had good reason to do it the way they did - don't you think?

 

 

What does a jacked up truck or lowered vehicle have to do with this?  lol  

 

Yes, I'm sure they did it the way they did for a reason.   They didn't build a 4 door MJ because they would have to have a 4ft long bed to look halfway decent. 

 

 

Honestly,  I think it'd be pretty silly to build an Extended cab MJ when you could easily chop the back off of an XJ, close it in and build a tailgate with MUCH less effort and end up with basically the same thing.

Not at all the same thing. Lots of people have done the Cheromanche mod, and you get a vehicle that has a load bed that's no more than two feet long.

 

 

 

Now HERE's a nice crew cab XMJ:

 

 

 

 

Meh, then you end up with a hideously LONG land yacht of a tuck.   That red "quad cab" looks terrible, IMO.  

[Eagle]

Meh, then you end up with a hideously LONG land yacht of a tuck.   That red "quad cab" looks terrible, IMO.

That one was done using a full-length longbed box. Where my wife came from in South America, 4-door pick-em-ups are very popular. The beds are big enough to be useful (longer than a Cheromanche), but not even the six feet of an MJ shortbed. I think the boxes on those South American trucks are about five feet. I think a dual can MJ built on a shortbed would look okay. Yes, it would have a long wheelbase, but I've driven some dual cab full-size pickups. Those require a master mariner's license for piloting an ocean liner.

[gogmorgo]

Lol, a mariner's license for sure. I've been cruising around at work in a 3/4 ton crew-cab Chevy with an 8' bed. Took it home once with a 20' trailer behind and had to make the world's most awkward and jack-knifey 3-point turn to get around my cul-de-sac. Took it home a few days later without the trailer, and discovered the trailer had nothing to do with me having to do a 3-pointer. That thing's turning circle has to be well over 50 feet. It's wheelbase alone is longer than my Lada's total length.

I see the occasional later (rounder) S10 four-door, and they don't look too bad with a short bed. Same with the first-gen Canyolado's. The latest ones are getting a bit big though.

[HOrnbrod]

I love how this guy re-purposed leftover scrap wood from the building to construct the stunning cab back wall. Wonder if he'll put a slider window in there or leave it open for natural air conditioning.

 

[johnj92131]

Don, Maybe it is a home made "mid-gate"?  Like on the Chevy Avalanche?  Lets you put longer items into the rear seat!  Kind of folds forward out of the way...

[HOrnbrod]

:rotfl2:   Could very well be John. 

[Pete M]

based on the wrinkles in the sheetmetal and the, um, quality of the woodwork it almost looks like a late-night I-gotta-drive-to-work-tomorrow kind of fix. 

[COFFMAN]

wasn't there a real well done white dual cab...Posted a while back......

[mikekaz1]

There was an white extended cab someone found in the junkyard one time. That's the only other one in know of

[Doc.]

My computer skills aren't that good but I think these photo chops are good enough to get an idea of how my thoughts could look.

1st photo, unmodified cab. 2nd cab extended about 4 inches, 3rd photo 2door XJ doors.

Image Not Found

[Doc.]

Sorry the pics are so small, been a while since I went to save photos on the intranet. Photo bucket really stinks now from what I remember. I don't know why it saved them so small and I don't know why it won't let me enlarge them. Tried to use my website to host the photos there. That has been redone also and now I can't figure out how to update my own website !?! Arg.

 

Anyway, thoughts?

The more I look at these pics the more I like the unmodified cab.

[sloride]

I like the 2 door xj door version. It looks promising.

[Eagle]

I'd like to see the version with the XJ doors but with the extra extension behind the doors. That would make for a much more useful interior IMHO.

[buckwheat]

This is ideal IMO. All the dimensions come out really nice and it seems factory put together. Plus the most useful storage space & more leg room.

[johnj92131]

Doc,

 

I really like the look of the longer XJ doors.  Hope to see this project move forward.

 

Quite a subtle change that gives you just a little more room in the cab but keeps the stock lines.  Most people would have no clue how custom the truck really was.

[johnj92131]

 

This is ideal IMO. All the dimensions come out really nice and it seems factory put together. Plus the most useful storage space & more leg room.

 

 

So where do the parts come from to do this version in REAL Life?  What about the interior parts required, where do they come from?  The Long Door version uses all factory parts. 

 

And I don't like the sub 5 foot bed.  Near useless from my point of view.  What is the point of a micro bed? 

[88whitemanche]

There was a guy on this forum that cut the front half of a Cherokee and put it together with a Comanche cab back and welded it together...I wonder if that truck still exist....

But the way he did it would be the only way to obtain the parts and work needed....