89 Comanche "Country" LWB restomod project

[Pete M]

35 feels a bit high to me for big fat tires under a lightweight Jeep.  my chalk tests always came out good at 25 but every tire is a bit different.    don't be married to what the tire place gave you.  run a chalk test and see where you're at.  

[Airborne Janitor]

Yup. You can see in this pic I took today that the air pressure is a little high by the tire wear. Ill dial it in soon.

 

[motownXJdad]

man, what a great project. great looking comanche, i will definately be referencing this thread for info. nice work and thank you for your service👍

[Airborne Janitor]

47 minutes ago, motownXJdad said:

man, what a great project. great looking comanche, i will definately be referencing this thread for info. nice work and thank you for your service👍

 

Thanks man, and thanks for the support! 

[Airborne Janitor]

Finally got around to pulling off the Cherokee door trim and decals. Heat gun, Goof Off, and a lot of elbow grease was needed but they came off clean.

 

 

 

 

I wish a had the money for a proper auto body job, but until then I'll be rocking the multiple colors and dents....

 

 

 

Decided to give my rig a little personality with these badges I found on ebay. I have some smaller ones on the fenders too.

 

 

My radiator developed a tiny pin hole leak where the passenger side tank met the cooling fins. Decided to dust off that Mishimoto (MMRAD-XJ-89) box I've had around and install a new radiator. I got this as an open box special, and found that it was missing the fitting from the neck to the overflow. Not to mention the threads in the radiator neck were completely trashed. Ended up drilling the hole out larger and tapping it to 1/8" NPT and put an 1/8" barb in there instead.

 

 

 

It's a really nice radiator, but I expected a bigger temperature drop. I think it lowered temps by 5*, motor seems to averaging around 200-210* now.

 

I forgot to mention that last month I fixed my Part-Time 4WD light that didn't work after the front axle swap.

 

 

If I known it was this easy I would've done it years ago. Write-up here:

 

 

The suspension lift has settled about 1/2" the last few months, but I'm still sitting about 3" higher in the back. I considering swapped out my new metric-ton springs to pair of stock 3+1 springs I was going to rebuild, then I realized the payload capacity on the metric-ton springs is about 600lbs higher than the regular springs. 

 

So I went down to the rock quarry and loaded the bed with one ton of gravel. I'm going to leave it over the weekend before I spread it on my driveway to see if that helps it settle some more....

 

 

 

Man I really missed having a pick-up truck bed for jobs like this!

[Airborne Janitor]

Well after a few one-ton hauls of gravel, the rear has sagged a whopping 1/2"! Was hoping for a little more, but oh well, I'm sure it will sag a little more over time. Decided to go ahead and install Bilstein shocks all around. Bilstein 5100 24-185943 for the fronts, Bilstein 5125 33-185552 for the rears.

 

 

 

 

Built a little bracket for my loose vacuum canister that was rattling around:

 

 

 

And the MJ tipped the 200,000 mile mark!

 

 

 

Brought home some additional "toys"

 

 

 

 

 

Brought back a LWB frame, bed, and camper from Montana. Then bought @JordanTMiller leftover parts MJ. The plan is to built an offroad camper out of the frame/bed/camper, and the gray parts MJ will be offered as sacrifice for the camper and blue MJ. Rear axle, springs, shackles, and wiring for the camper, then cutting out the cab corners and rockers for my blue MJ. The gray MJ does not run, is 2WD, interior is pretty much stripped, and I have no interest in building another running MJ out of it. The parts will go to good use, and the remainder will end up in the for sale forum.

 

 

Big plans for the next few months either way. Got 4.56 gears, a bored out TB, and a cruise control kit to install very soon.

 

 

 

[Airborne Janitor]

Squeezed in a few more upgrades today. Contacted Jeff at Leigh Performance Machine a few months back and got a 60mm bored RENIX throttle body from him. Look at the pics compared to the stock TB, it really is a work of art.

 

 

 

http://strokedjeep.com/renix t-body.html

 

Of course I broke the MAP sensor line during install, so I followed @cruiser54 upgrade

 

https://cruiser54.com/?p=280

 

 

 

The elbows and line were a very tight fit. I used heat gun to soften things up a little, and to create the bends in the plastic tubing. I also replaced my old TPS with a NOS Mopar 33004650, and put in a new WIX 46077 air filter.

 

My airbox had warped slightly over the years, to where there wasn't much of a "shoulder" for the air filter to grab onto. Used a couple of clamps and the heat gun again to "tighten" the box up, and pulled out that plastic butterfly plate from the front intake. 

 

 

These upgrades really improved how my MJ runs. Idle, throttle response, and shifts are much better. Feels like one hell of a tune up! I think the new TPS helped a lot.

 

I also dropped my coolant temps about 15* my replacing the Duralast TU108 coolant temperature sensor (left) with a Mopar 53005309 (right). 

 

 

I noticed the "stud" on the Mopar unit is thicker than the Duralast one, which allows the connector to fit much tighter. I read in another forum how the aftermarket temp sensors can be hit n miss, which clearly was the case with mine.

 

 

[Airborne Janitor]

A few more upgrades over the last few weeks.

 

Installed an OEM transfer case skid. I know there are better aftermarket options, but I'm not rockcrawling in this MJ and it was cheap. Did have to fab a couple of "nut serts" to install.

 

 

 

Found these chrome gauge trim rings on ebay and had to have them.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/222450910478

 

Installed with a little bit of prying and superglue. Polished the plastic cover with a buffing wheeling and some tripoli compound. Good as new.

 

 

While I had the dash apart I wired up the low washer light to be functional.

 

 

References here:

 

 

The dash all buttoned up.

 

 

Then I installed cruise control, which works but I'm still dialing it in.

 

 

 

references here:

 

 

 

[eaglescout526]

1 hour ago, Airborne Janitor said:

While I had the dash apart I wired up the low washer light to be functional.

 

 

 

How much fun was that? Second Renix MJ to add that feature.

[Airborne Janitor]

1 hour ago, eaglescout526 said:

 

 

How much fun was that? Second Renix MJ to add that feature.

 

Glad to be a part of the club.

[eaglescout526]

14 minutes ago, Airborne Janitor said:

 

Glad to be a part of the club.

Kinda is a special kind of club haha. 

[Minuit]

Good stuff. Love the little things like the low washer light to round out a build.

 

I find it very interesting that you had the exact same results with your TU108 sensor vs the Mopar version as I did. Wonder if the thermistor inside is specced improperly? At the time I chalked it up to a single inaccurate sensor, but I have to wonder if it's all of them. If so, that's a lot of "overheating" trucks that are actually just fine.

[Airborne Janitor]

On 12/18/2022 at 10:17 PM, Minuit said:

I find it very interesting that you had the exact same results with your TU108 sensor vs the Mopar version as I did. Wonder if the thermistor inside is specced improperly? At the time I chalked it up to a single inaccurate sensor, but I have to wonder if it's all of them. If so, that's a lot of "overheating" trucks that are actually just fine.

 

I wondered the same thing, that these crappy aftermarket temp sensors may have caused a lot of "overheating" issues in many MJs and XJs over the years. So I ordered a Mopar unit for my XJ that I will install when I flush the coolant in the spring. 

[Airborne Janitor]

Happy New Year everyone! I started the year off with a little bit of redneck auto body work:

 

S#itty bondo job by a previous owner...

 

 

Nothing a little duct tape won't fix!

 

 

Got some custom Comanche door decals made:

 

 

Then added a bunch of bandaid stickers to the major dents in the body:

 

 

Added a tailgate decal:

 

 

Installation here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Airborne Janitor]

Replaced the charcoal canister filter with WIX 42998. Old one was TOAST!

 

 

 

Details here:

 

 

And a new WIX 33486 fuel filter for good measure:

 

[Airborne Janitor]

Added grounds to the fuel pump and taillight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Installed a Graco booster seat so my 4 year old can ride with me. Also swapped over the Husky Liner floormats from my XJ since you can't find them in gray anymore. These things are like 20 years old!

 

 

Removed the crappy Sylvania headlamps finally, and put in a proper set of IPF 280H headlamps with Hella 100/55w H4 bulbs. Plenty bright now!

 

 

Replaced the reverse lamps with these 1156 LED ones from Auxito. Easily 10x brighter than the older bulbs!

 

 

Swapped in a 2001 XJ wiper motor and transmission. Pretty much bolt in, but you do have to splice the electrical pigtails. Happy to report they "wiper" 2x faster than the Renix models. Also added a ground wire to the wiper harness.

 

 

 

 

Finally, some replacement fan warning stickers from @SoCalJeepComanche

 

 

 

 

 

Here's some links to my YouTube videos:

 

LED reverse bulbs

 

 

 

2001 XJ wiper swap:

 

 

 

[Drahcir495]

I enjoyed reading all 4 pages. So much information in your build  that I need to figure out a way to save it. So, I can find it easily. Looked just like mine but minus the newer grill!