Coolwind57's

[coolwind57]

So I bought my 89 in late August 2017.  I had an XJ a few years ago, and even drove one as a staff car during my USMC days.  I always loved the look of these Comanches and felt strongly that one would meet my needs.  Anyhow, my initial plan was to slowly restore it but my 2nd vehicle, a Mitsubishi Montero Sport gave up the ghost.  So until my wife gets her driver's license, I suppose my MJ is our daily driver in the interim. 

 

She had 97K original miles on her and I just rolled over 100K on Thursday.  Column shift Auto.  D30/D35 4x4 Long Bed.  Original color was silver but someone rattle-canned her camo, which is flaking off (thankfully).  My plan is to use Monstaliner once I get the body under control.  I'm hoping to have her in primer before Winter hits and maybe be afford to coat her this Spring. 

 

Lots of front end suspension/steering work done so far.  This morning I put new Caliper and Rotors on.  My driver's side kept sticking on me right after I replaced the pads last weekend.  I pulled the piston and cleared corrosion thinking that was the cause, but no luck.  It was a good thing to replace it all anyway.  The rotors were really shot.

 

I'll get some more pics on here, as I have already performed a bunch of work already.  I'll list and show pics of what I had already done a bit later, but today was the dreaded pull-up-the-carpet day.  Actually, I'm pretty thrilled that it wasn't worse.  Man, I'd seen some horrifying pics on the forum and consider myself very lucky. 

 

I'll start with the worst side (passenger):

 

Driver's side:

 

I was thinking the carpet seemed much heavier that it should've been as I tugged and pulled it out.  Well, check out this photo.  The bagged white padding area was absolutely soaking wet inside.  I can't believe it was holding what seemed like 30lbs of water!  Crazy.

 

Well, back to it.  I've got some interior sanding to do now.  I have my ChassisSaver ready and hope I can get it painted on and dried in time to take my hottie wife out to Harvest Homecoming Festival tonight. 

[coolwind57]

Here's a shot of my headliner I put in last Month.  The original was hanging down and looked terrible.  I picked up this material in a fabric store.  I'm not like sheep, and I gotta have something different from everyone else.  I just couldn't go with plain ol red.  Saw this fabric and knew this was the one.  It is a fleece.  My wife's friend asked if this fleece material was going to make my truck hot.  I got a good laugh out of that. 

 

Thought I'd like the contrast, so I kept the visors as they were.  A bristle brush, some 3M spray adhesive and some patience is all it took.  I think it turned out great.

[HOrnbrod]

You should reupholster your seats and door panels with the same material.   

[DirtyComanche]

12 hours ago, HOrnbrod said:

You should reupholster your seats and door panels with the same material.   

 

This.

 

And needs fuzzy dice for hanging from the rearview.

[jeeppapa]

That's crazy but I really like it.


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[IronManche87]

Here's a shot of my headliner I put in last Month.  The original was hanging down and looked terrible.  I picked up this material in a fabric store.  I'm not like sheep, and I gotta have something different from everyone else.  I just couldn't go with plain ol red.  Saw this fabric and knew this was the one.  It is a fleece.  My wife's friend asked if this fleece material was going to make my truck hot.  I got a good laugh out of that. 
 
Thought I'd like the contrast, so I kept the visors as they were.  A bristle brush, some 3M spray adhesive and some patience is all it took.  I think it turned out great.

Not my style but I think it came out great! Nice job!

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[coolwind57]

 

Here'a a quick shot of my MJ I took a few weeks ago.  As I had mentioned, it is a low-mileage truck and the body panels and frame are in good shape, which was the big appeal to me.  I dislike the rattle-can camo paint job and my wife REALLY hates it.  But, as I had mentioned above, the plan is to strip it down and spray it with primer this Fall/Winter and maybe Monstaliner it in the Spring.  I'm thinking Olive Drab.  I saw a couple of examples of Olive Drab with retro military white stars on the doors and thought that was cool  I may do that.

 

The original PO had the truck lifted.  The 2nd PO had no clue about the truck and only had it for a year or so.  I'm the third owner.  Based upon measurements taken from advice here on the forum, I think I'm running 2-1/2" lift up front and 1" lift on the back.  You're looking at 31X10.5R15 mud tires there in the pic.  

[coolwind57]

Here's some pics of what I'd been doing these past couple of weeks for my front suspension.  I put in brand new WJ Upper and Lower Control Arms.  I found good prices online and went for it.  My old, original Lower Control Arms (LCAs) had some pretty wallowed-out bolt holes, so the new WJs HAD to be a big improvement.  My original Upper Control Arms (UCAs) looked to be in pretty good shape.  The bolt holes weren't so wallowed out and the rubber bushing, although surface cracked appeared to be pretty-dang good.  After 28-years, they were not toast. Of course, I had bought UCAs, so I proceeded with replacing them.  

 

There's lots of post describing how to do the slight  modifications to make these much stronger arms work in our MJs (or XJs).  it is quite amazing when you compare the parts side by side.  The MJ/XJ arms flex when you twist them.  These WJs do not.  

 

 

Notice that my tires are still making a bit of contact on that LCA on really harsh turning (the Wife).  Believe me, it is MUCH better than the original as far as tire contact.  I don't even feel it now.

 

And the passenger side:

 

I had also replaced my track bar with new and I have a larger anti-sway bar (from a junkyard XJ) with new Ford F-350 rear end links that I installed for added end link height.  Followed this all up with a machine front-end alignment and it feels like a different truck now.  

[crumbscomanche]

Truck looks like it's in really great shape. How can the wife hate the rattle camo 

 

Do you know what the original owner did for the lift in the back? Looks like you've got plenty of room for those 31s. 

[crumbscomanche]

Also were the UCA/LCA from the WJ bolt on? And were the sway bars out of an UpCountry XJ? Looks like all of it would make it a much nicer ride. 

[coolwind57]

11 hours ago, crumbscomanche said:

Truck looks like it's in really great shape. How can the wife hate the rattle camo 

 

Do you know what the original owner did for the lift in the back? Looks like you've got plenty of room for those 31s. 

 

Now that my wife knows what a "redneck' is (she just arrived in the Country last year), she believes that the truck's looks are the epitome of that term.  She has a more "refined" type of taste, you see.

 

As for the lift in the rear, I think the PO placed an Add-A-Leaf in between the overload and the rest of the spring pack.  With my measurements and advice from this forum, I'm showing only about an inch of lift in the rear.  About 2-1/2" up front.  I am still running the original Spring-Under-Axle, SUA.  

11 hours ago, crumbscomanche said:

Also were the UCA/LCA from the WJ bolt on? And were the sway bars out of an UpCountry XJ? Looks like all of it would make it a much nicer ride. 

 

Not exactly a direct bolt-on.  There is a bit of trimming involved.  The LCA bushings have a slightly longer metal bolt channel (?) that I had to cut down in order to fit in the frame buckets and axle attachments.  The UCAs required some trimming of the attachment buckets on both ends.  I did a little trimming of the arms themselves, but it was very minor.  I got my direction from the forum as there's lots of information with pics here to help guide you.  Have your angle-grinder with cut-off wheel handy.  It really wasn't that big of a deal. 

 

Getting the dang arms centered to where the bolts fit back in was often times a BEAR.  Two times, I had to use a come-a-long to pull the axle rearward and bottle jacks to push the axle at required angles.  That was the toughest part.  I certainly had to use some patience and creativity to get them bolts in at times.  

 

I'm still unsure of the diameter of my sway bar.  I picked this one up from a junkyard XJ and I chose it because it simply was bigger than my MJ bar.  I recall it was likely from just a regular ol' XJ...not sure if it was an UpCountry or not.  As I had said earlier, I bought Moog K80035 end links, designed for the rear of F-350 trucks from Rock Auto.  I nailed a great clearance price of $6.42 each.  This added another 1" or so of height to better clear my coil springs.  Yes, I've very satisfied with the new ride quality.  

[coolwind57]

Last night, I upgraded my valve cover gasket to the awesome and expensive FELPRO PermaDry blue gasket.  Hoping to dry up the side of my engine now.

 

Today, was the appointed day for my first oil change.  I went ahead and upgraded my oil filter nipple with the Mopar 3/4"X16 nipple that I bought from a Jeep dealer.  Removal of the old nipple required a looong 22mm deep well socket and took a huge amount of force to break that baby loose.  The main purpose I chose to do this is that it would allow for the use of future, more common-more easily sourced oil filters.

  

 

My choice of filter was the massive WIX 51773.  I read several opinions on using oversized filters and I'm comfortable with my decision.  Some guys go ballistic with their opinions but I have not yet found one comment of anyone blowing up their Jeep by using them.  I figured the extra oil capacity in the engine might be a good thing.  Check out these pics of this monster:

 

 

And finally, I fixed a major drivability issue that I was experiencing on the way to work this morning.  Last night, while installing the FELPRO valve cover gasket, I snapped the all-too-brittle MAP Sensor Vacuum line in two different places.  I tried taping and using silicone caulking in vain.  So today, I replaced the plastic line with copper tubing.  I saw that some guys were using 3/16" steel brake lines, but you pretty-much have to use a tubing bender to make that work.  My soft copper worked perfectly for me and I easily made my bends by hand.  

[coolwind57]

Here's another issue to correct:

 

My spare tire carrier is badly rusted.  Must be a very different steel than the rest of the steel under there.  My bed steel is fine, other than just being very dusty/dirty. I'll be taking this bracket off to evaluate whether or not I can salvage it.  If so, I'll blast it and POR15.

 

It did operate well, dropping the spare tire.  But check out the spare:

 

Daaaaang!!  I'm certainly not even going to try to salvage this wheel.  Same flaking, extreme rust as the carrier.  No surprise, the tire wasn't holding air.  I'll go to the junk yard and get me a new one.

 

The plan is to remove the bed over the next week or so.  I'll clean and coat the underside, clean and coat the frame, re-do rear brakes--properly deleting the self-leveler (I currently have a half-assed delete by the PO) and installing new brake lines.  Once the bed is off and cleaned up, I plan on using Monstaliner on the body, then putting her all back together.

 

Baby steps.  That's the way it has to be when you're poor.

 

 

 

[13 Legion]

The headliner screams 'Cheap Trick' to me!! (Showing my age there) As far as the paint job I kinda like it. Happy belated 242 Devil.

Semper Fi.

[coolwind57]

31 minutes ago, 13 Legion said:

Happy belated 242 Devil.

Semper Fi.

 

Yes Sir.  Happy 242 to you as well.

S/Fi

[coolwind57]

I've been anxiously awaiting this day.  I took my bed off today.  After reading over about 30 different ways of doing it (spend most of my workday yesterday doing so), I figured I'd had enough information to tackle it.  Here's what I learned:

 

1.  I've seen most guys state that there were 8 bolts holding it on.  6 bolts, and 2 studs.

2.  I've heard 6.

3.  I've heard one guy say he had 10. 

Well, on mine, I had 8 total.  The front two were studs/nuts.  Next two were bolts, located just in front of wheel wells.  Next two were bolts, located on forward X-frame, near center.  Last two were studs/nuts, located at the very end of the frame.  I was SO LUCKY!  I didn't snap any!  I soaked them a couple of days ago and then again first thing this morning.  I used a whole brand new can of WD40 high-end bolt/corrosion spray (forget the name).  It cost more than the other break-free products there and came in a silver can.  It must had paid off.  Plus, I believe my truck is perhaps in better shape rust wise than most.  I did have to remove my bumper and hitch to access the last two studs.  That took the longest of anything.

 

Other observations--all three bolts holding gas tank moved ok, but I did have to cut the rearward one to get the tank totally loose from the bed.  I didn't have to remove any part of the spare tire carrier...I pulled the bed off towards the rear, walking it back and forth on pieces of 2X4s until I could softly drop it off on back edge.  I removed this long bed by myself, believe it or not.  It is possible with patience man.  I didn't strain whatsoever.

 

Removed brake light lenses.  Removed middle section bed-mounted tailpipe holder--just pulled the rubber mounts off, that's all.  Pulled hose clamps off of gas filler tube.  All in all, it took me by myself, a little over an hour and a half total. 

[coolwind57]

Bed underside was in good shape, albeit major dust.  PO lived on a miles-long gravel road.  It just started raining as I set this bed down in place, so she'll look a lot cleaner tomorrow morning, I'm sure.  I am VERY happy that my interior quarter panels are in great shape.  No real rust.  

[coolwind57]

Tank has lots of surface rust.  I think the flaking is a combination of dust/dirt buildup and flaking rust.  I didn't stick around the scrape on it much, as it started pouring down.  looks like I'll be POR-15ing this bad boy.

 

[coolwind57]

[coolwind57]

Frame condition is ok overall, with everything structurally good...Sides and bottom are excellent but it was the top that was full of flaky rust and mud.  I'll feel better about it once I get it all cleaned off to better see the damage.  But from what I could tell, it was surface flaking...didn't see real cancer.

 

This picture looks really bad.

[DirtyComanche]

That tank is junk.  Buy a new one.  Spectra Premium makes one for $130~.

[Minuit]

Yeah, not worth fixing that tank when new tanks are readily available. I'd be surprised if it didn't already have a couple of small holes.

[coolwind57]

Knocked off the mud and rust flakes from the tank.  Shook the tank vigorously.  About 100 pin hole spots revealed themselves like magic.  You're right guys.  Tank is shot.  Just ordered a new one.

  

[coolwind57]

Ok, got the body coated with Monstaliner.  Just sat the bed back on the frame for this picture.  Coating came out great, I am well pleased. 

[coolwind57]

Progressing with paint scheme: