1988 Comanche Pioneer Project

[88mancheman]

I figured its about time I do a build thread on the ol manche since i'm getting ready todo an axle swap soon, I'm not really sure where to start as I've had this truck for almost 2 years now and she has come along way in those 2 years already! I guess ill start with when I got her....she looked really good and sounded great at first but had no shocks or even shock mounts on the axle for that matter on the rear, she was kind of crudely 4wd swapped with a 8.25 SOA rear and D30 front with an aw4 hacked in place of the blown BA10/5, 2" pucks in the front, super bald 33' supper swampers, radio that cut out every bump, and two odd switches on the dash...

[88mancheman]

Well when I bought the truck it was 2018 and it had 2018 tags on it....but to my surprise I got pulled over 2 weeks after purchasing the truck and found out the trucks registration was out 16 years and had tons of unpaid tickets and other violations on it, after some negotiations about impounding the truck i some how snaked out of it and drove off in my sweet manche, still slow and loud and dark as hell...... let the fun begin... the following Monday I took the day off work and went to the local DMV, after 3 hours of waiting I finally got around and found out the ole manche had $13,336 in fees and unpaid violations....close to 7X what I paid for the truck in the first place...... after begging and grobbling the nice lady non oped the truck put it into my name and told me to come back in a few days, I did so and I was back there a few days later paying only $500 total for new plates, stickers, reg, and non op fees much much better than 13k!! but there was a catch..... I was not allowed to retrieve the plates and stickers till I was able to prove I could pass this "amazing" this we have here in California called smog  welp thats when the 2 month journey of getting registration started.... after many many failed smog attempts and being sent to this smog inspector from the state up north I was able to find a smog shop that would be willing to let me see what was actually going on during the smog and not just making me sit back and fail me, after a few weeks back and forth from this one smog shop I was able to hunt down most of my smog gremlins, it started with the dumb EGR transducer and vacuum lines and I'm sure most of you will notice missing below, at the time i had no idea where to find one of these and non of my local JY had them so I found one from a Toyota pickup truck that seemed to work similar and got the EGR to work during smog conditions so I temporary used that one for $5 from the yard till I found one online for $20 after the whole smog process and replaced it again lol, after that was sorted one late night drinking with some buddies we discovered that #3 & #5 fuel injectors where not connected, once we plugged those suckers in it woke the whole truck up! she went from as slow as a VW to feeling like a jeep again! one of the last things that had stopped me from passing smog was my intake was technically CARB legal but was a stock intake from another type of jeep and the smog techs didn't like that so after more JY searching I couldn't find a reasonably priced stock intake so I bought my first "upgrade" I ended up buying a K&N cold air intake for a 87 Cherokee off of quadratech for $298 on sale! after bolting all that up I headed back to the smog station and passed just barley but passed non the less! Then came the goodies :) 

[thecodemonk]

Whew!  What a journey!  I'm excited to see what happens next!  Beautiful truck :)

[fiatslug87]

Having a good story is half of owning an MJ! I see you're in Santa Cruz, love that place, went to school there 30+ years ago.

[Fryedaddy]

Nice looking MJ

[88mancheman]

Whew!  What a journey!  I'm excited to see what happens next!  Beautiful truck :)

Thank you! There is much more of the journey to come :) I’m trying to update this as I have spare time, but spare time seems to be very sparse lately lol

[Pete M]

the good things in life are worth the struggle  

[88mancheman]

Having a good story is half of owning an MJ! I see you're in Santa Cruz, love that place, went to school there 30+ years ago.

This is very true, it’s always a conversation starter when someone asks what I’ve done to the truck! :) and UCSC is a beautiful campus I can only image what it was like 30
Years ago! My wifey currently takes classes up there & if I wasn’t an auto tech major I’d be trying to take classes at UCSC aswell ;)

[88mancheman]

Nice looking MJ

Thank you

[88mancheman]

the good things in life are worth the struggle  

Hahaha this is so true, this lil manche has taught me soo much over the years & has taken me some incredible places, I swear she hates me some days but in the end I get to step back and see how far she has come and all the struggles I’ve overcome!

[88mancheman]

The next few updates may not have many pictures as they where the first "modifications" I ever did to the ole girl as they needed done. Once I had gotten reg I started using it as my daily driver, after about a week I realized why cars need shocks as every time I would hit the brakes the whole bed would come up and the truck felt like it was going todo a somersault , and she was a little swirly on the freeway  I went and bought some el cheapo shocks from auto zone they where like 8.99 a piece, needless to say i had to go back 3 or 4 times before I got a decent set of them or ones that wouldn't blow out as soon as I drove around the block...I soon figured out the real issue there.... these are also the same shocks I've managed to get away with still to this day so you could say I got my moneys worth out of them lol. after the shocks we gave her an oil change with some Castrol 10w-30 high mileage stuff, I'm not sure when the last time the oil was changes and to be 100% honest it didn't seem like there was any in there to begin with.... and gave everything a "once" over and it all seemed great and I drove her for a few weeks, no turn signals, manual shifting aw4, and no exhaust  

Top picture is a little later in the year than the bottom pick but better picture of el cheapo shocks

[88mancheman]

After a few weeks I was working on a job on a steep hill and was going in super early to meetup with my boss for coffee and a walk around(the beginning to every great jeep story lol) everything seemed fine up the 3 mile steep hill until I pulled into the driveway and Boom my temp shot into the red zone and a huge puff of smoke engulfs my jeep.... my water pump had just checked out and deiced my super Rusty coolant belonged all over this customers brand new driveway at 6am  after a bit of power washing the driveway came out clean but now I was stuck stranded...but on a hill! After work I coasted down the hill to our shop which thankfully was located at the bottom of this super steep hill and left her parked for about a week until I got a OEM water pump in the mail from a Mopar parts place online. My dad happened to be in town that weekend and helped me with the water pump replacement, it all went well but somehow when admiring our work and drinking a few cold ones both of us got red RTV on our hands without realizing it and manged to wipe it on the front grill area and now the manche has two little memory mark from when we did the water pump......ah good times 

[88mancheman]

This was the weekend after I did the Water pump 

 

 

[88mancheman]

As y'all can see the tires on the truck where balder than bald the rears where starting to show wire in a few areas so I threw a cheaper set of 31" mud tires, I found the tire I desired and then price shopped it online and managed to find it from a Walmart distributor for about $480 all together went and picked them up the same day from there warehouse and went and got them installed and balanced for $100 at my local tire shop all on a Sunday non the less 

Last picture here is after many many many burnouts & tons of wheeling and probably 15-20k miles later and I'd like to say they have about 50-60% tread life left and are actually super soft believe it or not

[88mancheman]

Now that she had some new shoes and I was starting to take her everywhere I decided I needed to get some keys for the truck since the only keys I had where a screwdriver for the longest time.... doing the ignition lock was a breeze, when I when to use the puller on the wheel I was able to turn it my hand and it made the whole job super fast, the harder part was doing the lock cylinder on the door as for some reason nobody seemed to carry the correct one for a Comanche everyone kept sending me or trying to give me ones with no tabs that must have been for later model Cherokees or something, kinda shows being cheap doesn't always pay off lol I ended up buying new ones from the dealer and it cost me like $40 if I remember correctly  but even after I bought them both I only installed the driver side because the clips on the lock part broke and it look me a while to find new ones and I didn't wanna go through that fiasco on the passenger side till I absolutely need it 

[88mancheman]

It was probably another month or so till I did anything else to the manche, but eventually the radiator decided it had enough and sprang a leak right in the middle of all of the cores spraying right back onto my new water pump when it built up pressure , I managed to score a CSF racing radiator from rock auto for $180 and that was the end of that, I also got to say the CSF radiator keeps the 4.0 much cooler than the stock and it was a perfect time to upgrade my original “hack job” of a open rad install its been about a year since I’ve installed it and even on a hot 110 degree day I rarely ever see temps above 200-205 and thats when wheeling at low speeds!!

[88mancheman]

It was again another few months until I did any major work to the manche but this time it was a little scarier, I had gone out over the weekend on a wheeling trip with a whole bunch of pretty heavily built YJ’s and a few XJ’s I kept up pretty well and thought I made it out without any damage until Monday morning I went to drive over highway 17 to go drop off some paperwork with the wifey and as soon as we crested the hill and started the decent there was a huge pop and bang and then a grind from the rear end.....I thought it was the rear brakes starting to grind or something and didn’t think much of it and kept on driving, about 3/4 the way down 17 there was another huge pop and I lost my engine braking...thats when I realized something was really bad.. after pulling over I saw my rear driveshaft had just been dragging under my truck the whole time I was pulling over, somehow on my way up the hill the rear pinion nut managed to work itself completely out and let the yoke slide off the splines of the pinion gear itself....not really thinking about how bad it was I shoved it back in place, threw some duct tape around the slip part of the driveshaft to keep it in place and went on our merry way,there was a little howling from the rear end the whole time but eventually I did pulled the cover there was a tiny but of damage to the carrier in one little spot but I somehow managed to get her home in one piece and gave me more reason to want to do an axle swap ;)

[Pete M]

old Jeepss are great for nickle and dime-ing you to the poorhouse.   But at least they are loads of fun on the way there  

[88mancheman]

@Pete M I can’t agree with you more! but hey it’s called a Jeep for a reason right!? Just empty every pocket

[88mancheman]

Waiting for paint to dry on some current projects on the MJ so I figure I’d try to get this thread a bit more updated today, I had got tired of trying to diagnose odd things with a DVOM so after a few months of talking to@NickInTimeFilms he released his updated REM II+ and I finally bought one and let me say WOW! what a difference it makes being able to see live data when diagnosing or even just keeping things in line on the trails! I ran the cable through a small hole in the firewall right next to the Speedo cable all I had todo was poke a small hole in a factory solid grommet to run the wire through and stick the Velcro on the dash, I like how it it’s in your eye line when driving but not quite distracting and it makes you feel like a race car driver with your live data constantly reacting!

[Pete M]

nice!     gotta get me one of those someday. 

 

I wonder why hasn't he stopped by here?  he totally needs to have a vendor thread!  

[88mancheman]

After I got the REM I was able to keep a constant eye on both the coolant temp from the head on the dash and the coolant temp from the block on the rem and decided I wanted to have more control over my e fan for hot days when sitting in traffic or on some trails, as the fan didn’t like to kick on till around 210-220 which I almost never hit, so I took it upon myself to replace the tiny 5” ac fan that came stock on the driver side of the MJ and out in a larger 7 or 8” fan I can’t remember the size but here the part number I used: 620001 I managed to find it for $35 from rock auto on discount, it mounted right into the stock location and plug and played, I then ran 12v to a relay, which was controlled by a switch in the cab to be able to override the fan and turn it on manually while still having the capability of having the ecu control it aswell (if the switch is manually turned on in the cab the fan will stay on, then when/if the ecu triggers the fan with the switch still on in the cab the fan seems to go into a 2nd speed and run a little faster, not really 100% sure how this worked out but it seems like something I did worked correctly lol)







I used a stock switch panel from a XJ with the fog lamp switch and a rear window defroster switch, I figured the rear window defroster switch label looked enough to like a fan so I wired the e fan override to that switch and the fog light switch I wired up to a small 20” light bar on the front bumper that I have still neglected to install as I’d like to install my winch bumper before the light bars lol but the provisions are there for when I’m ready ;)

[88mancheman]

nice!     gotta get me one of those someday. 
 
I wonder why hasn't he stopped by here?  he totally needs to have a vendor thread!  

Definitely something to add to your list it’s a godsend to be able to see & verify your live data against your predictions/ diagnosis and just to be able to keep and eye on things without having a massive & expensive mt2500 and even those are hard to readout and not as portable lol :)

And I’m curious why he hasn’t started a vendor thread here yet too! He’s extremely talented and has an extensive knowledge of the renix systems & not to mention the technology he’s bringing back to our era of Jeeps! I think he only owns an XJ (I could be wrong) but that’s no reason not to get him on here I’m sure we would all love to have him contribute to our community and help keep our rigs on the road

[Pete M]

you should suggest he stop by.  

[88mancheman]

you should suggest he stop by.  

I’ll shoot him a PM in a bit and see what he says it would be awesome to get him on here! Is starting a vendor thread something he can do on his own or do I need to point him in the direction of a moderator?