iimafa Posted November 29, 2023 Author Share Posted November 29, 2023 I welded the front diff over the weekend and took it out for the first time to haspin acres, And oh lord was it impossible to steer (as expected) when it was locked in, so I kept jumping in and out locking and unlocking one of the hubs. all went well on the shake down run. Heard a noise a few hours in so I jumped under it and found the rear drive shaft bolts were loose so tightened them up. Later on I pressed the start button and she went completely dead and found I blew one of the main 150 amp fuses, no biggie, I swapped it out and no other issues. the next step is hydro assist, looking at the 1.75”x8” PSC ram, hopefully I’ll be ordering it in the next few weeks. There’s a few little things I need to be addressed before this build can be considered “finished” and I will attempt to address those over the next few months and those include 1. tail lights 2. front winch solenoid 3. front tube fenders 4. New batteries 5. organized tool box 6. Overhead speakers 7. Bed tool box 8. paint the boom after that, it’s 5.38s and ARBs when the funds allow…. That will be the true finish line…. Until it’s times for a drivetrain swap, thinking an OM617 with an AW4 and an atlas 4 speed… or that might just become a different build all together… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 Took the rig out a few more times and have only done a few small things to it like clear coating most of the body, fixed an oil leak, and fixed the CB. The trip out was super muddy but she ran great, A/F hold perfect under boost and it sounds cool and not super loud. Only thing is the lack of power requires a lot of rpm in the mud so that lead to some higher temps which required me to stop a few times to let her cool off. No problem though, cooked off in minutes and back to moving. one thing I’m finding which kind of sucks is the rear boom control is kind of a pain to get to and has to be put away to move again. It’s not terrible but it’s not very convenient. i was looking at these controls on Amazon. Thinking I could tie the front winch in with it and eventually have the rear boom cylinder on it also. (They have them with more buttons for almost the same cost) Still just a thought because I plan to wheel it how it is for awhile. the biggest thing I’ve done to it since the last update was adding tail lights. These are the dodge dakota lights which don’t fit perfect but they will work, $25 a light is much better than actual lights made for a Comanche which run about $125 a piece. It should hurt much less when I break these on a tree. When flipped over, they are very very close to the same size I have a 45” brake light bar coming also that I will mount under the tail gate, so hopefully it’ll turn out pretty good and I’ll have some good reverse lights directly behind the tailgate. The light bar up top works well, but leaves a huge dark zone about 10 foot from the rear bumper which is not ideal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 yup, they are most certainly good enough for a wheeler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted February 4 Author Share Posted February 4 On 1/10/2024 at 11:50 PM, Pete M said: yup, they are most certainly good enough for a wheeler. That’s exactly what I was thinking, considering the amount of tail lights I’ve gone through on my Cherokee, I would be a much poorer man if I tried to do that with genuine Comanche lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted February 4 Author Share Posted February 4 Had a pretty heavy snow day here in Indiana so went ahead and drove the rig to work. Cruises down the road very very nice. Before the turbo it struggled to maintain 50-60 mph on 33s, but I was rolling that with no real issue on the 41.5s!! Very impressed. I wired the wastegate shut the other day because the bolts keep backing themselves out. This caused some massive boost spikes, a few times it touched 13-15 PSI…. Which is not what I want but geez the 2.5 felt like it had some power. It very easily runs away with the AFR now so the stock injectors need to be swapped out for some larger ones. Either 4.0 injectors or mustangs, I’ll get to that soon. i also found a steering box brace for $100 on Amazon so grabbed that and went to install but found it didn’t fit at all with the 2.5 radiator. So chopped it up and made it work. Turned out pretty good though. this is how it looked out of the box chopped and welded before grinding the welds smooth after paint this shows how the radiator hangs between the frame rails. This is the main reason it doesn’t fit, the 4.0 radiator is squeezed between the core support and doesn’t come this low. this is wit it installed this shows how it fit around the pitman arm. Does a very nice job of holding the box. I went ahead and mounted another fire extinguisher on the rig. I see way too many videos of rigs burning down and don’t want that to happen to mine or any of my buddies. Very very simple mount, it uses zip ties. The idea was to have it out in the open where anyone could get it if needed. The mount will most likely break if it’s ripped off but that’s just fine. It’s a single use system anyways. this is my hornet finally making its way in the garage, honestly I think everyone needs a vehicle with a boom. This rig has helped out so many times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 No real update on the rig except that I’ve been using it a lot around the house and shop, still waiting on funds/deals for new tires and wheel, gear and ARBs, and hydro assist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ke3ves Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 How's it been doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colthrax Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 This is awesome Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted May 28 Author Share Posted May 28 Been awhile since the last update so I’ll break it up into two posts, but it’s been going well. I’ve had it out for a few small trips and mostly all good, small issues here and there. I had an issue with the wastegate bolts backing out then losing all boost so I wired it shut for a few weeks and MAN did it add some PEPPER, i touched 15psi for short times but the AFR would run away from me so I decided to toss it back on incase I got a little wild and careless at night. It seems more useful to me so I can drive it hard without any real issue of running lean. Here’s a picture of me pulling the boat out with it biggest update is I got the hydro assist finished up on it. PSC 1.5”x8” ram, drilled and tapped the stock box and had to clear out tractor supply’s hydraulic fittings. Works much much better, it was almost undrivable before with the welded front diff but now it’s just fine, it has a power steering cooler and a larger reservoir that I installed a few years back prepping for this. overall pretty happy with how it turned out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted May 28 Author Share Posted May 28 Went to hollerwood off-road park for Memorial Day weekend and had a blast, few issues, it was a hot weekend and the coolant temps kept creeping so I tried cutting a hole above the turbo(helped slightly) but still got pretty hot so went ahead and yanked the hood completely and really helped. I had an alternator die on me almost the first night so got that replaced. Then later on broke my traction bar, no real problem with getting out but didn’t want to wheel with it broke, so welded it back and plated it on the sides with 3/16th plate but it broke shortly after…. So back to the drawing board to add some beef to it. Wheeled all night after it broke the second time without issue, but got home to find some cracks so definitely need it to be functional going forward. on the second night my brother managed to find a ditch while heading back to camp and cracked his Dana 44 knuckle so the boom finally came to the rescue and yanked him back to camp over 6 miles! And boy was it a heavy load for the 2.5, ran about 230 degree coolant temps the way back to camp at about 4K rpms and 20mph. overall a great trip with some great people! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted July 22 Author Share Posted July 22 Haven’t really worked on it at all, but bought some parts for it, one of them being an oil cooler for it. On the master trip I touched on if the oil lines and boy was it warm, so I figured with the turbo being oil cooled and the stock oil system not sized for cooling a turbo it would be a good idea to add some more cooling. It came with a block that appears to have a thermostats type device it in, and I’m curious if I should add one(I originally didn’t think about it). I’ve driven it in snow in the past and plan to in the future and don’t think it would be the best idea to not have one I also picked up an old millrite vertical mill, and the rig sure made it easy to get into the shop. I'm planning on getting some cheap 3k airbags off of amazon for the rear so i can keep the tires off the bums when i have some weight on the boom, the current shocks don’t have enough lift so i will replace them with some stiffer shocked in an attempt to improve the ride a little bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ke3ves Posted August 12 Share Posted August 12 Good looking unit thanks for the save last time out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted August 20 Author Share Posted August 20 On 8/12/2024 at 9:10 AM, ke3ves said: Good looking unit thanks for the save last time out Anytime big dawg, need to toss a bigger winch on it, make a tow bar and toss some bigger air bags on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted August 20 Author Share Posted August 20 Last time out had a few issues, one the turbo made under the hood HOT, cut a hole in the hood but didn’t help all that much so had to take it off. Because of that I’m going to heat wrap the exhaust and started making a heat shield for it, hoping to make it vent out the top so hopefully it helps. the hot exhaust also melted one of the wires for my front rock light, took some time to track down but I found it, should have it back together in no time. I had all of the lights soldered together and it was a slight pain to unsolder all of them to find the culprit, so I was thinking about doing it different when it goes back together. At work we wire all of our motors with ring terminals then use a small bolt to tie the ones you want together, I’m thinking I’ll do that so if I’m the future this happens again I can unbolt them and track down the problem child. Similar to the picture below(found on google) seems like a better idea because I normally don’t carry a soldering iron in the woods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted September 19 Author Share Posted September 19 A few small updates since the last time, I ground down all the cracks from the truss to the casting and rewelded them. It seems to be holding but only time will tell if it’s fine. I attempted to fix the front traction bar by putting a solid bar inside then plug welding some spots, I then added a section of the same solid bar ontop, hopefully it lasts a few trips. I noticed the rear traction bar bending also so I think it’s telling me I need to remake them a lot heavier. After that I wrapped the exhaust in some cheap fiberglass wrap I got from Amazon and it seems to help a lot so far. I haven’t put the hood back on yet but it seems like my heat shield might not be needed anymore. I’m thinking I might still try to space the hood to help get some heat out, but with the vent above the turbo and the exhaust wrapped up it might be good enough as it is. I also finally fixed the my front winch, the smittybilt solenoid went bad so replaced it and went ahead and added an interior control switch as well. I’m thinking if the switch is easy to get to I might end up using it more often which might prevent breaking unnecessary parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiNi Beast Posted September 20 Share Posted September 20 Yeah it might help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iimafa Posted September 27 Author Share Posted September 27 On 9/20/2024 at 10:11 AM, MiNi Beast said: Yeah it might help. Only time will tell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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