Dutch 1990 Comanche

[Wouter]

Hi there!

 

So I got my first Comanche a couple of weeks ago. It's a 1990, 4.0 manual, lwb metric ton with 280.000km on the clock.

From what I know from the previous owner it's lived it's life in Finland, where it was used to go ice fishing. It came with a lightbar installed, but not wired up. Some brand new steelies with new BFG 32" tires, and some sort of lift kit. My plans are to make it a nice offroad capable daily driver.

First thing I did was to park it on the beach for some pictures.

 

 

The next day I pulled up the carpet to check out the floors. At first sight it didn't look great, but a little cleaning made a big difference. there are a couple of spots that have already been repaired, and someone really went at it with the undercoating, both inside and out. So I just cleaned up the worst spots with a wire brush, and then put some more undercoating on.

 

 

The next weekend I took it to an offroad event, just to see what the truck was capable of, and what needs to be changed.

 

 

Found out I have some work to do.

Also managed to break a taillight, so I quickly made some filler plates, and put some Landrover Defender taillights on.

 

 

So here's what needs to be done:

- Clutch slave cilinder leaks, going to do the clutch while i'm in there.

- Thermostat housing leaks.  Already done, put on a new thermostat and housing.

- Adding an electric fan. 

- Remove the fixed rear hitch, I'd like to build a rear bumper with a receiver through it.

- Add a winch

- Part time light stays on in 2wd when I'm off throttle, CAD and TC work fine. (thoughts?)

- E brake light only works when the starter is on, ground issue?

- Wire lightbar Done

 

There's probably more things I forgot, I'll add them when I get to it. I might also get it painted since the body is pretty rough right now

 

 

[MiNi Beast]

Sweetness! I like them lights. Gives it a Futuremark.  thanks for sharing. 

[Wouter]

So I forgot to update this, but a lot has been happening lately. First off, changed the clutch right after my last post.

 

 

Then really just did a lot of small things, fixed some oil leaks, built a winch mount, made my tow hitch removable. And most of all just used it as a truck.

 

 

But then everything changed, I got a chance to take a bit of time off and go travel. And since I already had the Jeep, figured I might aswell take that.

The plan is to take the bed off and build a camper. The box will be built out of frp sandwich panels, same stuff they use for refridgerated semi's. Just waiting on the materials so here's a quick photoshop to give you an idea what it will look like.

I've designed it so it will fit in a standard 20 foot container, and to be as light as possible. Total weight with the camper will hopefully be under 2 tonnes.

 

 

Then there is the route I'm planning to take. I've always dreamt about driving across the entire continent. So that's what I will try to do.

It's going to be a challenge with Covid, and the current political situation in Russia is probably not going to make it easier. But this is probably my one chance to actually go do it, so I'm at least going to see how far I can get. This is not the exact route I'm planning, but it's close. 15 - 20,000 miles across 20 plus countries.

 

 

That's really the quick overview, but I'll try to put some more details in as I update this thread.

[Smokeyyank]

Pretty cool! Id suggest going through cruiser54s tip and trying to get a few back up parts before venturing out. Can only imagine the challenges of getting parts on that side of the pond, not to mention cross continent traveling.  

[knever3]

I'm in for this adventure!!!!  Can't wait to see the box out of the refer semi walls.  Buy a dash cam with a HUGE SD card to document your adventure, I'm sure you'll have some exciting times.  I hope you go through with it, can't wait to see what lies ahead.

[Pete M]

ambitious!   

[Wouter]

Progress has been slower than I would have liked the last couple of weeks, but I did get some things done. First the things that don't make for cool pictures.

- Redid the taillight harness, Improved from original, and now with amber blinkers in the back.

- Fitted a new fuel gauge. Didn't realize how depressing it is to actually know how empty the tank is with these gas prices.

- While I was doing wiring and I had the dash apart I refurbished and upgraded a whole bunch of grounds. 

 

Now onto the things that look good in photos.

 

 

So first I had to make some crossmembers to mount the fueltank, since I can't mount it to the bed anymore. Then I could build the frame for the new box. nothing really special going on here. Simple, light and should be plenty strong enough.

 

 

I also picked up my panels. Cut out the wheel arches and the 45 degree angle at the back, and just like that it's really starting to take shape. 

I'm still waiting for the rest of the steel, but it should be here tomorrow. So I'm hoping I will have the entire frame finished this week. Mounting the panels is probably going to have to wait a bit longer, as I won't have time to work on this the week after that.

 

In other news. Travelling to Russia is not going to happen. At least not in the forseeable future. So that kind of throws my entire travel plans out the window. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do now, I could go to Africa or do the Panamerican highway. But they weren't really my first choice of trip, so I'm not sure what I'll do yet. 

[MiNi Beast]

Sorry to see the war has affected your trip plans. 

[GonzoTheGreat]

@Wouter Any updates on this one? Even if you didn’t go on the trip, I’d love to see any progress on the box. 

[Drahcir495]

 

[Wouter]

I guess I should update this then. even though there isn't much to see. When my plans for the trip were cancelled I ended up doing some work in Ukraine, and from there it kind of spiralled into building special vehicles for medical purposes. Which is the long way of saying my jeep has been sitting for most of the last two years.

 

But I have done a couple of things. I swapped the front axle for an axle with 3.71 gears and no CAD, and right now my rear axle is away getting regeared and having an airlocker installed. 

As for the box. All the parts are sitting in a container waiting to be put together. we'll be breaking ground on a new shop in the next couple of months, after that's done I will have some more space for personal projects. In the meantime I did learn Fusion360, so I did some more work on designing the box. Right now I have most components in there, weight is still under 700lbs, and the center of gravity is right over the rear axle and reasonably low. 

[Wouter]

Big update! At least for me. The rear axle is back together, and the Jeep is on all four wheels again for the first time in over a year. Now the next goal is to get it tested and back on the road.

 

 

Didn't really take any pictures during the install, but after it was done I had to take a quick photo together with my 2/3 scale XJ. I also got a bit excited while ordering parts and bought a 97+ front end. I just need to find a headlight surround for the passenger side since it was out of stock.

 

In other news, I did some research. So I got the chance to drive these 5000 miles across Africa, from Namibia via South Africa up to Kenya.

 

 

The truck in the middle is fitted with a Blissmobil camper, which was nice to actually live with a high end overland camper. Found a lot of little details I like and will be using in my own build. I also found some things I think can be done better, so now I know what to look out for.

 

The truck in the back has a surgical unit that we designed, engineered and built inhouse. That's built in the same way that my box will be, so steel frame on the outside and polyester sandwich bonded inside. Just made a bit bigger and beefier than mine. So again, really nice to be able to see what I thought would work in theory holds up in the real world.

[fiatslug87]

Wow! Nice trip.

When you get a chance add the VIN to the registry.

[Wouter]

Had to add 2 extra marker light sockets for the new front end. And since my wiring had already been thoroughly butchered by the previous owners. I thought the best thing would be to start over. Went from this:

 

 

To this:

 

 

Added in an extra wire to switch off all the amber lights. Here in Europe all forward facing lights have to be white.

I think the amber looks better, and usually nobody cares about it. But for the annual inspection, or moments were you don't want to draw any extra attention it's a nice thing to have.

 

All legal:

 

 

And party mode:

 

[Salvagedcircuit]

Nice work! I just grabbed a pack of front grill wiring harness clips from aliexpress. I'm hoping they fit, they look close enough. Makes it far less fiddly when reassembling the front end. Otherwise the wiring loom gets pinched between the lower radiator and fiberglass front.

 

[Wouter]

It's back on the road! Finally managed to get the car all put together last weekend. Dropped it off for testing yesterday.... And failed.

 

No big issues luckily, I just had to take out the seatbelts and side indicators. Why? Because of idiotic rules.

Anyway, went back today to have it checked again. Now it was all good, so it's good to go on the road for the next 2 years.

 

 

 

 

 

[Wouter]

 

Update time! So I had it back on the road, was daily driving and just loving driving this thing again. Did loads of little jobs. New style wiper arms, so I can actually get wiper blades. Full service. Painted the front panel and grille to match. Just things to make it a bit nicer. Everything was going great!

 

That was until a U-joint decided to break, causing me to run over my own driveshaft, putting a nice big dent in it. 

 

 

New driveshaft will be done early next week, so hopefully it will be back on the road quickly.

 

I did manage to find a pretty good 3d model of an MJ, so I put the camper on and did some renders. Which then made me think the box looks a little too bulky and square on the truck, so now I'm doing a complete redesign on it. I'm changing the corners to be at a 45 degree angle, which makes it line up with the cab way better, and as a bonus will give me about 8 inches of extra lenght inside.  Still not sure if I want the roofrack with the spare or if I should extend the camper over the cab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GonzoTheGreat]

Glad to see this project is still in motion! I’m wrapping up a ~5000km tour of Italy in a ‘96 XJ, so Ive got mad respect for the MJ work—AND the panda!

 

My personal vote is to extend the camper over the cab and find a way to stow the spare underneath. These are much smaller platforms than the usual camper van, so every bit of interior space is pretty valuable. 

[89 MJ]

I I think the camper going over the cab would be more usable than having the spare on the roof. It would not be fun to get the spare down from there. Could you mount a spare tire on the back of the camper?