CO Red Comanche in CO

[car_liker]

Recently picked up a '92 Comanche. It's 2wd, auto, 4.0. It's rocking the camper shell with completely failed clear coat, and is mostly rust free, with a small spot of surface rust on one of the bed corners. The header panel and drivers fender are a different color red, which is amusing.

 

Just wanted to get my thread started - I'll add some updates about work that needs to be done, and what's already been done very soon.

[Pete M]

score!    do you know the birthday yet?

[car_liker]

On 4/30/2022 at 7:18 PM, Pete M said:

score!    do you know the birthday yet?

Yes - 9/9/91. I feel pretty exclusive to have found one of the last built trucks.

 

I find the optioning of these trucks pretty interesting. Mine is a "base" model, and the door sticker even indicates it should have teeny little 195-75-15 tires on 15x6 wheels, but per Jeep it appears to have been equipped with the non-riveted 10 hole wheels from the factory (I know these aren't the most popular style but I'm a fan, they feel super 80s to me). It's a 2wd, bench seat truck with a pretty immaculate bench seat, which needs a cleaning. It has A/C, but no ABS or cruise.

 

Stuff I've done or noticed:

- Body: Driver's fender and header panel were replaced at some point and repainted a random shade of red that does not match. I've pulled the matching parts from an '89 Cherokee in the u-pull it. They're a little ugly, but it matches the truck, so I think that works for me. Body is mostly straight outside for a rumple on the passenger's bedside with a patch of surface rust. Procured a color-matched rattle can of CO red which I'll deploy once I clean up the rust. It's not going to look great, but the truck really needs body and paint across the board to look good, so I'm ok with it as a temporary-ish fix.

- Interior: As mentioned, bench seat is beautiful, just needs cleaned up. Headliner panel is in good shape, but the fabric is dangly and hits you in the head - gotta take care of that. The rearview mirror is on the floor - the button fell off the windshield. I think since I have to pull the headliner anyway, I'm going to add a compass mirror - I've got a Chevy model from the U-Pull and a brand new Kia mirror with Homelink sitting in the garage, so one of those will probably be the culprit. Windshield has 3 or 4 spider cracks that I'll either need to fill or just replace the windshield entirely. The gauge cluster cracks me up - the largest fuel gauge in the world and the biggest idiot lights money can buy. I've snagged a full cluster from the junkyard, and just need to get the mileage matched.

 

There's some aftermarket wiring laying around on the floor - looks like a CB or something. I'll be removing that because I've got no use for it. The lug on the battery cable will come in handy for the new headlight relay harness. Cabin lights don't work and I have no idea why, but I also haven't had time to check. Not sure how many speakers the truck has, but it appears that the passenger's side only has sound. I'm not complaining, I can't believe any sound comes out of the radio when it's 30+ years old.

- Engine/drivetrain: Engine runs smoothly, as does the trans. I think the Neutral safety switch is on the way out as I sometimes have to switch between park and neutral to get it to start. Driveshaft likely needs a new u-joint or two as it seems to bind a bit when the bed's loaded, but that could also be helped by not having flat leaf springs and dead shocks in the back. When I got the truck, I had no idea how long it had been since it ran, so I pulled the spark plugs to shoot a little motor oil into the cylinders prior to cranking it for the first time. In doing so, I broke that little in-line plastic heater valve in the hoses to the heater core. I saw the later Cherokees just ran a hose straight to the heater core, so I grabbed some heater hose and bypassed this part. So far, no complaints when using either AC or heat, so I am good with that as a solution.

 

It also arrived to me with a failing crank pulley/balancer, which I promptly replaced. The belt was in good shape so it was reused. Despite some advice I found on the internet, I was easily able to replace the balancer without pulling the radiator. This may be common knowledge and I was just looking at bad sources, but figured I'd add the note. Despite using the cheapest balancer on RockAuto (eek) the parts seems solid, so here's hoping it holds up. 

 

Engine is a mess, it appears to need at least a valve cover gasket and oil filter adapter o-rings. I'm assuming it needs an RMS as well, but I'll get to that when the transmission's out. I plan eventually to swap to 4wd, since there are a billion cherokees in junkyards.

 

I'll have to get to the suspension in a later post, it's a whole can of worms.