Pro60's 1989 Comanche Build Page

[Pro60modman]

This is the continuing story of the first truck and Jeep I have ever owned as it started 4.5 weeks ago. Enjoy I hope.

A 1989 Comanche popped up for sale on Facebook for a good price so sent him the old "Is this still available?" and sure enough it was already taken but thankfully the guy backed out and I was next in line. It was a 2.5 with a 4 speed, manual steering and 2wd with rusted rockers and floors but it was good enough for me. I figured I'd sell it to a friend who was a fanatic for these so I'd get my money back anyway. I showed it to the friend in question and he wanted to buy it on the spot. I told him I first wanted to make it 4x4 then he could have it for what I bought the truck for plus the cost of parts to convert it.




I then found a 1984 Cherokee 2.5 4x4 5 speed on facebook that had been sitting for a couple years with major rust and bug infestation issues. It only had 111k miles and came with a 30k mile Quadratec performer head, weber 32/36 carb conversion and a host of other parts that had low miles or were almost new. I stripped it of all relevant parts and sent the body to the local scrap yard.






Now it was time to rack the Comanche and get to work. First I removed the transmission and examined the 4 speed. I found that it had been recently rebuilt so I disassembled it and the 5 speed and combined the best parts from each to make my own 5 speed 4x4 transmission that utilized the original 4 speed's bellhousing, clutch hydraulics, 1-4 gears, reverse and case. I used the main shaft, 5th gear parts and transfer case from the Cherokee. I hung it all up and I also installed the 4x4 selector assembly from the Cherokee at this time.








Next up was the front end. I didn't want to use the Cherokee axles, even though they were 3.73, due to time constraints so I elected to buy a 1998 Cherokee axle I found on facebook. BONUS: It had new calipers, brakes and ZJ steering parts attached. It was all plug-and-play thankfully. I also installed the front driveshaft from the parts Cherokee at this time.





Next up was the rear driveshaft. I had the 1984 Cherokee rear driveshaft extended. I measured it a bit too short at 11.25"(should have gone 11.75") but it worked without issue. You'll see I resolved it later in the thread.



4x4 was fully functioning! Unfortunately on the ground it had a horrible vibration. I replaced a bad wheel bearing and axle u-joint on the passenger side but the issue persisted so I stuck it on jackstands and it was the exhaust hitting the front driveshaft . Went to my preferred "regular car" exhaust shop and had a more 4x4 friendly downpipe made.



Now I was ready to offroad! Since it was Friday, and it had been raining all day, the girlfriend and I drove into the local skatepark to mess around on the ramps. However in 4x4 it was clicking and I couldn't figure it out. Sometimes it would click, sometimes it wouldn't. I figured it was the transfer case but it looked to have been rebuilt somewhat recently(which the previous owner confirmed) so I was puzzled.



Then it was Easter weekend so I went to the girlfriends preferred churches, met up with her family and when it was all over we decided to continue our offroad idiocy at a construction site where it was all fun and games until I buried it in a recently drained lake bed. Countless towing companies, local jeep groups and other talking heads on messenger let me know how stupid I was for being stuck in a construction site while I was searching for help. Hours and hours of digging and wedging things under the tires did nothing. I only used what I could find in the construction site dumpster and even a 6 foot board of wood was easily pushed straight down into the muck until it disappeared. We were stuck for the good part of 10 hours, 2 hours away from home. Eventually my buddy(who was supposed to buy the truck) drove 2 hours upstate to find me, maneuvered his 2017 Grand Cherokee within 80 feet of the Comanche and used a daisy chain of heavy duty straps to promptly yank me out of the mud. Thanks to my other friend for coming as well and providing the straps!








After I ruined Easter for mine and my girlfriends family my friend messaged me and told me that the Comanche just wasn't for him. He was looking for a 4.0 and it was too much to try and swap mine since I had already made it 4x4 with an unfavorable transmission. I can't say I was heart broken so I hoped on facebook to see what cheap stuff I could find for it. The first thing I found was a set of brand new Gladiator wheels and tires. They still had the little rubber tits on the tires and everything! They were in BFE and on the way I spotted something interesting. A broken down 1990 Comanche with a 4.0 and 4x4 5 speed. The owner wasn't home but he did have signage out front that had his name on it so I told my friend and continued on to pick up some wheel adapters I also found on facebook.





Later that day I also found a set of Rough Country 4.5" springs, shocks and sway bar links a couple hours south in Kentucky so I nabbed those. My 2000 Honda Insight dropped a coil on the way there so I drove about 200 miles on 2 cylinders and likely 25hp. Very not fun. I started to install the springs that night and realized my lower control arms weren't going to work so I called around the next morning and got a good deal on Rubicon Express fixed LCAs at a local 4WP store(didn't know offroad shops like that existed). I then found my track bar wouldn't work so the next day I found a new Iron Rock double shear track bar a couple hours north in Indiana for half price. Picked that up, installed it and off to the girlfriends work to have lunch with my Carolina Leaned Comanche! At least that was plan until it started to death wobble at 70mph which scared the ****ing **** out of me. Retorqued everything, made videos of the track bar while driving to confirm it wasn't loose and hit the alignment rack(Caster 10+ degrees ) the next day but I couldn't fix it so I cheated and threw a Rancho steering stabilizer on it from O'Reilly Auto which fixed it(barely). I also had to remove the front driveshaft because it couldn't angle down far enough(typical leaned truck) and noticed if I put it in 4x4, it no longer clicked so it must've been the driveshaft clicking. I ordered a new 87+ one off eBay for half of what they cost on RockAuto and hoped for the best.







Shortly after leaning the truck I decided to head to the guy's house that had the red Comanche and by complete chance my friend, who I had informed of this Comanche, showed up a few minutes later. The owner still wasn't home but his dad appeared to live behind him and I gave his door a knock. He came out and he gave us the story on the truck. He had bought it over 10 years ago for his youngest son, it had a rebuilt engine with shy of 40k miles on it and it had a running problem that appeared a year ago that they never solved. It came with two of everything it seemed like. In a bin there was a rebuilt throttle body, rebuilt ECU, uncracked dash, diff covers, sensors, manuals, injectors, a new intake manifold, all sorts of ****. The owner did finally show up and after some trading and cash my buddy was able to buy it!



I rocked the lean for a few days while I was figuring out what to do with the rear. Ultimately I decided on going SOA because 1.) I wasn't going to find any cheap MJ 4x4 rear leaf springs I could mod to get the lift I wanted. 2.) I couldn't spend $650+ on rear 4" lift springs and shocks. 3.) I didn't want to take the rear leaves off. After some research I ordered a 1990 Dakota 2.5 4x4 rear brake line from O'Reilly and cut the rear leaf perches off my parts Cherokee rear axle. I bent the perches somewhat after hammering them off but I pressed them straight again with the help of some Wiseco piston pins I was never going to use, bearing press and a map torch. The neighbor helped me fish the Comanche's rear axle out and in no time we had it mocked up and bolted on. The driveshaft was way too short at this point(on the verge of falling out) so sent it off to get retubed +1.5". Before that however I got my rear driveline angles figured out and thought it would be a good idea to start getting the front driveshaft converted to 87+ style. I found a local junkyard called Hillbilly Jeep and they sold me a tighter steering box(mine's bearings were shot) and a NP231 front output yoke.









While waiting for the rear driveshaft to get retubed the front driveshaft showed up and I proceeded to attempt to install it. This failed miserably as my pinion angle was way too low. When attempting to drive the truck shook and shuttered like crazy. I panicked and called every offroad shop, that I had just recently learned the existences of, looking for a set of adjustable control arms. There was a local shop that had a pair of Rock Jock arms but they were....list price . My impatience got the best of me and I bought them and threw them on. UNFORTUNATELY it seems the 4 cylinder XJ and MJ's have a much more extreme front driveshaft angle because the transmission sits farther forward. This meant that the arms were too damn short and I went to bed pissed that I had spent what I did on them and they were useless. The next day I woke up equally as mad and looked up the arms on google to find the specs on their diameter. They were listed as 1" in diameter so after looking around town I was directed to a trailer shop that had an accompanying machine shop across the street with not only a sick J10 but a freakin Korean or Vietnam era military ATV with machine guns on it. He showed me the ins and outs of both vehicles then proceeded to cut me two 4" pieces of 1" ID 1/4" thick steel pipe on a belt drive band saw that was over 70 years old. Back at my place I cut my Rock Jocks in half, heated my newly acquired pipes up and pressed the UCA's back together. A little welding, paint and installation later my driveshaft worked without making my truck jump up and down.















The driveshaft shop called during all this and told me the driveshaft was ready so I threw it on(fit perfect, dead smack on the old wear line). Time for a test drive! It drove ok but the stock rear shocks were too long and bottomed out on the hard bumps. Back to my new favorite trailer shop. I used some leaf perches and c-channel I found in the fab bin section of the trailer store to make my new shock mounts. They are an inch or two lower than the stock location so I can install longer shocks later but now the truck rides great! Put some black paint on my ****ty welds and then went ahead and painted the front and rear axles black for ****s and giggles.







There's a local trail here called High Water I've always heard about. After finding it my girlfriend and I spent most of the day bumping around the trails up there testing the Comanche out. Even saw a few people we knew and were gifted some trail sodas. The manual steering and transmission were no problem even on the steep rocky stuff. Made it more fun in my mind. The rear brakes ran dry thanks to a loose line and the clutch master cylinder blew up the next day but they were both cheap fixes. It was an amazing day and I predict many more days spent out at High Water exploring and hanging out.






That's it for now! arty:

[eaglescout526]

2 hours ago, Pro60modman said:

I then found a 1984 Cherokee 2.5 4x4 5 speed on facebook that had been sitting for a couple years with major rust and bug infestation issues. It only had 111k miles and came with a 30k mile Quadratec performer head, weber 32/36 carb conversion and a host of other parts that had low miles or were almost new. I stripped it of all relevant parts and sent the body to the local scrap yard.

Dammit! It’s hard to find an 84. You didn’t keep any interior parts did you? There’s a lot of 84-85 specific oddities that aren’t found on later years.
I’m surprised someone waster their time to get more oomph out of the 2.5L

 

Thats a nice clean MJ though. I’ve never seen sporTruck decals without the sporTruck words. 

[Pro60modman]

2 hours ago, eaglescout526 said:

Dammit! It’s hard to find an 84. You didn’t keep any interior parts did you? There’s a lot of 84-85 specific oddities that aren’t found on later years.
I’m surprised someone waster their time to get more oomph out of the 2.5L

 

Thats a nice clean MJ though. I’ve never seen sporTruck decals without the sporTruck words. 

Sorry I didn't keep it but it's down the road at Kenny's junkyard in Clarksville IN if you want anything before he crushes it. 

[eaglescout526]

15 minutes ago, Pro60modman said:

Sorry I didn't keep it but it's down the road at Kenny's junkyard in Clarksville IN if you want anything before he crushes it. 

Oh I can’t think of anything. I was more of just giving you a hard time. Haha. I’d feel bad to ask ya to get parts from it. Thanks though!

 

Oh and welcome to the addiction!

[Pete M]

nice truck!    soooooo clean!