89 Field Find

[JZLAJeep]

New member and first time poster. This will be long, but I hope club members will appreciate a story about bringing a field find back to life.

 

First a little background... I've owned a Jeep Cherokee (tan '95 Cherokee Sport, 4.0, 2 Door, 5-speed) since 2001.  I owned a '01 Cherokee (gray 4 door, 4.0, 2wd) from 2006 to 2009. In December 2021 Santa brought us another Cherokee (white '94 Cherokee Sport, 4.0, 4 Door, 5-speed). My kids have never known us not to have the tan Cherokee (I bought it before they were born).  A few years ago, when my oldest sons became teenagers, they said to me, "Dad, the Jeep is cool!" I've attached a picture of the two Cherokees I currently own.

 

My sons and I have had our eye out for a Comanche for about a year.  We found a few within reasonable distance, and looked at a few, but didn't bite because wrong engine ('86), rust, or price. In May 2022, on the way back from our Jeeping adventure on my 2nd sons' 16th birthday (see the first photo of the two Cherokee's), my 3rd son (12 years old) caught a glimpse of a Comanche parked in a field by the side of the highway. We knocked on the door, but no one was home so we left a note saying to call or text me if interested in selling. I got a text that night and made arrangements for my oldest son (who is turning into my mechanic) and me to go look at the Comanche. We found out it was an '89 with Pioneer livery with 4.0, 4x4, 5-speed. It was pretty rough. See the next 3 photos.

 

Apparently the truck had been sitting in the field for about 6 years because the motor mount bracket sheared off of the block on the driver's side. The front end was disassembled because some teenagers were trying to swap this engine to a '96 Cherokee and thought the best way to do it was to bring it out the front. To our surprise though, most of the pieces (fender, grill, etc.) were there, the body was pretty rough and has some surface rust, but no major rust in the usual places (floor boards). We were told it ran when it was parked, but that it hadn't moved in 6 years. The bench seat was intact and the tail lights were intact. The back bumper was missing, the windshield is broken, the dash is cracked, and other broken items you might expect from a 30+ year old Comanche that has been sitting in a field.

 

We told the guy we thought it was worth about $400. He told us "$600 and it's yours." We thanked him for his time, said we'd get back to him, and left. On the way home, I told my son (who is 18) that he probably wants $500 and we deliberated whether it was worth $500. I was leaving town for a week so I gave him $500 if he decided to get the Comanche, gave him the owner's number, and said he could keep whatever he didn't spend, but would have to pay for anything over $500. To his credit, he made arrangements with the owner to buy it for $580, arranged for his friend to bring a 1-ton pickup and car hauler trailer, and went and bought and transported the Comanche when I was out of town. His negotiations are a funny story of their own, but I'll save that for another day.

 

Since May, we have been working on the Comanche. We focused on mechanics before aesthetics. My 18 year old son has done most of the work, but the 16 year old, 12 year old, and I have contributed. My wife has even gotten in on the "fun."  Here's a summary of what we've done:

 

Because the motor mount bolts were sheared off in the block, the drivers side of the engine was held up with a piece of 2x4 under the intake manifold. We figured it needed to run before putting effort into that. So changed the fuel filter, replaced the fuel pump and washed out the fuel tank, replace the battery, and to our amazement, it started up!

 

We figured out that the oil pump was not pumping, so we dropped the oil pan and replaced it and cleaned and painted the oil pan while we were at it.

 

With a running engine, we next took on the sheared off motor mount bolts. After some arranging to borrow an engine hoist, and acquiring a Harbor Freight welder (my 18 year old took 2 years of welding in High School), we removed the passenger side motor mount, removed the transmission braces and lowered the engine enough to access the sheared bolts. We did the weld a nut to the bolt trick and we were amazed at how easily they spun out. Being very pleased with ourselves, we installed two new motor mounts with grade 8 bolts so we'd never have to do that again.

 

At some point, probably when we lowered the engine, we messed up the alternator, so we replaced it.

 

The tires were rotten, but amazingly held air, so we took the Comanche on it's maiden drive around the neighborhood and to the DMV to get it titled and registered. It drove ok... Still a lot of work to do. See the photo of our 3 Jeeps lined up bumper to bumper.

 

At that point we were satisfied that it was running and were ready to start on the aesthetic pieces. We had most of the parts for the grill and headlight bezels, but not all of the parts, so we went to the junk yard and amazingly found a 10 slot grill, and the rest of the pieces to put the front back together. I nearly brought home a fiberglass header, grill, and bezels from a '91-'96, but stuck with Renix grill parts instead.

 

What was supposed to be a 1 hour trip to the junk yard, turned into a whole day affair when my two oldest sons found a '96 Cherokee with an AX-15 transmission (ours has the Peugeot). To their credit, they and a friend pulled the engine, transmission, and transfer case out of the Cherokee and brought the AX-15 and transfer case home. See the photos.

 

I drove it to an auto body guy to get the driver's door hinges replaced, get the sliding rear window to open, and a few little things like that. The hinges were sprung and the front of the door was hitting the fender. My 18 year old had previously cut those out of a Cherokee in the junk yard.

 

I found some used tires and had them mounted on the stock wheels for $350. I was glad I found these, because new tires were going to cost me about $1,200!

 

We took our working Comanche and broke it again by removing the Peugeot transmission. The AX-15 should be ready to be put in now after buying a clutch kit, scrubbing the bell and exterior for many hours, and buying the pilot bushing from a '74 CJ to make the connection to the '89 Renix 4.0. So that's the next step. We are hoping everything goes smoothly and that the AX-15 will work well. The last two photos show the present state of the Comanche and the transmissions.

 

So far, we are into it $2,500 which includes the purchase price. We've had to put more time and money into it than we had hoped, but we are having fun and are getting a Comanche back on the road (we've named it Lazarus).

 

Next steps include figuring out the wiring (headlights and tail lights work, but brakes, blinkers, and interior lights don't), finishing putting together the front end (have a new driver side fender liner), new rear bumper, getting a new spare tire, new windshield, and fixing the spare connection under the bed.

 

In the long term, it would be nice to get some body work done and paint it, get a camper shell, bed liner, etc., but for now we are excited about getting it put together enough to be a reliable driver to take camping.

 

With the Comanche, we have sort of completed our collection with a 2 door Cherokee, 4 door Cherokee, and now Comanche. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions come up as we keep plugging away at getting this Comanche back on the street.

[Pete M]

score!    worth every penny of that $580 

[JZLAJeep]

On 9/22/2022 at 6:17 PM, Pete M said:

score!    worth every penny of that $580 

Hope so. Getting a frustrated with it at the moment.

[Pete M]

they are old Jeeps.  frustration is just part of the fun.   (or at least that's what I keep telling myself. )

[WranglerMangler]

Keep on plugging away at it guys! I’ve been so frustrated with my Comanches that I swear I’m going to sell all the dang things, but you get past it, go out on a drive, and it all goes away. Then it’s suddenly worth the frustration and busted knuckles. 

You have found the best source of information for the trucks. I went years without knowing about this site. 
Be sure to do Cruiser54 mods as well. Make a huge difference!! 

[JZLAJeep]

We trailered the Comanche to Diesel mechanic brother-in-law's shop about 300 miles away to work in his warm and lit shop during the week between Christmas and New Year. Between me and my three teenage sons we got a lot accomplished, not the least of which was getting it running reliably again (see here).

 

Will try to report on other tasks later, but for now, wanted to report on the bumper and trailer hitch fabrication. When we got it, the Comanche had a rear "bumper" of a 2x4 steel tube welded between the sides of the bed, but we wanted a real bumper.

 

We picked up a mostly straight chrome bumper from a 1st generation Dodge Dakota (with sheep on top) out of a junk yard. Also had a old Ford Bronco trailer hitch laying around that wasn't needed after oldest son found a better hitch for his 95 F-150. So we loaded these in the bed of the Comanche and trailered it.

 

Oldest son borrowed BIL's saws-all and cut the steel tube off. Found out later a week later that he broke his toe when he learned the valuable life lesson to keep ones feet out of the way when cutting off heavy steel...

 

We were planning to fabricate some brackets to attach the bumper to the frame, but after some reflection and consultation with BIL, decided to reuse the 2x4 steel tube, weld it perpendicular to the frame, and weld the bumper to it. Then used some scrap C-channel and attached the trailer hitch. Hopefully this annotated photo does the fabrication justice.

 

The bumper should be VERY secure. The trailer hitch, well... let's just say we don't plan to haul anything heavy...

 

Overall we are happy with how it turned out. However the fabrication created two new issues that concern us.

1) Only after we were done did we realize that we may have infringed on the spare tire space. The original winch is broken/gone and the spare rides in the bed for now, so we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

2) We hope we didn't hinder the ground clearance too much. Combined there is probably 7" less clearance than there was before installing the bumper and hitch. Hope that doesn't bite us later.

 

 

[JZLAJeep]

With the previously installed AX-15 and transfer case, oldest son also fabricated a simplified transfer case linkage from the old Peugeot linkage on our Christmas break garage session.

 

[JZLAJeep]

We picked up a push bar a month or so ago and decided to do something fun and put it on this weekend. Looks similar to the one @oleskool installed, but without the bars around the headlights. Clearly the push bar is specific to XJ/MJ because it hugs the bumper and grille. Now we need to install some fog lights!

 

Before:

 

On the bumper:

 

After (almost done anyway):

[oleskool]

51 minutes ago, JZLAJeep said:

We picked up a push bar a month or so ago and decided to do something fun and put it on this weekend. Looks similar to the one @oleskool installed, but without the bars around the headlights. Clearly the push bar is specific to XJ/MJ because it hugs the bumper and grille. Now we need to install some fog lights!

 

Before:

 

On the bumper:

 

After (almost done anyway):

Looks awesome. 

[acfortier]

Nice! I've got a NOS in my basement waiting for me to put it on. Trying to decide if it's one of those "final touches" after I do body work/paint/etc., but who knows how long that will be.