Minche

[WranglerMangler]

Thanks again Pete. Your always looking out for everyone’s best interests. Looking at it now, it’s hard to believe I was going to call it good. 
I definitely understand that the forces a moving vehicle goes through are much more than a man can put on things. Especially the way I drive. Lol.

[Pete M]

safety first.   

[WranglerMangler]

So somehow during all this track bar support bar monkeying around, embarrassingly,  I managed to totally strip out the recessed 10x1.5 threads in the rear motor mount bolt. I thought about HeliCoil,  Nut inserts and drill and tap to bigger size.  This is what I came up with as a fix. 
Step 1: Drill a big @$$ hole in the unibody. 

Found a piece of pipe that a 1/2” bolt fits through. Cleaned it up and cut it down to size. 

Tightened the bolt down and welded in the sleeve. Cut it down and ground it flush. 

Painted over the bare steel and tightened the way bigger bolt. Feel much more confident in unibody stability with this set up and the new brace. I plan on doing this with the other (forward) motor mount bolt as well just to eliminate the other small bolt and really give the new brace lots of support. 
New vs old bolt.

I like big bolts and I cannot lie 

 

Unless your actually paying attention the new bolt hides pretty good behind the shock. 

 

[Pete M]

nice!     I love engineering overkill.

 

what's your caster set to?

[WranglerMangler]

4 hours ago, Pete M said:

nice!     I love engineering overkill.

 

what's your caster set to?

I honestly haven’t no idea what the caster is set to. When I did the long arm I supported the body and axle so nothing would move then adjusted my Control arms to the axle mounts so it should be fairly close to whatever stock is. 
You seeing that spring? 

[Pete M]

yup, that coil is pretty bowed.  you need to grab an angle finder and measure your caster. 

[WranglerMangler]

6 hours ago, Pete M said:

yup, that coil is pretty bowed.  you need to grab an angle finder and measure your caster. 

10-4

[WranglerMangler]

Yesterday was passenger door day. My window has been struggling for a while now with rolling up and down. When you get past half way down, you would need to push on the window to get it to go all the way down. Then once it’s all the way down, it won’t come back up on its own and makes a terrible grinding/ skipping teeth noise. I was having to reach up into the door, under the door card, grab the bottom of the window and force it back up until the window mechanism would grab again and roll up on its own. 
Luckily my Buddy @NorthwestMJ had given me his stock doors off his Overland build and it’s window cranked wonderfully. Swapped out the manual window regulator into my door and it worked great. Also swapped out the door check. I’m not sure what had happened to mine but it was in pieces inside the door. And the mounting surface took some massaging with a 3lb hammer to get the studs to stick through. 
I also swapped out his seals that were in better condition than mine. 
I believe the rod for lock/unlock were in there wrong as well. I would always have to hit the inside lock button back and forth 3-4 times for the door to actually unlock. Now it’s butter smooth and easily unlocks on the first try. 

[WranglerMangler]

Due to two failures in a row, I’m switching up my battery terminal choice. I went with the “marine” style and have not been happy with the performance. Changed it up to more of a factory style. 
 

The imbedded bolt keeps pulling out of the terminal. Don’t believe I’m over tightening the nut but obviously the terminal disagrees. 

Guess we’ll see how these hold up. 

[GrandBoost98]

Ive always had good luck with this style. I'm actually going to order some soon for my new MJ

https://www.amazon.com/Ampper-Military-Battery-Terminal-Vehicles/dp/B07JJKVHD1/ref=sr_1_14?crid=20PZMYN0F1605&keywords=marine+battery+terminals&qid=1690540094&sprefix=marine+batt%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-14

[WranglerMangler]

On 7/28/2023 at 3:31 AM, GrandBoost98 said:

Ive always had good luck with this style. I'm actually going to order some soon for my new MJ

https://www.amazon.com/Ampper-Military-Battery-Terminal-Vehicles/dp/B07JJKVHD1/ref=sr_1_14?crid=20PZMYN0F1605&keywords=marine+battery+terminals&qid=1690540094&sprefix=marine+batt%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-14

They look beefy. I’ll give them a try for sure. Thank you.  I need to replace one of those sets that keep failing on CommuteChe. Those should be standard on the shelf parts at the store. 

[WranglerMangler]

Went on our annual San Juan Island crabbing trip this last week. Luckily, Minche got to come along for some of the fun. Was only about a 200 mile trip as far as the driving goes, but the boat got plenty of miles on her this year. 
We stay at an awesome place called Guemus Island Resort. This is their boat launch. 

 

 

Got plenty of Dungeness Crab. This pot alone had 9 keeper sized crab in it.

 

Haul them in, clean, then cook, right on the beach  

 

We were fortunate enough to pull our limits with one pull every day we could crab. 

 

This was my view for most of the week. Mount Baker in the far distance 

The view from the top of Lummi Rocks. Just off the SW coast of Lummi Island. 

 

Burrows Island Lighthouse  

 

Went all the way around Fidalgo Island, through Deception Pass. Stopped in LaConnor Wa for breakfast. 

There’s a Public dock available to tie up for food and shopping. We had breakfast over to the left underneath the black umbrellas. The “Rainbow bridge” is in the background. 

 

Going under The Deception pass bridge. 

 

Final sunset of the trip. 

[Pete M]

looks like fun!   

[WranglerMangler]

52 minutes ago, Pete M said:

looks like fun!   

Thanks Pete. It was a good time. Beautiful scenery and perfect weather. 

[WranglerMangler]

Got home and was checking stuff out underneath Minche after our little road trip, noticed “the other” motor mount bolt I hadn’t modified yet had popped loose over the course of the drive. Pulled the threads out unfortunately. So I did the old sleeve and 1/2” bolt fix. Didn’t take many pictures. Same procedure as described above. 

 

Also found my UCA is hitting the new Track bar brace so I also spent some time cutting on it today as well. Still have some cutting to do before it’s done. 

[WranglerMangler]

Was surfing through FBMP and found a 1995 XJ for parts with 233,xxx Mi on it.
 

 

Noticed it was a 5 speed in the Ad.

 

 

Hit the guy up for a picture of the output shaft,
He sent me this picture and said the transmission was working flawlessly when he pulled the engine from the XJ. He claims it was used as a satellite vehicle for his parents Motor home and accumulated most of its miles behind the motor home. 

The output shaft looked pretty good in his picture so I went to check it out.
The transmission shifted through all gears fairly crisply and the transfer case shifted good as well, the output shaft had minimal slop and looked even better in person. 
I happily paid the guy his $350 asking price for the transmission and transfer case.
External slave AX15 and NP231J for the best price I’ve found in 10+ years of keeping an eye out for the combo. He even threw in a 7 blade fan for the price. Lol. 

Scrubbed her down with some purple power and a wire brush to knock the crud off. Cleaned up pretty good. 

 

 

 

Drained the oil, it was about as dirty as you would expect for an old Jeep transmission/Tcase.

The transmission drain plug magnet wasn’t super built up with shavings. Had some, but I’m happy with what I saw. My Peugeot accumulates about the same in a 5k mile oil change cycle.

 

No big chunks to be felt by finger smearing the metal goo around on a paper towel either. 

[Pete M]

score!  

[WranglerMangler]

5 hours ago, Pete M said:

score!  

Thank you. It’s amazing how much money people want for that combo. I don’t think the kid knew what he had. Was just his parents old 5 speed Cherokee that was there since he was born.
I’m pleased with it so far. Now just a matter of collecting parts to get it in the truck. Would love to HO swap at the same time. The old Renix is tired. 

[Pete M]

have you run a compression test?

[WranglerMangler]

9 hours ago, Pete M said:

have you run a compression test?

No, I’m afraid of what I’ll find. Lol. Suppose I should though 

[Pete M]

being "low on power" could be from any number of things, from a simple clogged fuel filter to needing to regear.   

[WranglerMangler]

On 8/22/2023 at 4:08 PM, Pete M said:

being "low on power" could be from any number of things, from a simple clogged fuel filter to needing to regear.   

I definitely need a regear for sure. Still have the stock 3:07s. 

[WranglerMangler]

Luckily was able to go out four wheeling this weekend. Headed out to Naches Wa. Hit the funny rocks and moon rocks. Was an awesome day out in the woods with my daughter. Couldn’t have asked for better weather. Even got a load of fire wood too! 
 

Going over Chinook pass. Great view of

Mt. Rainier 

 

This about sums up the traveling part of the trip. Dusty late summer conditions. 

 

This was at “moon rocks”

 

My buddy Dave came with in his TJ. 

 

We met up with a random group of really cool guys out of Central Oregon. 
 

This was my favorite rig in their group. It was an Ultimate Adventure 2016 truck. Sticker remnants still in the windshield. 

Unfortunately, one of they’re guys had an incident. He turned this nice bronco, 

Into this… 

He rolled it twice at the bottom of “5 fingers” (The hill in the background). 
Luckily it had a roll cage and nobody was hurt, the truck never stopped running. Landed back on its tires too. 
Was over all a great day of four wheeling. 

[Big_Mark]

Way to represent WA State Minche!  

[WranglerMangler]

2 hours ago, Big_Mark said:

Way to represent WA State Minche!  

Thanks Big Mark! It was pretty cool too, over at Funny Rocks, I was the first truck to climb up on the rocks, didn’t spin a tire.  The rest of the group followed up the same line and definitely made it look way more difficult than Little Minche with an open diff D30 on 31”s. Smallest tire they had was a 37”.  I always like hanging to the back of the group, I would watch all these guys struggle through an obstacle, they would jump out and come running back to watch the little Comanche struggle through the obstacle as well. Minche would just lug through everything not spinning and making it look easy. The Central Oregon boys were definitely impressed. One guy  said to his friends “Well I guess I’m going to be looking for a Comanche to build when we get home”