GonzoTheGreat Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 34 minutes ago, Awesome said: the big hose that goes to the bottom of the air intake box You might be referring to the pre warmer. Does the hose have a spiral wire in it like a dryer vent hose? If so, it’s to draw hot air off the exhaust manifold into the air box during initial start up to bring the engine up to temp quicker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted July 27 Author Share Posted July 27 1 minute ago, GonzoTheGreat said: You might be referring to the pre warmer. Does the hose have a spiral wire in it like a dryer vent hose? If so, it’s to draw hot air off the exhaust manifold into the air box during initial start up to bring the engine up to temp quicker. Yes that. So it is indeed more emissions stuff that isn't needed. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiatslug87 Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 There is no hole in the exhaust manifold for the pre-warm tube. It’s a shield that bolts around the exhaust manifold with a hose attachment neck, just leave it in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted July 28 Author Share Posted July 28 1 minute ago, fiatslug87 said: There is no hole in the exhaust manifold for the pre-warm tube. It’s a shield that bolts around the exhaust manifold with a hose attachment neck, just leave it in place. Oh, lol. I hadn't looked into that tube. Thanks. If it's not actually pulling exhaust gas then I suppose there's no harm in leaving it in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted July 30 Author Share Posted July 30 Another small update... finished pulling the exhaust manifold off. Got a lot of carbon buildup in the exhaust ports. Valves aren't coked up too badly. The manifold gasket was definitely leaking pretty badly. I made the EGR blockoff plates. I forgot to take a picture of the one I made for the intake manifold. I'd mess with them more if I was making them for other people, but they were good enough for me. This was that heater hose "T" connection on the '88 that I mentioned the other day. I regasketed the throttle body today and cleaned up the manifolds. Made the block off plates. Tomorrow I'm going to go ahead and replace the freeze plugs while they are really easy to get to, clean the manifold surface on the head, replace the motor mounts, replace the belts and most of the hoses, then start buttoning stuff back up. I'm also planning on finishing getting the driver's side floor rust completely cut out. Haven't been getting much help from the daughter. I'm going to try to get her in the shop with me tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eaglescout526 Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 May I suggest using the OEM manifold gasket on the 2.5L which is just a gasket on the intake manifold? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted July 30 Author Share Posted July 30 Say what now? There's no exhaust gasket? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiatslug87 Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 One gasket is both for the exhaust and intake. Or were you being sarcastic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted July 30 Author Share Posted July 30 19 minutes ago, fiatslug87 said: One gasket is both for the exhaust and intake. Or were you being sarcastic? Nope I looked it up and Eagle is right. There IS a gasket for the 2.5 that has only the intake manifold and no exhaust on it. I already bought a regular gasket though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eaglescout526 Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 I had nothin but issues with the full one. From it not fitting right, not letting me get bolts in, to having a fuel leak at the gasket. …just trying to help save some headaches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GonzoTheGreat Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 I’ve had good luck with the dual gaskets, but I always give them a spritz with copper “spray-a-gasket” exhaust rated stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted July 31 Author Share Posted July 31 My buddy came over last night and we got a TON of work done on the '86 Comanche. I flushed the entire cooling system with the freeze plugs out, put new ones in (old ones were actually fine as it turned out, but still worth it to be sure), then flushed it some more with the new plugs in. I pulled the radiator out. I put the intake and exhaust manifolds back on and hooked everything up. I used plenty of copper gasket spray on both sides of the new gasket, and I used red locktite on the bolts after using a thread chaser on the bolt holes. I torqued them all to 23ftlbs in the correct torque pattern. Is there a vacuum hose diagram floating around on this site? I need to find one. I've got a couple hoses coming off the black vacuum pipe manifold thing behind the throttle body that broke and I'm not positive where one of them goes. The bigger one goes to the back of the airbox, but the smaller vacuum line goes to a 2-port rubber thing that isn't plugged into anything. While I was doing all that, my buddy was finishing cutting out the driver's side floor. He's coming back tomorrow evening and we plan on getting the new pans welded in. The rust goes pretty far up the pedal box under the parking brake pedal, so we're going to have to cut in a patch panel under there. I took the radiator to two different radiator shops today and they both told me it wasn't worth it to try to fix it. So either I order the $230 Crown radiator or I retrofit the YJ radiator I have laying around into the MJ. I test-fitted it yesterday and it will require heavy modification of both radiator brackets on the MJ. Doable, but I don't know if it will be worth it. The YJ radiator is quite a bit bigger. I don't have pictures yet because we were very busy yesterday and my hands were too grimy. Then I was too beat when we were done. Will get pictures tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted August 3 Author Share Posted August 3 Driver's side floor prepped for pan: Driver's side pan partially tacked in: Passenger side almost ready for a new pan: Did all that yesterday. I didn't get a lot done today. It's really hot now, so I only got the rear driver's side pan cut to size and fitted in place. The front pans don't need much fitting or hammering in order to fit right, but the rear pan will need a LOT of hammering due to the difference in the floor shape. I figured out how to mount the YJ radiator without a ton of modifications. I'll take pictures of that while I do it. We also figured out a way to modernize the engine vibration damper. I'll follow up with that later. I may get the floors done this weekend if I have the energy. I started back to work this week so I'm trying to finish the big jobs now while I still have the mental fortitude, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted August 6 Author Share Posted August 6 Well I had a nasty setback today. Feel like I wasted my entire afternoon. I was modifying one of the radiator mount brackets and building the support brackets I needed for the YJ radiator to mount in the MJ when I discovered that somehow I measured something wrong and the YJ radiator won't fit. It's too tall by quite a bit and a little bit too wide. It hits the passenger side frame rail if you try to drop it low enough for it to work. I must have measured thinking it would fit in front of the swaybar, but it won't. Guess I'm ordering one of the more expensive MJ radiators. Also had my daughter pull the battery box out and found more metal that needs patching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted September 9 Author Share Posted September 9 I got the fenderwell under the battery box cut out and patched today. Much better if you ignore my crappy welds. Worked on modifying the radiator I bought in order to make it fit. It won't. I'm not sure what to do now. My options are to modify the truck itself or just buy the Crown radiator and hope that IT fits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89 MJ Posted September 9 Share Posted September 9 A grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain’t Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eaglescout526 Posted September 9 Share Posted September 9 6 hours ago, Awesome said: Crown radiator and hope that IT fits If it’s for the 2.5L, I bought one and had no issues. I haven’t heard of anyone having this many issues with a radiator fitting. 2.5L radiator remained largely unchanged until the 2.5L was discontinued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted September 10 Author Share Posted September 10 20 hours ago, 89 MJ said: A grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain’t I'm a professional welder, which is why it's so embarrassing. Turns out thin rusty sheet metal is hard to weld. 19 hours ago, eaglescout526 said: If it’s for the 2.5L, I bought one and had no issues. I haven’t heard of anyone having this many issues with a radiator fitting. 2.5L radiator remained largely unchanged until the 2.5L was discontinued. I got it to fit, finally. I had to beat the frame flange up out of the way with a hammer. It's all installed with the proper shroud. I'm not positive the swaybar won't hit it. I may have to space the swaybar down away from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted September 11 Author Share Posted September 11 Alright, picture time. Here's the modification I had to do to the frame flange: Took the valve cover off as it was leaking pretty badly. I don't see anything wrong under here. Looks fairly clean, actually. Valve cover is badly damaged from someone torqueing the bolts down too much. All of the holes are deformed and cracked. New radiator and hoses installed, valve cover gasket install is in progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted September 21 Author Share Posted September 21 Battery box patch, rivnuts installed, battery box reinstalled. Welds are embarrassingly bad. Last week I went ahead and ordered the stuff I needed to convert one of my welders to .023 wire. I got that all hooked up today and did some test welds on the floor. MUCH better. Wish I'd waited to patch the battery area. I also finished hooking the exhaust back up and making sure the motor mounts were bolted on good. Truck starts up and runs beautifully until it gets warm. Then it acts like it's having a hard time idling. Revs up fine but acts like it wants to die at idle. The throttle solenoid thing will actually kick in sometimes and it blows a bunch of oil out of the bottom of the broken valve cover. I did notice the fan clutch needs to be replaced, as it never kicked in. If anyone has an aluminum valve cover they aren't going to use, I'd probably be interested in buying it off you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salvagedcircuit Posted September 22 Share Posted September 22 1 hour ago, Awesome said: Battery box patch, rivnuts installed, battery box reinstalled. Welds are embarrassingly bad. Last week I went ahead and ordered the stuff I needed to convert one of my welders to .023 wire. I got that all hooked up today and did some test welds on the floor. MUCH better. Wish I'd waited to patch the battery area. I also finished hooking the exhaust back up and making sure the motor mounts were bolted on good. Truck starts up and runs beautifully until it gets warm. Then it acts like it's having a hard time idling. Revs up fine but acts like it wants to die at idle. The throttle solenoid thing will actually kick in sometimes and it blows a bunch of oil out of the bottom of the broken valve cover. I did notice the fan clutch needs to be replaced, as it never kicked in. If anyone has an aluminum valve cover they aren't going to use, I'd probably be interested in buying it off you. Those welds are a masterpiece compared to the stock welds and spot welds on my comanche. Sports Illustrated must have released a new centerfold the day my comanche was assembled. There are areas where spot welds are physically missing. Whoever was on that October '87 cover clearly must have been worth it. Hey at least I can measure the gauge of the welding wire they used, a piece was kindly leftover. Wow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome Posted September 22 Author Share Posted September 22 Lol wow that is baaaad. No wonder these things were throwaway trucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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