My Comanche Build 2wd to Overkill

Here is the day I got it home, after spending a reasonable 400$ for it. 1988 Jeep MJ 2WD.







Rust free and unmolested, aside from the crappy white paint job put onto it by the PO. I have been doing a bunch of project prior to getting the MJ so if you see something interesting just let me know and I'll try to post some more pics.

Here is the donor XJ. Going to be taking the engine, trans, transfer case, and wire harness out of it. The body has giant rust holes in it, pretty much a danger to be on the road. You can actually see one rust hole on the passenger rear door there.



I'm skipping over the tear down since most of you have seen it before. I put the body up on a frame stand to work on it and threw some wheels on it to help since i have a tiny garage.





Rolled it outside for some sun while I cleaned out the unholy mess made after cleaning all the old undercoating off.





I think this thing was buried in some deep mud at one point since there was huge amounts of mud caked up all over the under side.

Some of the goodies that will be going in soon.

Ford front HP Dana 44 (narrowed to waggy width), Chromo shafts, yukon zip locker, 4.88s, reed knuckles, 1 ton steering, ruff stuff diff cover. Rear waggy Dana 44 with yukon zip locker, 4.88s, ruff stuff diff cover. I'll be putting a truss on both of them as well.



Some 1.25" heims for the three link going in and then 7/8" heims for the pan hard bar, and TREs



RE 5.5" coils. For the rear ill do a SOA conversion to gain the same lift.



14" bilstein 7100s, 275/78 valving for the front and 255/70 for the rear since its a pickup truck.



A buddy gave me these 06 JK seats since he put Mastercrafts in his.



Swiped this York compressor to run a belt driven OBA setup rather than having AC (I never run my AC anyway). And some 703 Injectors, first time I've used them so hopefully I like what they do.

More stuff!

This Crossmember needs to go since i plan to run the rear shocks through the bed floor.



After tacking in some supports to keep the "frame" straight me and my friend cut out the old crossmember to make room for the new one (that is not me in the pic BTW).



Here is what I replaced it with 3"x3" .125 wall square tube. and I cleaned off all the old fragments of the old one.



Fast forward a bit. This is after cleaning and painting the engine bay when me and some buddies swapped in the donor motor trans and transfer case.



I built my own bender and notcher a while back. Bender is the Gottrikes one and the notcher is my own design, works pretty good for me.









Here is a pic of some doors I made for my buddies JK. He wanted something a little different. Since then he has added an aluminum panel in the middle portion.

And this weekend I went to my local PnP since a buddy needed some stuff. there was a "swap meet" on the side of the road and I spied an air compressor tank. Guy wanted 50$ and I kinda chuckled and said 20$. He agreed, its an 8 gallon. For now the plan is to mount it under the bed on the oposite side of the frame from the gas tank.



Then I spent some time working on my buddies Dodge crawler:



We were working on installing this Atlas, it turned out to have the wrong input shaft so we are waiting on a spacer for it right now.



Aside from that I got my Swag Offroad finger press brake set up in my 20 ton press.

I like the rolling body stand idea. How easily does it move around with the driveline in? I really like the dodge too - tire size??

in4aride said:

I like the rolling body stand idea. How easily does it move around with the driveline in? I really like the dodge too - tire size??

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Well, it rolled really easy without the engine/trans/xfercase in it. Now with it in there it takes a bit of work to move it. I actually just use my other XJ to pull it down my driveway and push it back in the garage if i need extra space or something. I tow jets in a similar way so its easy for me.

The dodge had the TWF double bead locks and 37" Goodyear Hummer tires.

right on. I imagine adding the weight wasn't gonna help. its a total "duh" thing to do, just hadn't seen it. :thumbup:

Yep, I got the idea from a friend that has his old mustang project on a giant rotisserie. he can actually roll it upside down on on its side. Pretty sweet.

Holy crap...... excellent work......

Nice start. I had to rebuild my rear crossmember as well.

Curious how you're going to stuff those 14" 7100s up front.

MoparManiac said:

Nice start. I had to rebuild my rear crossmember as well.

Curious how you're going to stuff those 14" 7100s up front.

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I'll Raise the upper shock mount up into the engine bay as far as I can. Then put the lower mount down on the lower control arm mount. I did something similar on my old XJ to fit 12" 5150s on my 4.5" lift. I wont be running more than 5" of up travel. probably more like 4".

I can try to make sure I get some good pictures of the front shock mounts hen I do that part.

jbain08 said:

Holy crap...... excellent work......

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Thanks, I've been wanting a project I could go into this level with. I've usually always had my DD as my project. This time I can let it sit for a few days if I need to.

jeep.kevin said:

Thanks, I've been wanting a project I could go into this level with. I've usually always had my DD as my project. This time I can let it sit for a few days if I need to.

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See, I told ya you should post here.

Lowrange2 said:

See, I told ya you should post here.

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Nice. hehe.

liking this build

I like it too, thanks man.

good looking build. Any updates?

Alright I got some updates!

Spent some time modifying the 96' fuel pump to fit and function properly into the MJ tank. all I did was cut the two apart and rotated the lower portion of the XJ pump 180* and welded it to the upper portion of the MJ pump frame. then drilled an extra hole in the face plate for the extra wires from the XJ pump. its a returnless system so the tube i welded is not used and just functions as a frame.



Rebuilt my XJ box and drilled and tapped it for Hydro assist.





Its not the greatest picture but I hung the rear axle with the new U-bolt eliminators I made from 3/8" plate and 5/8" bolts. The axles is just tacked in place since i need more stuff to adjust pinion angle n stuff.



Here is some closer pics of the perches





I rebuilt the stock springs and mounted it spring over to get the 5.5ish inches of lift im looking for. Also extended the leaf spring keepers to see if i can get a little more flex out of the springs.



My friend got this sweet plasma cutter that has been making things much easier for me.



I happened to be at the JY on a half off sale day and stumbled across this XJ 44 with limited slip. 100$ was to good to turn down. I wont be using it in the MJ tho.

Looks Great. I just finished an MJ build. They are so rare in Mid TN.

RattyXJ said:

Looks Great. I just finished an MJ build. They are so rare in Mid TN.

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?

I've bought two from mid TN, and someone sent me a link to craigslist recently on a third. There's three of them in a driveway in Knoxville....

I keep buying rust free MJs from down that way. I have a problem.

I really like them too. They are pretty few and far between out where I am. I see them around every now n then but not built up nicely or anything. Just falling apart in stock status. thanks BTW