Jeep Comanche, maybe Minitruck?

Surely I'm not alone in browsing craigslist for cars you neither can afford, nor have time or space for? Right? Right.

So a couple of months ago I found an ad for an 86 Jeep Comanche. My buddies have all been buying XJ's as of late (4 and counting), I'm not much for the Cherokee body style but I've always like Comanches, I need a truck (like I need another hole in my head), so I jokingly send it to my girlfriend (SWMBO) hoping she'll be the voice of reason. Nope, I get back "That's cool, I'll buy half and it can be OUR truck!". Woman, you have one job: tell me "NO" when I try to buy stupid stuff off craigslist!

Well for $300 and a couple hours of driving we now own an 86 Comanche.

Clean title and 'running' $300 isn't too bad. It's rusty. It didn't drive or stop. 4-cylinder AMC 2.5 liter with 325K on the clock. It did come with a spare AX4, Front and Rear Axles, and a bed load of other miscellaneous parts. All in all we're pretty happy with it. She can drive stick but has never had to outside learning how, so it is also an opportunity for her to practice. My idea was the Comanche would be a chance to get the GF involved in a car project and drive stick in a car she can't really hurt. While I paid half, the idea is that it's her truck. Total creative freedom. I'm just the wrench.

We've spent the last couple of months occasionally working on it trying to get it driving again. We've replaced the entire hydraulic clutch system, brake tune up, fixing the jacked up wiring, and generally cleaning off the moss, mold, and rat pee.

Getting the slave cylinder replaced on this thing was loads of fun by the way. Yes that's about 3' of extensions.

So now it's time to start modifying and making it hers.

Well I have in my head what I think a Comanche should be: 4.0 swap, maybe upgrade the axles and lift it, sport bar. Take the doors off. Mexican blanket seat cover. roll on bed-liner or rattle can for paint.

She disagrees on basically every point.

Everything she wants to do... I don't know how else to say it... she's a minitrucker. Small wheels, street tires, soft suspension (maybe even air), lower it, bright paint and leather seats, fix the rust and get the body really straight.  Her big hobby is arts and crafts, and if you read my SAAB post you know she has a vinyl cutter... She wants to design her own graphics for the bed sides, door, hood, etc.

Needless to say I'm thrilled. I thought you guys would also get a kick out of her learning to wrench and the creative process of a non-car person being thrust into the hobby. Should be interesting...

We've already had some interesting adventures getting it running, including but not limited to me laying under the truck trying to bleed to clutch and her pumping the brake pedal.

Great score. I think all of these are rusty, even the ones that have always been located in the desert.

Lots of XJ parts should swap over.

The only issue with going full frame laying mini truck with these is the solid front axle.

There is however precedent to lowering it a bit and making it act like it knows what a corner is.

Daylan C said:

The only issue with going full frame laying mini truck with these is the solid front axle.

There is however precedent to lowering it a bit and making it act like it knows what a corner is.

You're assuming a level of performance that is well beyond her aspirations. It's cornering performance will fall into the "goes around corners and doesn't tip over" category versus the "high-performance handling machine" category. She doesn't actually want to lay frame, she really just wants it lowered cause' she's 5' nothing and it makes it easier to get in and out. 

If she ever DOES want to lay frame we can swap out the front axle for some IFS, but that's WAAAAAAY outside the scope of the foreseeable future.

Brett_Murphy said:

Great score. I think all of these are rusty, even the ones that have always been located in the desert.

Lots of XJ parts should swap over.

In theory from the firewall forward it's the same as an XJ. Unfortunately not the case for the transmission. From what I was able to discover is only MJs (and only for 86) had external slave cylinders on the AX4. Every other Jeep had a hydraulic throwout or internal. Oh and it's mounted on the passenger side unlike every other Jeep. cause Jeep. 

As for the rust it's the usual spots, cab corners, door sills, rockers. All rotted to nothingness. Buddy has a parts XJ that's mostly rust free that has a date with the sawsall to donate some sheet metal that isn't perfect, but should be less ventilated.

I can't see pictures.

I had some buddy’s back in day in the mini truck scene but don’t remember every seeing a Comanche mini truck. Sounds cool

One step forward and two backward. The truck is stored at SWMBO's parent's place out in the country, they're about a 45 minute drive so if we're gonna work on it there is a certain level of dedicating the day to it, so progress is extra slow.

With the new slave cylinder bled we tried to take the truck for a spin around the block, I stupidly believed the temp gauge that had been installed. I figured since it wasn't pegged at the low end it was reading something. That proved to be true, but if you're not getting any coolant flow through the block where the sender is it doesn't help much... So reading way too cold for too long had me suspicious, absolutely no water flow through the block. That poor little 2.5, hopefully didn't hurt it too much. That was last weekend, so I ordered a new water pump, thermostat, and for good measure new plug wires, distributor cap and rotor; hard to argue with how cheap it all is once you're already paying for shipping.

Put the new parts on including the water pump. The old pump was rusty but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Spun freely, no big chunks missing and not even that gritty. Hmmm. Fill the radiator and crank the motor over with the thermostat housing off and... nothing. It should be shooting water out the thermostat hole. I took the top radiator hose and blew into it; this hobby often has me putting things in my mouth that 1000% should not be there. Blowing into the top hose I can get water out of the thermostat housing, so it's not clogged.

At this point we were paged for dinner and had to throw in the towel. I verified the water pump is spinning the right direction, the belt isn't slipping. The only thing I can think is that the impeller isn't sitting in enough water to actually move anything and is just kinda splashing in a puddle? My solution is to fill the block from the thermostat housing down, then fill the radiator. Hopefully at that point the impeller will be in enough water to move it through the block? Is there something else stupid I'm missing? In my defense it's really hot out there. I'll be kind of annoyed that's the issue cause then it didn't need a new pump, just for my dumb ass to fill the system properly.

Despite what the net would have you believe I did figure out it's possible to delete the AC compressor and simply get a smaller serpentine belt, I thought I was going to just have to unplug the clutch and run it as a dead pulley or have to go to all the trouble of getting the pulleys off a non-A/C car and go to the two V-belts. Thankfully with the compressor gone the belt just clears the thermostat housing. I'd love to get the AC working but the compressor came missing one of the lines back to the expansion block and the entire condenser is missing, plus it's an unknown quantity. I figure I'll either scavenge a whole A/C System off another Jeep with a 2.5 or just put off A/C until we put a 4.0 in it.

Unfortunately nobody really cares about these little 2.5's cause they're so gutless, so all the real deep information out there is for the 4.0L. If the test drive is anything to go by this sucker will barely move it's own weight around. That's not totally fair, It does have a pair of spare axles, a spare trans, and a bunch of other junk in the bed too.

 Allegedly brand new the motor made 117 at the crank, but that would have been about 300,000 miles ago. From the factory the rear end should be a 4.10, but I'm not sure that's what's still there. I'll have to jack up the rear and count it but I'd bet it's closer to 3. It needs the 4.10s or I'm gonna be a public nuisance in a school zone flat out. 

I'd like to eventually put a 4.0L in this thing, but a project that moves under it's own power is infinitely more manageable so I'd like to get the 4 banger going so we can drive it to our place and more easily work on it.

I'm not familiar with the 2.5 but I did have a 4.0 MJ that had cooling system issues. If it's similar then A) the expansion tank is probably trash and B) on mine I had to pull a plug (which I replaced with a temp switch for electric fans) from the rear of the head (maybe lift rear of truck a bit, too) and fill the coolant until it ran out the plug to get the air out before the water pump would circulate it. 

Also if it's that rusty check the uniframe. Control arm mounting points and the surrounding areas in particular and right behind the cab where it boxes into frame rails. They look like regular truck frame rails but they're basically the same sheet metal as the front sections since its just an xj really. It's just metal and can be welded but better to do it before it folds on you. I ran 33s on stock d35/30 for my dd and wasn't gentle and never had trouble but I mostly drove it way too fast through fields and romped around snow, I didn't do rock crawling. Kinda like a poor man's half asked prerunner.