Project Mutt

Not really all that tired and got bored so figured I'd post up where I am with my build. Going to see how far I get with posting till I pass out.

The Jeep started as an '86 Comanche X with the 2.8L, AX5, NP207, Dana 30/35, 3.55's. I bought the Jeep for $600 and came with 31's. Surprisingly, she had a solid frame, just needed floors and the apron fixed (where the battery box bolts to).

Got the Jeep home and did a tune up just to figure out that one cylinder was real low on compression. Found two bent pushrods and did a tune up and that still didn't fix it, think a lifter collapsed. I wasn't going to spend any more money on the crappy 2.8L so it was time to upgrade. The 3.4L just wasn't for me, so I went searching. I found a great deal on adapter plates from a guy on Craigslist for a Chevy 350 and mated an AX15 and NP231 to it.

In the mean time, I added a lift with 4.5" BDS short arms from a 4dr JK, Rusty's 8.5" front springs and a SOA in the rear. Shackles were on the list once I figured how everything sat in the front.

The first thing that had to be done (and what better time than when the drive train is out) is to replace the floor pan. I got an OEM Cherokee floor pan offline and a buddy gave me a hand cutting and fitting pieces (by gave me a hand, I mean he did it while I was the lackey). I figured I'd learn from him since he works at an automotive body shop to see what things I can pick up.

First thing was to remove the rust. I cut back to all good metal so that we would have a good base point. Since we did it over two days (a week apart), the floor pan was primered so she didn't rust back up.

That was after the first day...

During the week I ordered a can of POR15 and did the whole top (and around the corners onto the bottom) of the floor pans to have a nice coat inbetween the pans to prevent rust later on.

The next weekend we really dove right in to get the floors all done. He cut and fit all the parts and then we fully welded the pans in.

I Herculined the floor (top and bottom) to help again with the rust. Since the interior was pretty much ripped out, I went up to the top of the firewall and all around up to the point of the bottom of the rear window.

Since the floor was done and I had spare metal laying around now, figured I might as well fix the apron. This fix isn't the prettiest (not sure why I sealed the corners, just felt like doing it) but it works. The battery box hides most of it and I might just touch up the rest to make it look better later on. This was my first attempt at really doing my own work (this was 10 months or so ago) and have since then dove a lot farther into the whole fabrication side.

So for the engine, picked up a '73 Z28 motor and started the replacing! The heads were swapped out with late '70's (I think) Chevy truck heads that were the non-smog type, oil pump was swapped out for a high volume pump, heads were rebuilt while they were off, Edelbrock Performer intake was put on and a TransDapt oil filter relocation was slapped on (need to see on clearances now but might go back to just a regular filter).

Then the motor was painted black.

When I got that all ready to be dropped in, a buddy offered me a set of roller rockers, new lifters and hardened push rods for dirt cheap, I just couldn't say no...So the engine came back apart and put all those goodies in.

I had to get a custom bushing since I had the large nose AX15 (and apparently that's all special order parts...) so the trans got bolted to the engine for fitment.

So...On to the fun part!

I got sick of the whole short arm system so decided to build my own 3-link long arm system. The links are made out of 2" OD by 0.25" wall DOM tubing and all six joints are Ballistic Fabrication 2.63" joints.

I started with an idea of using the stock mounting points and built a cross member based on that.

And then changed my mind...

For this new idea, the stock inner cross member brackets had to come off.

Engine was placed in to see where everything sits.

In order for my new idea to work, the transfer case had to be reclocked. So I made a custom tool and moved the holes over 5/8", which netted about a 2 inch rise on the low end.

Back to the cross member! Remember to count twice the thickness of metal if you're putting places on BOTH sides. :wall:

And the cross member mocked up. My goal is to raise everything above the frame rails, on the right track atleast!

Figured out the transmission of the AX15 is the only one that hangs down lower :wall: So a little out of the box thinking had to be done. Found a transmission mount from an '80 G20 and redrilled the mount bracket on the transmission for this mount, it actually worked out great in the end for once! Crappy pictures but you get the idea on the difference between the mounts.

Found the middle point for the trans in the tunnel and marked it on the mount, then cut. Welded the piece that was cut out onto the bottom as a spacer so that the bolt heads don't hang down below the cross member.

Then put her back in with the transfer case on. Need to bang the floor up some in order to clear the transfer case. :wall:

Drilled holes through the frame and sleeved the frame to strengthen her back up. There will now be three 5/8" grade 8 bolts holding the cross member in per side.

Inside of the frame rails looked factory. :banana:

Welded reinforcements to the outside of the frame (yes, that's 1/4" cause that's all I had).

Cross member bolted up

And then I caught my finger in the wire wheel and tore it down to bone so the Jeep took a break for a week.

After that healed (atleast a week of healing) then finished up welding the passenger side reinforcements on and finished clearancing the floor pan for the transfer case.

On to the latest project, the 3-link long arm build.

Built a set of frame side lower brackets, just going to use the factory axle brackets for the time being for the lowers. I plan on going one tons later so no real plan on using this axle for any extended period of time.

Tack welded them on, partially welded the joints on the ends of the lower arms, and drilled out the lower control arm mounts on the axle from 9/16" to 5/8". Everything is just going to get tacking till I make sure nothing hits on flexing.

I bought a set of brackets from Poly Performance which will atleast help with having the holes drilled already. I was planning on using the full brackets but things changed along the way.

Put the front drive shaft in and worked on finding a spot to put the frame side upper control arm bracket.

A look from down the transfer case shifter hole.

I got the upper arm slightly bent for clearances and went from being able to flex about 3" on the drivers side to around 9" before anything hit.

Yesterday (today whatever you want to call it...) I managed to get a little done but got distracted by my dads birthday and my brother wanting to play a new (to him) PS2 game. Got everything all mocked up for the frame side upper control arm joint then built the bracket and tacked it to the cross member.

Going to be working on the truss and axle mount tomorrow and flexing the Jeep to check on clearances, that'll definitely be interesting...

Completely forgot to put my build plans in it last night, so here they are. These are in no particular order right now.

A few of the more obvious ones from the build pics:

Mildly built Chevy 350 coupled to AX15 and reclocked 231

Raised cross member (flat stomach)

3-link front suspension with 8.5" Rustys Offroad coils, RE trackbar, JKS swap bar disconnects, and Crown extended brake lines

SOA rear with IronMan4x4 shackles to level her out

Ideas still in the planning stage:

Fuel cell in the bed (between the roll bars)

One ton axles (Dana 60HP kingpin front and Sterling 10.25 rear)

Humvee rims, changed backspacing (maybe), welded on rear rock rings, PVC insert (I'm sure I'm forgetting something here)

37x12.5R15 MTR's (might get the grooved ones)

Plans to trim enough to drop to 4-5" of lift

Maybe bob the bed

Maybe a double triangulated rear (not sure on coils or coil over), will only do if the bed gets bobbed

Custom built front bumper with recessed winch under the radiator

Custom built rear bumper with integrated hitch (cutting the dog legs off and wrapping this around)

Custom built rock sliders

Exo cage

Custom skid plates to make the stomach as flat as possible

That's all I can think of right now off the top of my head. I'm sure more ideas will pop up as the build progresses.

Today's work... (being lazy and just copying it from another forum post)

Got the frame for the front truss built and fully welded together and to the axle. Then tack welded the axle side UCA mount to the truss and installed the upper arm. Let everything go and was sitting at a 5 degree caster, just need a few turns on the upper arm and will get back to 7.0-8.0 degrees and that'll solve that issue. Still need to build the front and back of the truss for strength but...ran out of welding wire.

Flexed the Jeep out to see if/where anything hits. Got 22" of flex on the driver side and 24" on the passenger side (bottom of tire to ground) till the tire got stuffed into the front of the fender (you can see it better in the pic by what I mean), need to trim the fenders farther forward now with the stretch.

The arms do hit on a small section of the frame side stock lower mount that's left and on part of the coil bracket on the axle. The stock lower mount is going to get a visit from a saw-saw tomorrow, same with the little overhang on the coil bracket. Going to pick up more MIG wire and drop everything and finish welding it, then paint everything and be done with the suspension. This is mainly just a reminder for me, need to put all the transfer case bolts in and tighten them now that I can drop everything down to access all the bolts. Need to also put the slave cylinder bracket on and get that all trimmed and the floor minorly clearanced if needed.

Figured it's time to update as a good amount has gotten done in the last two weeks.

Fully welded the cross member and control arms.

Replaced the front drive shaft u-joints.

Got the arms painted and installed and finished up the reinforcement for the truss (I was going to make it fancy looking but then realized I had to make it...). Sitting around 8 degrees caster without adjusting the upper arm. :chillin:

Also modified the clutch slave bracket to clear the floor, then got the slave and clutch rod installed.

Some teaser pics. Nothing is bolted up yet since the rad needs to be fit before anything is finalized.

Pulled out the saw-saw and fixed the problem of fitment. With me being me, the Comanche now accepts a newer style Comanche/Cherokee radiator. :D

You can kind of see the issue here why that radiator won't fit. '84-'86 actually offset the middle of the core support forward then brought brackets back (as you can see in my previous post pics) to mount the radiator. That's a stock '90 Cherokee radiator sitting there (same dimensions at the newer ones).

And the front end fit back together after mr. saw-saw had his say. Still need to clean up and weld a few brackets together for strength but it all fits.

There are no rubber isolators on this setup right now and plan on keeping it that way for the time being. When the recessed winch and front bumper get made, the lower core support is going to get modified and I'm going to offset it down a bit, as well as the very top of the front rails, to better fit the radiator. There is about 6" of clearance between the nose of the water pump (long nose style) and the radiator, plenty of space to add any fan I wish.

It took a lot longer than I thought it would to finish up the front, trying to hold two parts and mark a hole at the same time by yourself is a pain. I have two holes to go on the top (cut the ones off the top to try to fit it another way and just ended up hacking off more of the core support) then all the holes are there for the rad. Even without the bottom pins in the rad (cut them off to make life easier on lining everything else up), you can shake the rad and the whole Jeep moves so I think she's mounted in there pretty tight.

I took some of the metal that got cut off and cut it to size then stitch welded it to cap the ends of the upper core support for a bit more strength. Not sure if this was really needed but I did it. The caps look a lot better in person than they do in the pictures.

After that, the test radiator got test fit and anything that needed to be tweaked got tweaked. Painted the headlight buckets (or whatever you call them), then put the rad back in and gave everything a once over with the paint. I think she turned out pretty well, kinda looks better than the later years where these were made to fit in there. :mrgreen:

Started piecing together the interior. Still need to grab a bunch of screws but everything still fits! The e-brake assembly underneath the Jeep is soaking in PB Blaster right now to hopefully adjust the nut out so I can get the cables going from the brakes to that bracket back on the bracket and get the e-brake working again. I'm not really worried with the looks of the interior right now as I'm going to be slowly converting to a black interior cause I hate the red.

Had an issue with the hood where it was bent pretty bad in the back so it would hit the wiper cowl. Took the hood off and took a hammer and block of wood to it to straighten it out. Also took out some of the indents that a PO put in there, think it was from him trying to bang the hood back out after something fell on it. When I took the hood off, figured I'd look at the hinges too. Both hinges were messed up so I took the pair that was salvaged from my old Cherokee and painted them black and put them on. The hood still needs to be tweaked a little which I'll do this weekend, then the hood pins will be installed. Also hammered back a good portion of the frame part where the wipers connect to that was dented in from when the hood flew up, the rest will be filled in by putty.

Painted and put the alternator brackets on the engine, painted and put the water pump pulley on the engine and painted the crank pulley and harmonic balancer. Put a new coolant temp sensor in. Put the carburetor gasket and carburetor on top just to figure out I don't have the right size bolts so it's just sitting on top to check clearances right now.

Started to screw the interior together, need to get a new set of seat belts since a PO cut them. Put the blower fan in and connected that up.

And for today...

Got the new radiator in the mail today, nice and shiny! Test fit the radiator in.

Doesn't fit! :wall: About an inch too tall...

So I took it anger out on the Jeep.

Where I stopped tonight.

Amazing build :wrench:

Brandon

great build,

are you going to put crush sleeve's in where you modified the frame? :???:

Amazing build :wrench:

 

Brandon

Thanks.

great build,

are you going to put crush sleeve's in where you modified the frame? :???:

Thanks. For the trans cross member, the bolts on the sides go through individual crush sleeves (6 sleeves total through the frame). The front cross member (probably should finish putting pics up of that...), I've added an extra crush sleeve on each side. The passenger side has the factory aluminum crush sleeve plus the added metal crush sleeve and the drivers side has the steering box crush sleeves (3 crush sleeves for the bolts) and the added metal crush sleeve. Both of the cross members are extremely tight fits (trans cross member has to be tapped into place), this essentially doubles for frame stiffeners to help keep the rails straight and away from eachothers.

As for the rest of the progress on the front cross member...

Sat there scratching my head for a few hours while trying to figure out ways to get all this to work, finally figured something out. Cut and bent the upper part of the frame down some and will be welding it back together and reinforcing a few areas. Called up Bulldog and figured out that the housing can be reclocked and it's simple as all hell. Also asked about mounting and the winch is now going to be mounted feet first.

Going to make the whole front cross member out of 1/4" steel with gussets in it. It will go from the bumper mounting point to bumper mounting point across and have wings going back. Will also have a small section on 1/4" on the inside of the front bumper mounting points.

The holes for the feet, winch line, and clutch lever still need to be cut. There will be another wing that will go behind the steering box to reinforce that area and am going to replace the aluminum spacer with steel that will be welded to the wing.

Marked all the metal to cut out, what a pain that was to cut out...

Everything got fit up and decided to bolt it on instead of welding it on (if you've ever tried to weld 1/4" to 18 gauge steel, you'll know why). With what's together, the cross member will be held on by three 3/8" grade 8 bolts and two 5/8" grade 8 bolts on the passenger side and three 3/8" grade 8 bolts and one 5/8" grade 8 bolt on the passenger side. Didn't snap a picture of it, but welded in a crush sleeve inside the rails to help strengthen the frame some.

Still need two brackets to be made and welded on in the front (will add two more 5/8" bolts per side) as well as mounting the winch. All in all, the front cross member will be held in by 13 grade 8 bolts. Hoping to have the cross member all done tomorrow, winch mounted, and front end pieced back together.

Got the winch mounted, wire hole cut and clutch handle holes cut. The handle sticks through for easy access. And if anyone is wondering, Bulldog (maker of this winch) has great customer service! He knew the answers to all my questions off the top of his head.

Replaced the aluminum spacer plate with chunks of steel welded to the reinforcement wing.

All painted and ready to go in. Can you believe that I cut all those brackets by hand? :D

I'm just copying and pasting this from another forum again cause I'm being lazy, and don't remember every exact step and issue I ran into along the way. So if a few of the lines sound a bit weird, that would be why. This was also built over 2 or 3 days in my free time so if you see anything about tomorrow, that would be why.

I had to pull the Comanche out to get a Wagoneer in there so the engine can be replaced so figured a few quick shots in day time were in order! A day time pic of the front end. Still need to bolt the stock bumper up for the time being till I get around to building a new front bumper (New Jersey and the needing a front license plate issue...). The winch cable needs to be spooled in and the lines and box ran and bolted in. Not sure exactly where to put the box yet to allow easy access for mounting the controller or might just do a remote controller to make life easy, haven't exactly decided yet.

A nice side shot of her while she's out of the canopy. Still need to add the shackles to the rear.

You can see the Mutts little brother in the background. That Comanche is going to be getting completely fixed (frame is rusted and floors are gone) and pretty much restored after this one gets done. For the time being, I need to throw the trans and transfer case back in and it's going to be a farm truck as it gets built up. Probably going to leave it stock or might do a SOA rear and then level out the front with 33's and short arms to help from sinking in on the farm, nothing drastic though.

Will be picking up a few parts for the engine in the next week or so and hopefully get her running soon!

Nice fab work man! That's how mine is getting built too! It's amazing what you can get done with a welder, a grinder, a sawzall, a tape measure, and a little imagination! (And lots of scrap metal in my case!)

Nice fab work man! That's how mine is getting built too! It's amazing what you can get done with a welder, a grinder, a sawzall, a tape measure, and a little imagination! (And lots of scrap metal in my case!)

lol thanks. I just got fed up with all the stuff out there not being built to how I want them. RockKrawler is the only true 3-link kit but that hangs down below the cross member and doesn't have the correct separation at the frame end. Plus, I can truly say that this is built, not bought. :D

NIce build!

Thanks.

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this! I'll be updating this up to date some time this week once I get a free chance from working on the Jeep and school. LOTS of things have happened in the last 7 months.

So this is probably going to take a few days to update her to where she is now but I'll start off. Starting from where I left off at April 26th...

Got the 8.25 all cleaned up and Cherokee shock brackets cut off. Moved the leaf perches in and kept them on the top for the SOA. You can see how far they hang down as only one is cut off in the pic.

Comparison between the IronMan4x4 adjustable shackles and stock.

Was thinking twice about stretching the wheel base so started measuring approach and departure angles. The approach angle will be around 70 degrees with a new front bumper built and with a bobbed bed, the rear will be around 50 degrees. The rear at stock is 33 degrees so that had to be addressed...I got the shackles in and put the drive shaft in and...

:wall: :wall: :wall:

That was all the way in on the transfer case so...It was time to stretch the rear!

Ordered a set of Sanderson block hugger headers for the Chevy 350. It's the only set of headers that would clear the frame rails.

Had to clearance the alternator brackets to clear the fins on the alternator, not sure why they hit since these are just stock brackets but it was an easy modification. Also had to make all the brackets for the power steering pump as, in the stock location, the pump hit the steering box. Crappy pictures but you can get the idea.

Wanted to get matching gears so I had to pick up a set of 3.55's for the 8.25 since I wasn't going to go down to 3.07's in the 30. Got a set of gears off my buddy to slap in. He found out the hard way that the 8.25 ring bolt are reverse thread so I had to take out two snapped bolts. Welded bolts onto them and they came out fairly easily.

Slapped the gears in and checked the backlash. I love the way Chrysler axles are shimmed. :yes:

The 8.25 all finished up and in.

I stretched the springs by flipping them 180. Gives a few inches of stretch since the center pin in the leaf spring isn't exactly centered. Few pictures of the stretch.

Spent a lot of time just trying to align the pulleys, never thought it would be this difficult to get belts straight! Used rope to get belt sizes. Ignore the spacers, they will get swapped one day (even though they've been there for over 6 months now...).

Added a little bling. :D Removed the factory center retainer for the hood and these are fully functioning.

Decided to take a picture of the front winch mount thickness compared to the frame, that'll stiffen her up nicely. :yes:

Routed the winch control connector into the winch mount.

Made a bracket for the oil filter relocation bracket, the part that the oil filter will be attached to.

Swapped proportioning valves with a Cherokee one I had kicking around to remove the load sensing circuit. Few pics of the difference.

Carburetor and lines/hoses ran for the engine. The carb sure is shiney. :yes:

The oil filter relocation bracket mounted. Went from self tapping screws to grade 8 bolts, prefer to bolt where I can so if I decide to remove something, I won't need to look for new holes or get larger screws.

Got everything together and started to fill the engine with fluids just to have them leak past the head gaskets in two spots...So the heads come back off, again!

Just to prove a point as doing a head gasket isn't a hard job, these are all the tools I used to rip the whole top end of the engine apart.

Straight edged the heads and block and everything was straight but decided to take the heads to a machine shop to get checked out just in case. Thank god I did because the heads were cracked in two spots! Hounded my buddy for giving me a bad set of heads and picked up a new set. Put new seals on the heads, lapped in the valves and put like 7 coats of paint on them. Then everything got slapped back together, again...

Had to order a mini starter since the stock ones would not fit with the way the headers pointed down. Also picked up a muffler.

Front end pieces back together, again. She's looking like a Jeep once again! Took a while to hunt down wiring issues for the front lights, which ended up being issues within the front wiring harness. Ended up just getting fed up and slapped on a spare front wiring harness I had and everything worked again.

Also made the transfer case shifter. It's not finished in the two pictures below but you can get the idea how it will be going.

Shifter in 4lo.

Shifter in 2hi

Shifter complete and painted, ready to go in.

2hi

4lo

Picture of the mini-starter compared to stock.

A buddy of mine gave me the idea of using an ammo box as a center console, then showed up one day and gave me 3! Took the largest one of the three and it fit between the seats perfectly.

And after all that work, a nice poser shot of the Jeep.

Dropped the Jeep off at an exhaust shop to get the exhaust bent (one of the only things I didn't do myself on this Jeep) and then took it over to a shop I used to work at for a little fine tuning and inspection. When she was there, they tried tuning the carb as much as they could just to have horrible blow by continue. Figured out one of the pistons had horrible compression and the engine got dismantled again...