1988 Jeep Comanche Eliminator

Picked up a 1988 Eliminator back in Feb because I needed a truck and always liked Comanche’s. I have one before a few years ago but I over complicated that project and it never really worked out so I’m starting fresh with this truck. New truck is a 4.0L 2WD with a 5 Speed. Current plan is to swap in an AX-15 / NP 231, fix all the little things, and drive it. After that who knows.

Here is a picture from when I first saw the truck on Craigslist. Paint doesn't look that great but it as bedsides, rockers and cab corners! Add said the truck runs and has a new fuel tank and pump but the clutch slave was leaking. Figured it sounded promising so I drove up to Manchester NH to check it out. In person the paint and interior was worse then I expected but over all it was pretty solid so I decided to buy it.

Since I don’t have a garage my friend has been letting me work on the truck at his place in NH. Originally I was going to replace the clutch and swap in an AX-15 in a weekend. I dropped the BA10 and found the lines from the clutch slave were rusty and leaking. I tried ordering a clutch kit locally from 2 different places that showed they came with the slave but none of them did. I ended up getting a kit from Ebay but the whole thing set me back 2 weeks since I can only work on the truck once a week. While I was waiting I also ordered a new clutch line from the master just to be safe. Here’s a picture of the clutch being installed. Main reason I took the pic was to remember the position of the trigger wheel at TDC incase I go with MegaSquirt later on.

AX15/NP231 installed. I still need to pick up a D30 from the junkyard. Comanche needs to be up and going so I can get its own parts so the 2WD axle is going to stay for now.

Some quick engine pictures of the rest of the truck.

Engine is crusty but complete.

Interior smells like mouse poop but the bucket seats are in good shape. Found a mouse nest under the center console.

Truck came with a set of snow tires on it but the front were pretty worn and were not holding air. One of my friends had some 30” mud tires on Jeep wheels he said I could have. 2 have very low miles and the 3rd has 75% left but the tread it feathered. Decided to move the 2 good snows to the front and run a pair of 30’s in the back just so I can move the truck around. I’ll figure out wheels and tires later.

So the truck runs and drives but the brakes felt like crap. I was hoping to just clean them up and bleed them but the master turned out to be junk. Blah, truck is going to sit at my friends house for while I track down some brake parts. Instead of ordering a master cylinder I found someone selling a 95 XJ booster with master on CL for $30. It even came with the proportioning valve and lines. The following week I pulled the master and found this:

Glad I picked up the XJ stuff.

Swap was strait forward since I’ve done this in the past on my old XJ. I drilled out the whole in the new booster to 5/8” and made a flat spot for the brake light switch.

Bolted the booster in and made up some custom brake lines. Bleed the brakes and should be finally ready to test drive the truck.

After the booster swap the truck decided to crank and not start. I started to wiggle wires under the dash and found the connection to the ignition switch was poor. I cleaned the contacts but the switch was still pretty corroded and the turn signal switch contacts were pretty bad too which would explain why a bunch of other stuff didn’t work. Sigh… decided to pull the column and bring it home with me to fix everything since it would be another week till I see the truck again.

Here is the new switch compared to the old one.

New turn signal switch and ignition switch installed and column is back together. Cleaned the contacts in the connectors and got everything back in the truck and it starts up fine.

I finally got the truck on the road back in May and drove it about a week till I lost oil pressure. I put a mechanical gauge on it and confirmed the bad news. Valvetrain is also noisy and i don't see any oil coming out of the pushrods. So I removed the pan and the pickup is clean. Long story short I replaced the oil pump but it turns out the new oil filter with 50 miles on it collapsed internally. Oil was clean so I'm not sure why it failed. Anyway oil pressure is way better now but hopefully no permanent damages has been done. Yes, I left the filter on after swapping the pump since it was new.

2 weeks ago I finally tracked down a 1998 XJ Dana 30 for the front yesterday. While I’m swapping axles might as well lift the truck while I’m at it right? I bought new spring perches to do a SOA with an 8.25 in the back and I picked up a set of 4.5” springs for the front. I might need a small spacer to balance things out in the front but I’ll have to see how it sits once I’m done. New axle is fairly rusty but its been coming apart ok. Already replaced the wheel joints and moved on to the ball joints. Found a good deal on some Spicers for $84.36 shipped for all 4. Still need to press them in, remove the rust, and give the axle a coat of paint.

Wow, quite a job! Good work, hope you can get it going soon! That brake booster is what mine looked like when I pulled the old master cylinder off my Z. Yuck!

So much better than fake Selena Gomez nudes.

Awesome Greg, hope to see more soon!

Manchvegas, eh? Was it on CL? I could swear I saw it and was sorely tempted to call the guy. Having seen what's under the console, I'm glad I didn't.

In for more, sweet project.

I've driven this thing, and it's awesome. As it is right now, you need 150% full attention to everything that involves driving, more so than a normal vehicle. The steering is extremely vague right now and it feels like you just drank a bottle of Wild Turkey and got behind the wheel, but man, it's fun to drive. I can't wait to see it lifted and with 4WD.

Anyone know how many were built 2wd vs. 4wd?

Since my 135i is in the body shop after being forced off the road by a drunk driver I’m currently daily driving the Comanche. That has put the lift on hold for now but sped up some repairs I’ve been putting off.

-Replaced headlight switch so dash lights work again
-Replaced clutch master cylinder
-Installed radio
-Found out only one speaker worked so new ones are on order
-Aimed headlights so they actually point at the road
-Replaced blower motor and cleaned mouse poop from heater
-Replaced stuck open thermostat

Mainly I’ve been using it for house projects and didn’t care about the other stuff till I had to deal with it every day.

In the mean time I ordered some 265/75R16 Cooper Discoverer A/T3 tires and reproduction Rubicon wheels

Didn’t take any pictures but I upgrade to a closed cooling system. Swap was pretty straight forward. I flushed everything and replaced the water pump while I was in there too. Only thing left is to add a read over flow bottle.

For a few months now I’d smell fuel every now and then but could never find a leak. I checked the lines and tightened the clamps on the temp repair of the return line but found nothing. As it has gotten colder the smell became stronger and I finally found what’s wrong. 2 injectors are leaking where the plastic and metal body meets. As the truck was idling the rear injectors was leaking bad enough where fuel was now puddling on the intake then leaking onto the exhaust where it would then smoke and burn off. Since I’d like to avoid a fiery death I’ve parked the truck for now and pull all the injectors so I won’t try to drive it. Jeff gave me a bag of injectors labeled Jeep but it turns out they were a random set of 30lbs for the XJ-R and not stock renix ones from Dave’s old jeep like we hoped. I ended up ordering a set of Volvo 4 hole 19lbs injectors on eBay which should go in this weekend.

Since there was nothing else major I could fix at this time I decided to see how the new wheels and tires would look before the lift and D30 swap. At stock ride height the back would be close but but the front would rub everywhere which is what I expected.

Are those Jeep wheels or aftermarket? I found them on TireRack recently looking for wheels that might work well on my old Ford.

I've had a hankerin' for a 4.0 2WD Comanche before, but I had no idea about the "Comanche Eliminator" trim package before (wow, how'd that name get through marketing?). Going to have to add a short wheelbase one of those to my bucket list. I'd love to do it like the $20xx XJ-R (sans race livery) and make a utilitarian sleeper out of it.

Thanks for the introduction to the Eliminator, keep up the good work.

Bryce

In reply to Nitroracer:

Yeah, the Tire Rack ones are the same style with different center caps. They are knockoff Wrangler Rubicon Moab wheels

It was above freezing today so worked on removing the XJ perches from the 8.25 and started tacking on new ones for the MJ. Hopefully I can MIG them on tomorrow and remove the shock mounts.

In reply to Nashco:

I had a Comanche Eliminator for about 2 years...

The "Eliminator" package was 2wd, 5-speed, 4.0 and 3.9:1 gears in the rear end.

I've read that 0-60 times were around 9 seconds and it was the fastest compact pickup until the Syclone came along.

Mine was a horrible piece of garbage.. Must've been built at beer-30 on the Thursday before a long weekend.

I knew quite a few people who had good luck with Cherokees and Wagoneers but mine was broken more than it was fixed.

If you have the trans out, change the crank sensor while you're in there, on principle. The engine is SFI so a bad crank trigger buggers up your fuel and your spark.

The Renix EFI can only be read with a Renix scanner so when things go bad you spend some time under the hood with a multimeter in the rain.

Also, the clutch master cylinder is right above the fuse panel so when the clutch M/C lets go, it fills the fuse panel full of brake fluid.

That's all I got.

This one has certainly been a project but I love it in a "it's so crappy it awesome" kind of way.

I normally hate the renix jeeps but after fixing a few small issues its been running great and the urge to rip our all the wiring has died down. Well except for the wipers not turning off when the headlights are on.

Mine came with 3.07 gears with the 5 speed. New axles will have 3.55 gears which will be better match for my 32" tires but still not ideal.

I've had a few XJ so I keep a spare crank sensor in my tool bag. The last one I had fail was 11pm when it was snowing. lol.

I do have to say, other than the "broken a whole lot" thing, I was very happy with the one I had.

Shawn

Rear perches are welded on and shock mounts have been removed. I ordered some new Ubolts for the back snice the old ones didn't fit the new axle.

While I'm waiting on parts for the rear I decided to start working on the front. I have everything unbolted except for the brake hoses.

I also need to do something about the leaking oil pan. Gasket is a new rubber felpro but the pan is beat and rusted.

Did you happen to find a front axle with matching gear ratio? If the Eliminator had that lower gear ratio, you'll have to find a matching R&P no?

Yeah, both axles have 3.55 gears. I was trying to find 4.10 axles from a 4 cylinder XJ but didn’t have any luck.

Still need to buy some sway bar disconnects for the front. Not sure which ones I want to go with yet.

How about yj axles? Lots of those were 4.10. Or tj for that matter. If you have to add spring mounts anyway....

Joey

Didn't feel like modifying all the brackets to fit a YJ axle and the TJ has a low pinion D30 compared to the pre 99 XJ. Also the 97 D30 I picked up has the larger wheel joints.

Hover conversion almost complete.

While I was under there I pulled the pan to fix the leak then decided to do the rear main seal too. Seal wasn’t leaking but with my luck as soon as everything when back together it would start. Of course I instantly regretted it since it took half the day to remove the old one. Whatever, it’s done now and I installed a rust free pan.

PseudoSport wrote: Didn't feel like modifying all the brackets to fit a YJ axle and the TJ has a low pinion D30 compared to the pre 99 XJ. Also the 97 D30 I picked up has the larger wheel joints.

Ah I see.

Joey

Starting to get annoyed. First track bar I ordered back in Nov from Amazon. Now that its finally warm out I went to install it a few weeks ago and it turns out they shipped me the wrong one. Since it's been months they said I'm SOL. So I ordered a new one which then turns out to be back ordered for 2 weeks. Finally finally shows up yesterday so today I hope to finish up the lift on the MJ. Wrong! F'ing poly pushing that is suppose to be pressed in one end was never installed and its not in the box. I called them up and they are shipping me a new bushing.

I might go steal the bushing from the other track bar for now but this is how the truck currently looks.