The Comanche

[losikid]

Well, my dad and i built this thing up about 2 years ago. Originally it was my dads wheelin rig but he gave it to me about a year ago as a graduation gift. His new rig, he just finished building, is a built CJ7. Its 4 linked front and rear, has coilovers on each corner, dana 60 up front w/ full hydro steering, 14 bolt in the rear, its twin sticked, oh and its powered by a thirsty v8.

Anyways, back to the comanche, i've wheeled it hard for the past year. Been to moab a number times and have ran alot of the hard trails in western colorado (Billings, 21 rd, and some of the montrose trails). It works great and has pissed off numerous people with buggies. Watch them struggle on some line for half an hour then just go walk it without slipping a tire. Good stuff.

Anyways, it sits on 37's with a d44 w/ chromo shafts up front and a 14 bolt in the rear. Hydro assist steering, 4:1 in the t-case. The rear sits on leafs and the front is just a 3 link and coils. Nothing too special, it is custom dented though.

I'm back home for the summer and i plan on building it up alittle more. I've managed to bend a leaf spring and i have a massive overhang that likes to be a anchor. So as of right now i'm debating from just bobbing the bed back to the spring hangers and get some new alcan leafs for it or going crazy and doing a 4link with coilovers and building a tube bed for it. Major determining factor will be if overkillRC is paying the bill or if i find job over the summer.

Also, new bumpers are planned. I need to figure out a new front bumper so i can mount a winch to it. Then the rear, well i ripped it off in moab trying to climb up rockpile, and well now its held on with some 1/4" bolts and is far from structural....I almost was up rockpile and my front tires got extremely light so i slammed it into reverse and my rear end was probably 4 ft in the air. The bumper ended up slamming right into the groud really hard and i peeled it right off. It did protect the bed though .

Here's some pictures i could dig up...we don't take pictures very often

[jeepster73]

Super Sweet Ride For Sure.

[AxialJeepster]

bad ass.

[Jeepfixer1]

Me like it, those are some long coils.

[KJ10]

That MJ looks familiar. You dad didn't happen to get that from Sheridan, WY did he? Glad to see it being used for what it was intended! Keep your hands inside, though! You need those to make stuff for us.

[Illeagle]

I want it!

[losikid]

Originally Posted by KJ10

That MJ looks familiar. You dad didn't happen to get that from Sheridan, WY did he? Glad to see it being used for what it was intended! Keep your hands inside, though! You need those to make stuff for us.

No, he traded a guy a built ford hp d60 for it....That guy got it from a pawn shop along time ago.

The hands belong outside....and i've got ninja fast driving reflex's, i ain't worried about them. I ain't stupid enough to try and catch the jeep (I've crashed alot on a dirt bike) and i'm smart enough to put both hands on the wheel when it goes to roll over.

The day that jeep rolls over is going to be the day i get stupid. I've had it in some crazy off camber shit and it holds it just fine. Extremely predictable.


On another note, once the shop opens up i'll start working on the rear end....bobbing the bed and new bumper. Right now there's a sick crawler hauler being built. Woulda been done by tomorrow but ran out of wire in the welder yesterday so that kinda put a damper on progress for the trailer so i probably won't start on the jeep till next week.

[losikid]

Went out wheelin yesterday.....I really need to get my bed bobbed.

https://plus.google.com/photos/10640...CJLJzayK4srDJw

The white cj7 is my dad's jeep and the blue tj (well, actually an lj) is one of his good friend's jeep.

[losikid]

So, friday night i decided to swap out my leafs with a set of alcans that was sitting beside one of dad's friend's shop....I'm borrowing them .

Here's the old leafs, i figured i should probably put different ones under it before those ruined a good wheelin trip.



The alcans had an add a leaf in them so i figured i better take it out....i could put it back in later if their too soft.





So, got the new leafs on but they're a wee bit shorter than i thought...



Since the leafs didn't fit well and i had parts to bob the bed....we pulled the bed off to start the bob (saturday morning). You can see the springs alittle better now and the horrible angle they put those shackles at.



Decided to take 21" off the frame



Used a chalk line to get some cut geometry on the center piece



Cut the frame off with a sawzall





Then cut all the mounting brackets and clevis tabs off the old bumper (a 2x4 tube). And had my dad weld the bumper up solid to the pop can frame.



Finally, saturday night ended with getting the leafs bolted down to the axle, having my dad weld the shackle hangers on (I don't trust my welding for something that structural), and getting some dinky shackles on there so we can get it in and out of the shop.





Today (sunday) we just cleaned up the shop and tinkered around trying to figure out what todo with the bed. As of now, it'll be a tube pickup bed. (It'll look like a pickup be with tubes frenched in where the body lines are). The current bed is just too beat up to make it a clean looking bob. Now i just need to figure out if i want attempt fate and try to bend tube myself or have a fab shop bend my roll hoop and fender hoops...i don't really have money to fawk up a 20ft stick of dom.

Here's how long it was before hand

[chino63]

That truck is sweet, I always liked the way they look. I wanted one as a teenager but wanted a Toyota more.

One thing I'd like to see is a Cherokee body cut just past the rear doors with a bobbed Comanche bed hanging off the back. Might be a good project for me in the distant future.

Keep the progress pic's coming as well as more from your wheeling trips.

[losikid]

Originally Posted by chino63

That truck is sweet, I always liked the way they look. I wanted one as a teenager but wanted a Toyota more.

One thing I'd like to see is a Cherokee body cut just past the rear doors with a bobbed Comanche bed hanging off the back. Might be a good project for me in the distant future.

Keep the progress pic's coming as well as more from your wheeling trips.

I seen a picture the other day of a cherokee pulling a comanche short bed trailer.....that was sweet looking.

[losikid]

Got 60ft (3 sticks) of 1.75" .120 wall dom paid for today, should have it in afew days. I think it'll enough to get the bed tubed in...then depending how fat the piggy bank is, i may do the halo and front tube work.

[kbuby]

i love commanches, sadly in dominican republic i cant fin one they´re rare in this country

[losikid]

So, i should have some tube tomorrow to start on the jeep again. I should of had it thrusday but for some reason it wasn't on the truck. (grr) I wanted to have the fender tubes and roll hoop bent and tacked on over the weekend but that didn't happen. (Oh, i decided to bend it myself....picked up the bend-tech ez software for 80 bucks)

Going to have the two fenders (front and rear) and the slider on 1 stick of dom (2 sticks total), a roll hoop, and some more tube to follow the factory body lines. Then i'm going to tab the tube and bolt on some aluminum sheeting. Going to use the stock tailgate but thats all i'll use off of the factory bed.

[losikid]

OK, so i got 5 23 ft sticks of dom bought and 2 20' sticks of ews. We started to bend a roll hoop; now a good chunk of dom is in the scrap pile if we need some short stuff.

It was decided that the new sliders and tailgate needed to be build before any more tube was destroyed. So tomorrow i'll go down to the steel yard and pick up some 2x4 for the sliders and new bed corners. (sliders will be 3/16 wall and bed corners will be 1/8" wall)

So this morning, I took the plasma cutter and cut off the old sliders then ground them off smooth on the frame.



While i was doing that my dad and his buddy started cutting pieces for the new inner bed frame to mount skins to and the fuel tank. Then i welded it all together to finish the afternoon off.





We still need to run center supports for the fuel tank....



On another note, saturday morning we figured out that tire plugs can fill a tennis ball sized hole and get a rig off the trail back to the trailer.

[losikid]

Ok, so yesterday finished getting the inner bed frame ready to wheel and got some serious progress done on the sliders.

Ended up going with 2x4 3/16 wall tube for the sliders. So i got them all cut to match the fender angles.



I welded on some plates to cap off the ends.



Then it was group effort on all the slider supports (also 2x4 tube), getting it all tacked and welded up to the frame.







Then today we got the bender and notcher all setup, had to run all over town to get misc stuff.

Started out tacking stuff together



After grinding off tacks and re tacking a million times; we finally got everything all tacked together straight and symmetrical.





And that's how it sits for now....tomorrow i think finish up the rear fender hoops and work on cross members around the tool box area (close to the cab)

[losikid]

Forgot to take pictures today, but this bed is going to be sweet.

I won't have time to build a full cage for it before i go back to school, so it's just going to be a sweet bed, then later down the road i'll build a full internal cage for it.

[Cherokee08]

Sweet build man! It looks really good. I just picked up a comanche with 55k on the clock. Watching you build this is giving me some ideas!

[chino63]

Possum entrails.... The eco-friendly tire plug.

[losikid]

Originally Posted by chino63

Possum entrails.... The eco-friendly tire plug.

lol,

Thats actually 3 different tire plug kits in there