By Kamil Kaluski
Remember when small pickup trucks existed? The Jeep Comanche, somewhat based on the Jeep Cherokee, was one such pickup. There was no quad- or mega-cap option, only a regular cab, like pickup truck gods intended. But there was a choice of 4×2 or 4×4 driveline and a six- or a seven-foot bed. Over the years there were different engines but not much has changed over the seven years that the Comanche was made.
Perhaps this is why people love to modify them. We’ve seen a quad-cab Comanche before and now we’re seeing a… heavy duty conversion!
From the ad:
1989 Jeep Comanche Dually – $4500 (Mohave Valley)
condition: good
cylinders: 6 cylinders
drive: rwd
fuel: gas
paint color: red
title status: clean
transmission: automatic
type: pickup1989 Jeep Comanche Dually (BIG TON conversion) Very good cond. and runs well. Nice interior Good paint. A/C. Needs tires. Call Bernieshow contact info
No texts please
Jeff Glucker
I didn’t know I needed this until now.
Hey, Longrooffan, I found Waldo junior. Or maybe senior.
https://i2.wp.com/hooniverse.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/zeroratrods-002.jpg
what ever happened to him? I loved his posts
Awesome! I was just on Autotempest today looking for Comanches!
5 lug nuts but a very large PCD.
I wonder if this has a use beyond looking cool? In other words, would the rest of the rig live up to the capability of the axle?
Back in the 1970s some Holden One Tonners had dually axles swapped into them (not sure if from a C30 or a Bedford CF van), used as tow trucks for accessing multi-deck car parks where normal tow trucks could not go. This photo might not be one but gives the idea.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b50691c9cb0a7779e0177cde27718f0a96628cb570c94cfe9ffbedb360b61f9d.jpg
The bolt pattern seems to be the same as used by the Toyota Dualies. So someone appears to have made adapters to accept a set of the Toyota Wheels.
It does note that it has the Big Ton option which gave it that garden variety semi-floating Dana 44 and the just barely 1 ton total capacity. So yeah might as well make it dually.
Just because it only has 5 lugs doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy duty. My International Harvester 1510 has 5 lug front wheels as does the GMC 3500HD and the higher payload versions of the P30 that they borrowed the axles from.
The larger the PCD, the more the clamping load is spread, so the stronger the wheel connection to the hub.
The 3/4-ton J-Series trucks of the period used an 8 on 6.5 pattern, and the Wagoneers a 6 on 5.5, so obviously this truck didn’t borrow from them. From the pictures the PCD looks much larger than the regular 4.5″. AMC did have a 5-on-5.5 that they put on pre-’74 3/4-ton J trucks, but I doubt they’d dip that far back into the parts bin for this application.
I’m certain if you pull the center cap on that front wheel and look down in that you’ll find the 5 x 4.5″ bolt pattern holding an adapter to the uncommonly large 5 bolt pattern of the wheels. It is definitely bigger than the 5 x 5.5″ used on Ford, Dodge and IH 1/2 ton trucks and Jeep CJ’s. The Jeep 1/2 tons used the 6 on 5.5″ that Chevy used on their 1/2 ton 4x4s. All used the 8 x 6.5″ for their 3/4 ton and 1 ton trucks, at least between the time Ford and IH dropped the 6 x 7.25″ and Ford went metric with the Super Duty.
Maybe the visible lug nuts are fake. Can’t see anything through the wheel rim openings.
Place called Arrowcraft sells the kits for this conversion. Adapters-fenders- wheels all of it.