Why Some Geniuses Are Installing Jeep Gladiator Parts On Old Jeep Comanches

When the Jeep Gladiator debuted at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show, it sparked a renewed interest in the Jeep pickup that preceded it: the Comanche. Though some liked the new Gladiator, others panned the awkward rear door shared with the Wrangler, the strange look from the rear three-quarter angle, and above all: The lack of a long-bed, regular cab model. “That’s not a real truck, that’s just a Wrangler with a tiny bed. The Comanche is so much better!” was the type of sentiment you’d commonly see on the internet around that time. Even today, many diehard Comanche fans loathe the Gladiator, but some have changed their minds, in part, because the Gladiator has given back to its forefather. Here’s what I mean.

The Jeep Comanche is actually quite similar to the Gladiator in that they are both truck-ified versions of a four-door, high-volume family off-roader. I often tell people that the modern Jeep “XJ” Cherokee is not actually the new Cherokee, but rather the four-door Wrangler. And if that’s the case, then the modern version of the Jeep Comanche is the Jeep Gladiator. Both are compromised, not built-from-the-ground-up pickup trucks. And both have their dedicated fanbases.

The Comanche lived a reasonably long life, hitting the market for the 1986 model year and continuing until 1992 — that’s seven model years, which is more than the first-gen Grand Cherokee. Still, the issue for current owners isn’t model-years, it’s volume. Per Good Car Bad Car, Jeep only sold about 175,000 unibody-ish trucks between 1985 and 1992, and with every Comanche (like its XJ sibling) struggling to handle any amount of road salt without fading into brown powder, the Comanche has become quite rare today. (By comparison, Jeep sold 2.8 million Jeep Cherokee XJs — that’s over 15 times more).

Jeep Comanche Rear Bumpers And Taillights Are Unobtainium

If you ask any Jeep Comanche owner about parts availability, their reply will likely be: “Depends on what half of the truck you’re talking about.”

The Jeep “MJ” Comanche’s front half is exactly the same as the Jeep Cherokee XJ’s. Same engine options, same cooling system, same doors, same hood, same fenders, same body structure — it’s all the same. But at the B-Pillar, things change.

If you need Jeep Comanche front-end parts, that’s no problem. Even interior components — sans maybe a bench seat, the cab-back trim, and the headliner — are totally interchangeable. But the bed is hen’s teeth, and what’s worse is that so are the taillights and rear bumper.

My former boss at Chrysler used to talk about his dad’s minty 1992 Jeep Comanche. “Yeah, someone hit his rear bumper. We cannot find a replacement,” he told me for the entire two years I worked as an engineer. I’m not sure he ever did find a replacement bumper. They’re simply unobtainium, which is why you see forum posts like “Poll: Does your MJ have the original rear bumper?” and the post “NOS Factory rear bumper” in which the person who found what appears to have been the final New Old-Stock rear bumper on earth celebrated by writing: “Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod!!! My hands started shaking.” That’s how rare these bumpers are.

The taillights are also insanely rare, since they’re made of cheap plastic that degrades in the sun, and since they’re Jeep Comanche-specific units that were never reproduced. That is to say: If you get  hit in the rear of your Jeep Comanche, you’re pretty well screwed.

Jeep Gladiator To The Rescue

I never thought a Jeep Gladiator would make for a good parts donor for a Comanche, largely because of how enormous the Gladiator is relative to the Comanche. But I was wrong. First, before I get to the rear bumper mod, I’d like to show you a 3-D printed Wrangler/Gladiator taillight adapter. Check this out:

Why struggle to find Comanche taillights when you can just install cheap, ubiquitous JL/JT taillights? [UPDATE: Actually they’re JK lights, but JL/JT ones are coming, ZimmDakIndustries has said in the comments. -DT]. Here’s a look at the 3-D printed adapters sold by ZimmakIndustries on Etsy:

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I obviously prefer the look of the original Comanche taillights, but I applaud the ingenuity:

While Comanche tailights are hard to find, the rear bumper is much harder, which is why I was so thrilled to see that someone found a solution that actually looks pretty dang good! Behold the Jeep Gladiator rear bumper-on-Jeep Comanche mod:

“When it comes to the Comanche, there aren’t a ton of options for bumpers” Steve McKiernan — purveyor of the Instagram page Second Chance Jeeps and Grand Rapids, MI-based radio producer — told me over DMs. “I had read in a Facebook group that some people were considering trying to modify gladiator bumpers to install on a Comanche, so I figured I would give it a try.”

“It really wasn’t that difficult at all,” Steve, who cut the rust out of his 1988 Jeep Comanche as a COVID project and who this past summer did 2wd-to-4wd conversion, told me. “I had to cut down the factory bumper mounts and weld a piece of angle iron to them and drill some holes in it. Then I had to notch each end of the gladiator bumper. Other than that, it was pretty easy.” Here’s a look at the notches Second Chance Jeeps put on the Gladiator bumper:

And here’s a look at a cut and welded factory Comanche bumper bracket:

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“It fits up great!” Steve told me. “The width of the bumper was perfect. I just had to notch it because the Comanche rear end is a lot more square than the gladiator.”
I agree; the final result actually looks quite good — almost like it was designed that way:

It’s a slim bumper, which is what the JT Gladiator needed to prevent its departure angle from getting out of hand. On the Comanche, it just works, and surprisingly it’s not too wide at all.

What are the odds that the new Jeep truck’s rear bumper would work so well on the old Jeep truck’s? It is a gift from the Jeep gods themselves.