87manche

find a local drivetrain shop. I was quoted $90 to shorten and retube my driveshaft by the local shop. Once the drivetrain is in, they can tell you what measurements they need to do that.

exactly why I wheel a longbed MJ. I was the only one at the cherokee crawl, and most people don't even know what the hell it is when I pull up. that and I can toss the swampers and camping gear in the bed, roll on road tires and swap them. 7 feet of cargo space is pretty nice.

dude, post it on pirate, then send him the link ;) he can see what "constructive" criticism really is.

search on naxja for it, I saw a nicely done one that was painted to match the tow rig. it was a longbed trailer with a cap.

I've got the advance auto trubore one or whatever. I needed one and they were the only ones in town with something in stock, it's lasted about 20K miles and shows no signs of being crappy.

I had one, but unfortunately don't have pictures anymore of it. it looked like it was modified to fit from a dakota.

doesn't have enough body damage to be trail rated.

does it have to be pretty? mines a "bit" trail rashed, but it's still recognizable. I like this one: anyway. I'm sure lots of pictures will be available of my junk soon. I was pretty popular on lower 2, lots of people watching me do that open/open. it was a good show.

yeah, the MJ is becoming more and more trail toy and less street friendly, so I'm not worried terribly much about the handling detriments on the street. Only thing it's gonna see anymore are major highways on the way to wheel.

I'll take pictures of the rails tonight before they go back on the truck. All 4 legs have different lengths. the legs are a larger tube over a smaller tube, the feet are welded at the proper angles. Simply slid the feet to the proper length while a friend held them in place against the pinch seam. Tack welded them in place, then plug welded them permanently. I'll warn you though, my welds are butt ugly, it was 90* out, and I was welding at 11:30 at night. It truely was a case of turn the wire feed up and go to town, they're just plug welds.

true. not upset or offended. I'd buy ya a beer if I drank. :cheers:

yeah, moving the shock mounts to the tube is a great idea, but it will make the shocks way too long. I'm going to end up doing something like CW has there., so I can get rid of these rock grabbers when I go SOA.

I'm sure they could. TNT seems pretty cool about doing stuff like that. if not, call JCR. I bet Brian could make one for ya. time is money eh?

front of the motor, drives the serpentine belt. It has a rubber insert, the halves of the pulley seperate, and the HB rubs into the timing chain cover. Of course, you usually hear the noise.

a dak isn't much bigger than an MJ. You need something bigger. Let's do some matchbook math. Your average car hauler weighs about 2K pounds, unless you splurge for one of those fancy AL jobs. Your MJ, trail ready probably weighs about 4, I know that mine weighed 4200 when I rolled it over the scales loaded for a weekend of wheeling. so you're talking about towing 6K pounds with a 4K pound vehicle. You need at least a 1/2 ton truck to be safe with that kind of weight back there, and even then good working trailer brakes are a must. Don't forget that you're going to have gear in the tow rig as well, so figure up how much your camping stuff weighs and factor that in as well. It all adds up pretty quick. dodge says the new body style dakotas will pull 7K pounds. I just can't see a dak being a good tow rig, at the very least you're going to be beating it up pretty bad towing it's rated capacity all the time.

that really depends on a lot of factors. let's just say that the 4.0 is an all cast iron motor, and will take a lot more heat than an all aluminum motor. I boiled mine over, needle was off the guage, I'd guess 280 before the coolant tank popped. still running that same motor a year later.

I've got a warn, it was $75 to my door, and it's held up pretty well. Better than the stock crossmember anyway. Make sure that it's the 3/16" thick one though, heard a rumor they were only 1/8" now.

where does it run off the block? check the oil filter adapter? check the front, if the harmonic balancer has walked into the cover it will leak oil.

those look like they just take stock bushings. parts store would have them.

a 4.0 will pull all day long, it's braking and control that's the problem. MJ's are relatively light, so tend to get pushed around by the trailer. trailer brakes mandatory for anything over a 1K pounds if you ask me. if flat towing, I'd look into one of those master cylinder jobbies that actuates the towed vehicles brakes. They're not cheap though, so you might just want to find a proper 3/4 ton tow rig. I just saw a used diesel F250 sell for $500. I missed out on that, even had a 6.9. needed the brakes fixed.

it's not that easy. for what it would cost to do that you could find an ax-5.

I didn't advocate running the unit bearing without the stub shaft. I was merely pointing out that the stub shaft doesn't actually CARRY any load, it's just there to hold the bearing together with the correct preload.

that's what I did

Letting the town know your coming through with that chattering and that cool, arctic blast of wind, eh? it has cost me more to insure then it has to operate so far :eek: I know that feeling. honda cost me $250 to get road ready, and $200 of that was purchase. cost me $260 for plates and insurance.

CW, even the stock unit bearing takes all the load, so I don't think you need to worry about that shaft. That's the same thing the unit bearing would do if you removed the stub shaft nut.