Pete M

I prefer to keep the forums as simple as possible. But the website (when it happens) can be far more complex. :brows:

The previous owner is being wishy-washy since his wife is out of town for a while (and apparently he can't get a sitter?) but I just sent an email reminding him that the passport deadline is looming and I'll be going over there with or without him.

And I only went through about half of the vids that came up with "jeep commercial". :D

Mid 90s Dakota.

Curse you youtube! Keeps stealing away my life. :roll: Found some other Jeep Comercials though. :D Some are funny, some are weird, some are old, some aren't in english and some are spoofs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9cmMlfDQ_s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQZ2UU7QOmI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUOQIs0n4v0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zg1mHYoGY4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXcv-56TSlg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMwhmog2tsU

Get new perches from your local Dodge dealership through the Performance Catalog. I've heard they are beefy and like $15 for a pair.

Sorry. It's a common misunderstanding. The XJ has it's spring hangers mounted outside the uni-frame, while the MJ has them directly below the frame rails.

On second thought, don't move to Michigan. There aren't enough jobs for the people that are still here. :(

Or move to Michigan! No testing and no inspections. :D

You'll need to move the perches over a bit to fit the MJ.

Aw, you guys whine too much. :D I have renewed hope for Jeep now that Daimler no longer owns Chrysler. Also, very, very few vehicles have ever been produced that meet my specifications. I always look at a vehicle with mods in mind. Admittedly there are some things that are out of my talent base, like good bodywork and fiddling with the engine wiring in the newer vehicles. Heck, I didn't even buy my Dak R/T until I was confident that I could convert it to a manual transmission. Also, I've driven a Pacifica with that 4.0 v6 and I would be very happy with it in a Jeep. :D It's wicked peppy! We have a minivan with the 3.8 and I'm not impressed (although it could be that lousy tranmission, or the fact that it's in a minivan).

Is it set up for an MJ soa or an XJ soa?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd6wluAT3Mk

I think others have started video posts in the past. You could search one up and add yours to it. When we eventually have a fully functioning website, I'd love to have a video page in it. :D

Poor steering and the axle will be shifted to the side.

It's been done without, but I still highly recommend them if you do a lot of road driving. Your suspension is not a thing to cheap out on when yours and other peoples' lives are on the line.

Caster is the difference between vertical and the imaginary line drawn through the ball joints. Our trucks are set up to use a few degrees of caster which aids in the "return to center" when you release the steering wheel. Sometimes funny steering characteristics or even the dreaded death-wobble can pop up if you have less caster (this can also happen if you lift a Jeep but keep the stock arms which rotates the axle assembly and reduces the caster angle).

The front is the hard one. Make it your priority and then just find a rear that matches in width and bolt pattern. Some common pairs out there: Upgrade the guts in your front Dana 30 (or get another and upgrade it) and get an Explorer 8.8 rear axle Pros: The 95-01 Explorer 8.8 is very strong and even stronger with a couple upgrades like a fullcarrier locker and welding the housing to the tubes. Factory disk brakes and 4.10 gears available in the junkyards. Cons: Some say that it's a waste of resources to upgrade a Dana 30 that much, but it has been done many time before. All depends on your driving style Ford late 70s high-pinion Dana 44 front and 9" rear -Pros: high pinion front, If you move up to the 3/4 ton versions you can get a Dana 60 rear -Cons: pretty wide. Not all years/models are made equal. The ones with the cast-on mounts are to be avoided unless you want to use the Ford radius arm suspension too. Dana 44s from a Scout -Pros: right width -cons: front is set at 0* caster Grand wagoneer Dana 44 axles -Pros: right width -Cons: Avoid the ones with the disconnect in the front axle Grand waggy front with a rear Dana 44 from a Isuzu Rodeo -Pros: The Isuzu rear axle has the same width and wheel bolt pattern, but comes with factory disk brakes -Cons: The funk pinion flange. But I'm told it's a direct swap to put on a regular Dana 44 U-joint flange Axles from a TJ Rubicon -Pros: right width, etc. -Cons: Wicked expensive and hard to get. I would probably consider custom axles if I could swing this much dough. This is just off the top of my head. I'm sure the other guys will fill in more details

Also make sure that your battery cables and their connections are perfectly clean and non-corroded.

When my brake lights failed on me in the 88, it was due to corrosion in the harness connector located behind the drivers side rear tire. (or was it in front of that tire?)

I still hesitate to break up the forums into individual locational categories. We have places to post up for future wheeling trips and a simple question in the pub should get plenty of responses of owners near you. What I'm saying is that we already have the means to do what you guys are asking for. If you're looking for owners local to you, ask up in the pub. If you want to go wheeling around you, start a thread in the wheeling section. I don't feel that having regional sections will necessarily facilitate what you guys are looking for. It's hard enough to get people to do the simple things, like putting their location or first name in their info. :( What about this, when we finally get a full-on site, how about we organize the members' pics/info by location? Maybe with a clickable map of some sort? :brows: Hey, if I'm dreaming, I may as well dream big. :D

Capital idea. :cheers:

What I'm really waiting on here is my graduation. It's been in limbo for 8 months now. I have one more final next week and then I'm either on to job searching or I'll be emailing you guys from prison after I kill my prof for making the last year of my life a pointless hell. Once I get money rollling in, I'd like to pay a local web-head a few bucks to orchestrate all this for me or at least show me how to do it. I still want you guys to do the pages and all, but I'm just not enough of a techie to be able to do it myself. Even help from afar won't cut it, I need real-time instruction on the details, answers to my questions and the whole 9 yards. I know I've said it before, but please be patient a bit longer. :cheers: But don't let me stop the discussion of your opinions and ideas. SouthLake has a nice looking page going there. :cheers: Makes mine look like I cut it out of construction paper and glued it on the screen. :D

I really hesitate starting this up because I feel it'll snowball. Once I make a way to leave feedback, I feel a certain amount of responsibility shift from the buyers/sellers over to the forums and that means to me. It sounds simple enough to have a means to leave some sort of feedback, but that all needs to be monitored and disputes settled and so on. It's a can of worms. I want to leave it the responsibility of the buyer to check out the seller and vice-versa. Having said that, how about I post up a new suggestion in the rules that all transactions end in a post by the buyer and seller that everything went alright? That would make it search-able. If you run a search for a certain screen name and limit it to the classifieds forum, you'll get a listing of posts by that person.

Which sticks did you want?