Pete M

Hard to find?! Phooey on that. I picked up my latest in Toledo for $300 and all it really needed was a new slave cylinder and a floor (of course I can't stop there). They are out there if you look hard enough. And dirt cheap if you look long enough (and can fix things yourself). Finding a rust-free one for sale up here? Now that's hard. :( Are you on greatlakes4x4.com yet?

:rotfl2: Saving up for a nice MJ? :brows:

I know what went wrong. You were running a Dana 35! I blew one up on the way to work one day and I was only running 30" tires. They just spontaneously explode like that. There's nothing wrong with the drummed 8.8. It's just as strong as the disk version. Just make sure it's from an Explorer/Mountaineer.

35" tires can break parts in Dana 44s, let alone Dana 30s. Nothing is indestructible. 35 inches is a lot of tire and the Dana 30 is a small axle, but if you get shafts that run 297 or 760 'joints and leave the front open it should be fine. Of course, longevity is also dependent on the tires you get, the terrain you travel, and how much you like the skinny pedal. If you want to run big tires, expect to pay for it somewhere.

Have you ever set up gears before? They don't "just bolt in". While Dana 35 C-clip axles are technically concidered worse than Dana 35 non-C-clip axles, the difference won't ever be noticed until you break an axle shaft. My personal feelings are that the Dana 35 SUCKS either way and needs to be replaced with something that is truly better. :D

3.54 paired with 3.55 is perfectly normal. It's only 0.3% off. There's usually a greater difference than that between your tires front to rear. :D

Beats the hell outta the 18k I paid for my R/T. :D

Yup. Trying to run on the street in 3 wheel drive is ill advised. The biggest issue I see here is that you want to run 35" tires on the little 260 U-joints. That won't last long.

As far as I know, only the grand cherokee had an aluminum Dana 44. The 07 Wranglers have some darn good stuff under them. Can't go wrong as an upgrade, though I seriously doubt they bolt in.

You'll need to get the front axle too since the wheel bolt pattern was changed to 5 on 5.

For me, either one is fine since they both need to be upgraded to shafts that run the larger U-joints. http://www.madxj.com/MADXJ/technical/te ... dSeals.htm

Unfortunately, now that I've seen Moab and RORP and the trails through the mountains of Colorado, I realize how much we gravitate to anything that's even remotely muddy. :D There's a seasonal road south of us that locals like to tear up after it rains. Might be shut down now though. I haven't heard anything about it for a couple years. BTW, 27 seconds in which direction?

What are their gear ratios?

No results yet. The project timeline had to be sacrificed to the homework gods. In a couple weeks I'll be attacking it full on. :D

My area is flat-as-can-be AND it's filled with houses. I hate the suburbs. :(

Wouldn't surprise me. They SUCK in anything that resembles cold weather (and by that I mean they are downright DANGEROUS). I've seen them for sale on eBay though, so maybe they are still available down south and out west. Or maybe on a special order basis? :dunno:

It's very hard to give rules for 86 MJs. All sorts of craziness happened that year. You really need to check out the tag to make sure. All I know for certain is that the 3.07 ratio is only found behind 4.0L sticks.

Looks like on this upcoming trip I'll only be there for a couple days around Christmas. But when I return, I'm putting massive amounts of hours into fixing my trucks and getting this site where it needs to be. Then once the 88 is functional again I plan to drag it down to Georgia and stay for a couple weeks or so. I'll update everyone once I can narrow the dates down.

I'm not your typical go-fast guy. My Dakota R/T isn't all that shiny (it's a truck after all, why the hell would I polish it?) and it will always be at the factory ride height (although that is an inch lower than regular Daks). On the other hand, I don't haul much with it these days (though I used to when it was my only driver) and I try to keep the miles down. The biggest reason I went with a fast truck over a fast car is durability (and maybe a bit of looks). My truck is wicked fast, but it's also built tougher than any modern car. That's why I love fast trucks. I get to accelerate like a bat outta hell, but I never have to worry about pulling into driveways and I laugh at car-eating potholes! HaHa! :D Plus she's smaller than a fullsize with stiff springs and massive sway bars (that "bars", plural) so she whips around corners like a 'vette. I like to accelerate quickly in EVERY direction, not just straight ahead. :D I need to do something about the dang Scorcher tires though. They suck as far as performance goes. I only got them because I was desperate for new 17" tires and they were dirt cheap on eBay.

I know people that have made the trip up to the middle of no where in northern Ontario and they loved it. :D Wilderness rocks!

Sweeeeeeet.... :D

Dakota vs. MJ taillights http://comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=458

My sister's '00 TJ had the 3550. If I remember right, the TJ 3550 and the XJ 3550 had different gears inside and the TJ one had a rougher cut to them, making them noisy. Her trans was definitely noisier than any of my Jeep trannys.

It's not easy to make a 2wd trans into a 4wd trans if that's what you're asking.