when you say "up" does that mean the swing arm is at 2 or 3 oclock or straight up vertical?
have you bleed the rears using the MJ-specific factory procedure? Follow the link in my signature to find it.
the key here is luck. it's not really desirable in any way but possibly to someone down on the luck with a bad 2wd peugeot who can't find or afford an AX-15 swap. also they need to be close since no one is going to pay shipping for it. but there's no cost in advertising it for sale maybe you'll get lucky!
I made little sculptures out of the gears of mine (but mine grenaded so it had less value than yours)
trailers are the hardest thing to secure. super easy to just chain to the truck and go.
there is no perfect anti-theft device to stop a pro. But I figure I can irritate the hell out of them. My particular method is to have a simple lock on the hitch (so it's not stupid easy and they see a lock), and then wrap a strong cable lock under the frame and through the rims in such a way that they can travel 10 feet and then the tire locks up (similar in principle to what Brandon posted). but I don't advertise this with a flashy cable. it's just a black pinky-thick 6ft cable with a padlock on the end. but my theory is that the absolute mess they will experience will dissuade them from trying to keep going and they might abandon the theft. In the end, if I see long black streaks coming out of the driveway but no trailer, I can at least laugh at what they went through to take it.
just a note, the bumper isn't powder coated, it's not an Alcantara wheel, and you of course don't have a rack-n-pinion steering. those are reused codes that meant different things back in the day.
honestly, if my plan was to use the truck kinda rough and cover up scratches with a rattle can, I'd probably use a rattle can for the whole thing.
scuff, clean, paint, let dry.
but then, I'm not one of those paint gurus you seek.