Pete M

for the FM issue, send a message to Minuit. He knows just about all there is to know about the oem radios. (including how to get an AUX port in them)

it is easy to do away with the lines and get reliable 4wd again:

did you find anything in the DIY threads? (link in my sig)

one spring per headlight and it mounts on the outer/lower corner for each.

I'll go see if I can dig my waggy header out of the attic and see.

that particular rim comes in 2 flavors. the TJ ones will be of the right bolt pattern, the JK ones will not.

what is going on with the track bar mount? do you have a better pic of that end?

I trimmed the edges of the control arms (you can see a bit of that in the pic) and also nipped the corners of the control arm buckets. but I did it purely out of the hypothetical. I have no idea if you would actually contact any of those places in a real world situation. I'd be curious if anyone tested that out.

definitely a cool lookin' tire , but it's possible it might be too mud-oriented for street use. do you get snow in your neck of the woods? mud treads don't seem to do well in the frozen stuff. I don't have any personal experience with that lift, but I see it has the longer lift leafs, which is much better than short ones. I can comment on tire size since I had a stock 4.0/stick way-back-when and the 3.07 gears in your axles are going to make driving around less fun since the bigger tires effectively reduce your axle ratio and make your engine feel less strong. I had 30" tires andt found it frustrating some times when pulling away from a stop. later on, after my dana 35 ate itself, I upgraded to a 3.55 ratio axle and it was much better. with 31s, I'd suggest 4.10s if you can find the axles. be careful about 4x4s, as there is a slippery slop of upgrades where one begets anothe, which begets another, etc. each inch of lift/tires seems to cost twice what the last inch did. but that mostly means that you need to have a plan and know what you're getting into so you don't get overwhelmed. planning is all free at this point.

definitely sounds plausible. but I would run a compression test and leakdown test before writing it off. just to be sure.

are there any ugrades you can do to it? I mean, I'm all for econoboxes, but I'd need ways to tinker with it.

moved it to tech for more exposure

what happened to the current one?

what all are the plans for the truck? highway? dd? just-around-town truck? trail-only?

'tis a brave new world... at least it's a hatchback.

18 grand and they can't even show me some pics of the interior or underside or the lift parts used? did I miss something in that ad?

you are indeed insane for attempting this. but it's going to be such a blast once it's done!

neat! I love off the wall builds.

just need to trim the metal bushing to be flush with the rubber bushing. before on the right:

yup. pain in the butt.

I've purchased 2 sets of WJ arms from junkyards and checked out maybe 20 more over the years. the more I look at them, the more I'm convinced the ones I bought had already been replaced. so I guess I got lucky.

we can update your pics once it's finished

by "jeep rims" they mean nearly any factory rim that has the 5 on 4.5" bolt pattern. with just a couple exceptions they are all 15x7 or 15x8 with a 5.25" backspacing. this includes any rim from an MJ/XJ/YJ/TJ/ZJ/KJ/(and at least one of the newer small Jeeps I can't remember which, patriot?). when choosing between 30s and 31s, keep in mind that the taller the tire, the less power your engine will seem to have (in essence it lowers the effective gear ratio number). my 88 back in the day on 30x9.5s:

the ford 8.8 needs to come from an Explorer to be usable. the 8.8 was found under all sorts of Ford cars/trucks, but the Explorer one is the only one with the correct bolt pattern and width.

I use car-part.com all the time, but I've never clicked the "request quote" thingie. I either call the phone number for the specific junkyard that shows what I seek, or I simply go to the yard in person if it's close enough. for those unfamiliar, car-part.com is a website that junkyards can use to list their parts. some 'yards are very good at it and give accurate details and then remove the listing after it's sold. Other 'yards are.... not so much. in the end you're still going to be dealing directly with the junkyard itself so I would skip right to making that phone call. car-part.com is just a conduit.