brdhntr

it's an 87 4 banger 4x4 longbox. what year front springs should i be looking for? how much do they usually sell for used? i want to get my car done completely this summer and get the frame blasted and painted on the cj. i have to do a few things on the mj. i have a new pup that needs to be trained (and birds ain't cheap) and is registered for some tests and competitions. plus i need to remodel the basement. that's why i'm looking for cheap and quick. it will get a more thorough lift in summer of '10.

i put my new tires on (225/75/16) yesterday. they are perfect for around here (tall but narrow) since the majority of 4x4 time is in snow. they are a little tight in the wheel well up front. i'd like to add 2" to the truck to clear them better. now i know there are millions of ways to lift an mj. i'm looking for the cheapest way to do it. if that means welding new mounts, no problem. i just want cheap. i'm thinking shackles in back since that would give me about 1 1/2" and help level the truck a bit. up front, is up in the air. i'm really looking for experiences and ideas here. i may got to a full suspension lift in a year or so so i don't want to get much money into it right now. i'm also juggling money between 3 projects and the house. cheap is important. let me know what you think. :brows:

it's an 87. i looked at them and they are actually 16" with a 5 on 4.5 pattern. i think they will work fine. it's such a great deal i just can't pass it up. if it's not going to work i'll just resell them at a profit. so i'll have an mj with 225 16's, should be cool. :chillin:

by the way, i have checked it out online and i know they should work, on paper. i'm more curious if anyone has experience with this trade.

that's puuurrrddyyyyy! :bowdown:

i just got a call from a guy that has a new set of tires on a dodge dakota (wrecked) he bought. he will sell me the tires or for $50 more, the wheels with them. if they will fit with no issue, that means i don't have to pay to have them mounted. i believe 90 and earlier were 5 on 4.5 then they went to 6 on 4.5. the mj is 5 on 4.5 right? will they have the same offset or very similar? if i take them can i just bolt them right up or do i have to have the switched over to the jeep wheels? i'm going out to see them soon.

behind the seat? i didn't think that counted. i have a ton of stuff behind the seat. there's lots of tools, hand cleaner, fire ext, work gloves, hand winch, and a bunch of other stuff. ;)

pm sent

i detail professionally so my vehicles are always the cleanest around. well..........ok. maybe not. my rigs are the last ones to get cleaned. with 4 kids, they get pretty messy pretty quick. then, there's the dogs. it's not so bad in the suburban since i have built in kennels, but they ride in the cab of the jeep. i will be building a kennel set up for the jeep pretty soon here so they can ride in back. i will say, they get completely shampooed at least twice a year and buffed and waxed 3-4 times at a minimum. i won't take a rig on a road trip unless it's clean. the windows have to be spotless. i'm anal about that when traveling. :D

i need a new tailgate latch for my 87. i believe it's just the standard gm latch, from s10's maybe. anyone know what years work? or do i have to find a jeep one? any idea how much they go for used or new?

well, i used to have a 76 cj7 that would do wheelies on dry pavement. it had a mildly built 304. i figure it was putting out just over 300hp. i put some 4.56 gears in it. when i floored it at a green light, the front end would come off the ground a good couple feet. it also broke alot of axle shafts and u-joints doing it. it would rather lift up the front than do a burn out. on a side note, i also had a 78 cj5 with a very built 401 with 4.10's in it and lockers. it would smoke all for tires on dry pavement. i only did it a couple times since 33's ain't cheap. i agree on the gearing though. there's a guy here that can lift the front (not nearly as high) in his wrangler sierra with a 4 banger. but he has trouble going over 55 mph with it. ;)

i would start by pulling the distributor. make sure you make the location of the distributor so it can go back in right where it was. then you can work on it better. you're going to put a new cap and rotor on anyway i assume. i'd just break up the old cap to leave the 2 screws sticking up. that will give you a little more screw to work with. try a vise grip on it. you can use a propane or butane torch to heat the screw up some. that should do the trick. if it still doesn't come out, weld a nut to the top. with the cap removed, you won't have to worry about the heat as much. the screws they use are very cheap metal. they are not a solid steel screw, they are cheap steel mixed screws usually. that's why the stick so easily and strip out without much effort. so it doesn't take much heat to get a spot weld on it and get the nut attached. use the largest nut you can that will still weld to the screw. that gives you more room to do the welds. don't worry about how experienced you are, it doesn't need to look pretty. if you don't get a good weld, the nut will just pop off. that means you need to give it a little more heat. i wouldn't worry too much about heating the distributor itself. last option, in my opinion, would be to break off the screw or grind it down. then you can use a drill to drill it out. this means you'll need to re-tap it. it's all pretty easy to do, but i think that takes the most work and takes the longest. just some ideas from a guy that's worked on enough old jeeps and cars for a long time. that means i have tried about anything to get rusted screws and bolts out. i hate rust. :shake:

why not just make your own? it's easy and it's cheap. you can probably do it for less than $10. plus you can route it a little different to keep it out of the rust prone areas.

ok, here's an update. because it got so cold, things froze up instead of running to the river and adding to the flooding. unfortunately, we just received 11" of wet sticky snow. the river had been dropping nicely rather than staying at the crest level for the anticipated 3-5 days. the new snow won't effect us for a week or two since it's so cold. so now they expect a second high crest around the 15th. that means we need to keep the dikes up and keep watching them and the pumps for another 3 weeks or so (it will take at least a week to drop after the next crest). so instead of sandbagging yesterday, i spent all day and evening snowblowing out. i did our place and 8 others. now i have to go out and clear the ends of the drive ways and corners since the plow came by. much better than dealing with the flood. first, i'm going to take the family for a ride and check out what's going on in the country and check on the dog club. then we'll go check on some friends. :wavey:

a flood wall let go. actually it was the ground under the flood wall and that took the wall with it. it took out a private school on the fargo side called oak grove. it also caused trouble with about 30 homes. they evacuated most of that area. a couple areas to the north (the red river flows to the north) lost the fight so the helicopters and boat have been sent in. the water is moving so fast that they are having difficulties using boats. the helicopters are having to do the rescues and that means that some people won't be brought to safety for a little while. several more neighborhoods were lost and over 150 roads are under water. the road going to my parents new house they built is under water now. the friends house i helped sandbag the other day is now surrounded by water and there is no way in or out (even by boat because of the current). the house is still dry though. i took some time this afternoon to take my kids around and show them history in the making. i did take alot of pic's and will get the link for them as soon as i have time to get it done. there is so much damage, but it's incredible how the water is being held back. in some cases the dikes are above the rooflines of houses and the water is at the top of the dikes. over all i am impressed that more houses aren't under water. i wanted to impress on my kids what an effect this has on animals as well. i showed them several fields around the area surrounded by water with deer stuck on them. they have no where to go, and not much to eat. my kids want to do something to help people. since they love animals, we are going to go walk dogs and feed animals at an emergency shelter set up tomorrow. assuming nothing happens that would put me elsewhere. there is alot of info coming in and alot of errors in reporting right now by outside media (and there is a ton of outside media around). some of the media here can make a quick change to a story to make sure the info is accurate. outside media does what they can but can't break in to stations to give the latest, most accurate news like our local stations can. one of the big things is that this is a larger metropolitan area and the national media just says fargo. some (well most) lost areas are not actually in fargo. they are in areas around the city limits, which is confusing since some are actually surounded by the city limits and some parts in town are not actually fargo. it's really confusing. there was a pic on one of the national newspapers showing some guard soldiers wading through icey water to rescue someone. that was not actually in fargo. big deal, we are all members of the fargo/moorhead metro area. we are all in this together. some of the officials want it known that fargo has only lost a handfull of houses. the other houses are not actually in fargo so technically fargo is doing better than reported. the fargo city officials are doing a much better job of protecting the city than what some people may think do to the lost neighborhoods and houses. the river actually started to go down some, but was back up some an hour ago. because of the freezing temps, all the water that would be going to the river is frozen and not moving. if we can stay cold for a week or so, it will help alot. unfortunately we are supposed to get hit with a winter storm (possibly blizzard level) starting tonight or tomorrow. that's going to possibly add another 4-7" of snow. that means we will have flooding for a while yet, but hopefully not at the level it's at now. the more dangerous issues with the storm are the wind and low visibility. the low visibility is going to make rescues and evacuations very, very difficult or impossible. the wind will cause large waves on the water making more pressure on the dikes and waves may go over the dikes. if the river is at 40' and the dike is at 43', a 2' wave goes over it. :ack: i'm tired, i'm going to bed. :chillin:

wow, this is incredible. i talked with a few friends today. one is in the guard and was patroling some of the dikes last night. she said it's a little scary having the water that high and just hoping the dike holds. another has water 10' from the back of their home. the sandbag dike they have is leaking so they have to man it 24/7 and try to keep the pumps from freezing. they had their kids taken to safe ground 70 miles away and are now ready to continue the fight. the dike is about 5' high and the water is about 3 1/2' up on it. it's amazing that it's holding. i have volunteered to man the pumps and dike so they can get some sleep a couple nights. they have someone for tonight so it will be monday or tuesday. if i can help them keep their beautiful home dry, i will gladly go without sleep for a couple days. there were a couple leaks in some of the dikes over night and today. one of the biggest dikes and the one keeping much of the city dry shifted and started to leak. we were coming from a friends when it happened. there were cops speeding by us and blocking traffic to allow the trucks through. they shut down the main bridge connecting our 2 cities. since all the other bridges are under water, we had to drive all the way across town to the interstate. then we had to drive quite a ways to find an off ramp that was open. several more homes were lost over the night and today, but things are going pretty well overall. some of my hunting buddies were evacuated from their homes last night. their homes are still ok, but the dike is weakening fast. i will say it's incredible how our communities pull together in such a situation. young, old, rich, poor, northside, southside, it doesn't matter, everyone is in this together. there was a dike failing this morning and 2000 people showed in in less than an hour to get it fixed up. that saved about 100 homes and a school. with all the people helping, the dike was back in good shape in under 2 hours. well, it's my turn to sleep. so good night all. we are all hanging in and we will fight as long as we can. ;)

that's a great deal in my opinion. i would have jumped all over it. it should be a pretty easy fix.

you've probably seen it on the national news. our fair cities of fargo north dakota and moorhead minnesota are fighting the largest flood this area has ever seen. i spent the morning sandbagging and the afternoon driving people through the flooded streets in the suburban. yesterday was the same. if things hold overnight this area has another 1-2 feet to go before the river crests. then it sounds like it will stay that high for up to a week. dikes just can't take that kind of pressure for long. we have already lost alot of neighborhoods and we aren't even at the crest yet. where i am, we are fine, but a couple blocks away some friends are under water and there is water blocking most ways out for us. it's so bad that this afternoon they started digging up the playground at my kids' school a couple blocks away so they can use the dirt for dikes around some of the government properties. yep, things are bad. the schools closed this week and they're already closed all of next week. we'll see if things can open after that. it stinks that it is so cold for this time of year, but that's actually helping us. we got 7" of snow early this week and if that melts, the river is going to go up another foot or more. since it's so cold, things are staying frozen. this slows the slow the rivers rise and gives us a little more time on some of the dikes. it also means that the fields that were lakes at the begining of the week are now frozen so that aren't contributing to the problem for now. you should see my suburban, the lower half is covered in ice. literally covered in ice, about an inch thick. i have to drive with my left foot on the brakes to dry things out now and then and to keep things from freezing. the national guard is walking the dikes over night in teams of 2. there is alot of miles of dike right now (one dike alone is 18 miles long) so there's alot of guard members taking on the task of watching the dikes. i should be sleeping (i'm beat), but it's my turn to keep an eye on what's going on so my wife can sleep tonight. i also have to be ready to go at a moments notice to help friends and others if dikes start to leak or break. if things go really bad, someone has to be awake to know what's going on and make sure we the kids are safe. they could shut the water and power off at any point now as well. several neighborhoods north of us had their utilities cut early this evening. if the power is cut, at 0 degrees, you've got to find a heat source or evacuate pretty quickly. well, back to watching the tv and listening to the radio (yes at the same time). wish us well. :waving:

actually lead is so soft it melts at very low temps. welding a spot creates much more heat and possible panel warping. the thinner sheetmetal is actually the reason such a method will work. the vehicles were originally made of pretty thin metal and foreign cars kept the thin metal for a long time. braze welding was developed to keep from going through thin sheetmetal and keep the heat down to prevent warping. lead is the same idea. it takes very little heat to melt the lead so very little heat is transfered to the sheetmetal. as long as the metal is prepped properly with some sanding or grinding, it's quick, easy, and very little risk of warping. you can even use a simple propane torch for filling with the lead. it doesn't take much heat. it takes such little heat you can actually use it without discoloring the paint. when you weld with a stick, mig, or tig welder, you are heating the steel enough to melt it. steel melts at a much high temp and that increases the risk of warpage. there are many custom auto shops that still use lead and braze welding. if you don't believe me, watch speed tv. they have some shows on building and restoring cars. many of the shops they use are still using some of the old methods. don't get me wrong, i do most body work with a mig (i hope to get a tig this summer though). but it's not always the best choice. when i'm working on thin metal, i do use braze welding and lead. all i can say is that we all have our own ways of getting the job done. ;)

i've got an audi that i've owned for 20 years that has always been my pride and joy. i've always wanted to be burried in it. after 2 heart attacks back in '02, i did some serious thinking. i made my wife promise she would finish the rebuild and pass it through the family. i plan on a family member owning it forever. the cj i'm doing now is another one that will stay in the family for good. i've got shotguns to pass on, and my tools will go to one of my nephews. some things just have to stay in the family. i have a box of tools my grandpa had. he bought them new and always took care of them. the socket set is still in the original case with nothing missing. i try and use his tools on a couple projects a year. when i'm done with them they will go to my grandchild (assuming i have at least 1). on topic though, i think any comanche is sought after, or should be. they are a unique vehicle and all the ones left need to be bought by an enthusiast and restored or rebuilt. so i would take anyone i can find at a fair price. :thumbsup:

Thats an OLDDDDD trick... I've never even seen it done, but heard of the old timers doing it in seems and such.. How old are you brdhntr? I didnt know you could get that kind of lead any more unless you get it out of an old battery. ha ha!!!!!!! :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: i'm actually only 39. i have worked on alot of cars over the year and found a few tricks. one of those tricks is how to do body work on very old vehicles the way they used to do it. braze welding and using lead are just a few of the old timer tricks some of us forget about. these tricks worked for body work and customization for years. some custom build shops still use these methods. you can still get lead. i have used shot (for reloading shotgun shells) on several occasions. it melts down nicely and is pretty good lead. you can even buy some wheel weights if you want. i think the best lead comes from fishing weights and the lead shot. :thumbsup: hey, thanks for making me feel old though. :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

a simple fix for small holes is the old method of body repair. use lead. heat the spot, put warm lead over it. do that a couple times until it's filled. then sand and your set. you can get lead pretty easily and it's cheap. that's a quick, cheap, and simple fix for little holes like that. :thumbsup:

yep.

it was an auto dropped about 2 1/2 feel to my chest (gm 700r4). ouch!!! :ack:

hey pete. is that truck bedlined over the whole thing?