87Warrior

Eagle, I couldn't agree more. I am one who prefers email contact for something like Craigslist, which I assume is the venue here. Email comes directly to my phone so it is just as instant as text messaging, is relatively formal and both the buyer and seller have the opportunity to respond when is convenient for each of them to do so. Sure I'll do a phone call or text if the seller prefers, but given an option those are my last report. In my opinion, a scammer is the person who doesn't have the cash for the purchase. When I was Toyota shopping, I nearly gave up attempting to contact a seller who refused to respond to my inquiries about the vehicle. Eventually we managed to agree to meet and ended up buying the vehicle (and driving him home because he didn't think I'd buy). I try to give everyone a fair chance, and if I hadn't, I would have missed out on the Toyota.

Am I understanding correctly? You don't trust email or a phone call, but do trust text? A scammer is easy to spot. They won't agree to meet you in the Home Depot parking lot and agree to pay cash for the truck. There is no reason anything but cash should be the currency exchanged for a MJ.

I can certainly understand that. Although, I am seeing it running $525 for a bare steel, and $550 powder coated from Hanson directly. Still spendy, but not $1,100 ;) https://www.hansonoffroad.com/proddetail.php?prod=MJ4002-P Would still be cheaper than an aftermarket XJ bumper and having somebody build sturdy brackets.

You do realize Hanson actually builds a MJ specific bumper, right? Ready to bolt on and everything. The Hanson MJ bumper is my favorite bumper for a MJ. It is expensive so I went with the JCR DIY and welded it together. It's not nearly as pretty as the Hanson, but for less than 1/2 price it was hard to beat. I don't like the box tube bumpers, so I was real limited on my options.

Yeah, I remember passing under it in February when i also making a late night hotel check in. I thought, 'they sure spent a lot of money on that'. Good to see you getting your feet wet in Colorado. I can't wait to hear bout your first hand experiences with 4WP. Hope we can link up the few times I get out that way this summer. And Jim, I really want to meet Jim!

I borrowed a buddy's Cobra 38 hand held before I got a CB in the Toyota. Worked great for trail communication, which is really the only practical use for CB. But it was big and HEAVY! The Midland 75-822 I bought is essentially a handheld that has a battery replacement adapter for 12v power and has a super convenient external antenna connection. You can attach a battery pack and rubber duck antenna if you want it to be a handheld. Any handheld CB with a rubber duck antenna will have dismal range, probably about 1 mile.

No, the citizens band does not overlap any of the amateur bands.

Snazzy!

The cost to get a good CB set up has been growing rapidly. I bought a Uniden 'kit' in 2004 from rightchannelradios for less than $70. That cost has doubled today. Radio, swr meter, coax, antenna and mount. For less than the cost of a CB radio set up, today you could buy Amateur radio study book, pay the license fee and get a handheld and an external antenna that will blow any (legal) CB out of the water. But, 90% of wheelers still only use a CB so we have to run one. The Uniden radio still works good which is impressive since it has been rained on a few too many time in my TJ. My 3' firestick antenna is about due for replacement since the coating is peeling and cracking. Not bad for 15 years in the sun! I recently discovered I needed CB radio for my MJ and Toyota for trail communication. Since CBs are darned expensive, I bought a Midland 75-822 that I can move between both vehicles. It works flawlessly for trail communication. The MJ has a short rigid antenna mounted to the bed rail and the Toyota has a magnatic antenna on the roof. I can't speak to distance since I turn the CB off on the road and only use the Ham. Both vehicles have the antenna coax terminated in the dash for a quick and clean install/removal of the radio. Here it is in the Toyota, I don't seem to have a picture of the MJs install.

I've always needed a drill and tap to fix broken bolts in the cross member. No need for coil spring compressors, especially on a stock truck. Pop off the tie rod ends, disconnect the track bar, shocks and sway bar links and the axle will drop enough to unseat the springs. If not, pull a lower control arm and the spring will fall out.

The rear slider isn't too difficult too remove, it just takes some time. I pulled a good 3 piece slider out of a parts truck to use for my '92. The window is pretty basic. Two small frames holding the middle glass in place. Everything is glued into place with the same glue that holds the windshield in place. The windshield place had no problem installing the used slider on my freshly painted truck.

You could add something like Walbro pickups to the bottom of the tank attached to the pump assembly. The gauge still won't read 100% correct, but you won't 'run out of gas' with a few gallons left in the tank because the pickups would be on the bottom of the tank not suspended above the fuel level.

The carbureted (and possibly diesel) tanks don't have the baffle in the tank and will let an XJ sending unit fit right in.

It's a good radiator. No problems cooling my loaded 2.5 up and over 12,000' :)

I've had the stator go bad in my 00 Wolverine 350. It started and ran fine but did not charge the battery. My bet would be on the coil if all the electrical connections check out good.

Glad you found the culprit! This is false for the 2.5 TBI power plant. Coolant does flow through the intake manifold by way of the upper heater hose. Granted the loose intake manifold bolt wouldn't cause a leak.

I didn't do anything special besides looking at the history report from Toyota looking for timing belt replacement records. The engine oil and transmission fluids smelled normal when I met the seller...and they were full to boot. These trucks aren't known to be sensitive to fluids.

I have to ask what Oppo is. I know someone on the Toyota Land Cruiser Association added some text to my pic of the T and started sharing it. Any Ford is ridiculously backward in my mind! It is really difficult to traips across the states on dirt as well. I have spent the last year exploring rural Kansas and have about 600 miles of dirt roads logged with many more miles of dead ends. It's nice to live in a less populated area.

Not only is this truck easy to drive, it is consuming a lot of parts. This is probably due to about 65k miles of neglect. Even with the repairs I have done to date, this is still under what I had originally budgeted for a 100 series. I am now at 251k miles and it has started to hit the dirt for the first time ever. Did a short Overland drive to a 4wd clubs food drive with a local guy and hit a few neat spots in Kansas. Also. This. At the food drive they had an RTI ramp for fun. He scored a 1040 on the ramp. Was in the top 5.

I've had a Spectra cooling my 2.5 for a few years and 15k miles (I need to drive it more!). It was a bolt in affair and has cooled the truck without issues pulling loads in the summer and idling up high altitude mountain pass trails. Make sure you get a new Mopar thermostat while doing the radiator.

I had a few 'WTF' conversations with folks in the clean state when driving my dirty truck (no egr, no cat, lots of rust) around. They looked at my truck like it was the original carrier of influenza! Will you guys be settled in enough around August and October to explore some backcountry? I'll be out there and would love to meet another CC'er.

Huh, I figure if a Jeep pickup comes to market it will run about $40k. I certainly wouldn't be in line to buy a new FCA vehicle. Then again, the newest vehicle I ever bought was already 8 months old at the time.

You need 4 Comanche's with a 4.0 or a 4 cylinder.

This vehicle is a pleasure to drive and it rides and drives nicer than my wife's low mileage '12 Acadia. Sure the Acadia seats are a bit softer, but I think after a few more leather treatments the Cruiser seats will be comparable. It just rolled over 250k miles last week. The Cruiser is now parked waiting for parts. For some reason the two idlers and fan pulley all failed and were spitting out rusty bearing dust. The early 100 series actually have a weak front differential. The carrier is a 2 bearing design which can break while the later models are a more robust in 4 bearing design. The good news is a later model ARB fits right into place and fixes the weak link. I really wanted an 80 series over the 100, until I test drove one on the highway in a head wind. It was no different than driving my Jeep, slow. The 100's V8 with plenty of power is what sold me on it. The IFS didn't scare me too much since I don't intend to do any rock climbing with it :)