Incommando

The 5.5" short arm RE stuff on my '91 outperforms the off the shelf 4.5" RC kit I put on my '88 and rides much better. Your suspension appears to be more than an off the shelf 4.5" RC kit. You may note that I included the disclaimer about this being from " my only experience." I also included that my recommendations were from my personal experiences. So tell me your experience when you had RE stuff on there so that you know it doesn't outperform the RC pieces in that pic? :)

Y You are going to fabricate a fiberglass body?

We have a winner. I know it is a pain in the butt and worse than starting over but continuing to do business with people who pull stunts like this just encourages them to pull stunts like this. If, of course, you have not received satisfaction since your last post.

I used all RE stuff for my front lift to match my rear SOA. I am happy with it. For MJ's my only experience is with RE or Rough Country and the RE is head and shoulders above the Rough Country in ride and flex. I have not used enough personally to say what the best stuff out there would be but I would use RE again without hesitation.

If you were planning on spending it anyway then new leafs are the way to go.

I am glad these old nuggets pop back up. This is a good thread

There are many threads out there about doing a roller paint job that turns out pretty well. Is there one brand of spray paint that lasts longer?

The interior sounds right. With 4wd conversions so easy on these maybe he doesn't know if it was 2wd originally or not as this still smells like a quick flip to me.

Of course it has a cheap paint job that appears to conceal some issues. The r.rear flare looks to be fairly uneven front-to-rear for example, and the paint quality looks pretty low. Hell if I could buy a $1,000 truck, put $800 into it, and flip it for an asking price of $7,300 I would be tempted. But just tempted.

When you decide to lift I think that the most important thing to know is what you are going to do with your truck after you lift it? Be brutally honest. If you WANT to make it a hardcore 'wheeler but in reality it is going to be 90/10 in favor of street driving that might be the way to go when looking at lifts. Although you can get a great ride and great articulation it is usually pretty pricey. A Clayton long arm, for example, is almost $1,000 just for the front arms & mounting cross member. You still have to get front springs, etc... & the entire rear lift. It is a great product but would an investment like this pay off for you in how you will actually use your truck? Or would the $100 front spacer/chevy shackle combo that gets you 2" of lift be enough for you? Do you know for sure that your rear springs have to be replaced? That is a major investment. I am not a huge fan of add-a-leafs for weak springs. I have seen them crack the old leafs. If you go add-a-leaf try to get a "full length" version as they seem to support the original springs better and may prevent the other issue. Making a "bastard pack" out of other leafs can be labor intensive and frustrating to get the right ride height but people who do it generally report a decent "factory-like" ride. I would also do some research on companies before I used one. Rough Country in particular is one that gets singled out for a poor product repeatedly.

You could probably get more out of the Moabs if you are looking to sell them. Sometimes people pay ridiculous prices for them. I have seen a set of bare rims go for $600! For me that might be the deciding factor.

You might be surprised. An HO 4.0 has 45 more horsepower (190-145) while only giving up 15 in TQ ( 225-240) when compared to that 318.

That Fluid-film looks interesting. I knew an old guy who kept a '67 Olds nearly spotless into the '80s by using a sprayer full of used motor oil to coat the entire underside of the car a couple of times a winter after hosing it off again. Don't know if you want to try that today or not...

The export Liberty (sold as the Cherokee everywhere but N America) actually used a 2.5 liter version with numerous differences from the 2.8 used here. Even the anti-American toothless wonder pointed out the problems were due to changes for the American market. VM Motori is 100% Fiat owned. As I do not buy in an export market it really doesn't matter how well an export version might function to me anyway. But maybe if they could have brought the unchanged 2.5 here it would have made a world of difference.

Moi? No. No. Bet he hasn't either No. Yes. Clearly stated CR was just the jumping off point. Reading comprehension helps. 3 but is the MJ a Fiat and therefore relevant? How many Commandos has he worked on? Just as relevant. I get he junks vehicles. I see his type working at the junkyard every time I go there. Some of them even have double digits in their tooth count and have showered in the current month. I would not let a junker work on my wheelbarrow. Either way it was fun to answer :)

Ouch Pete

Fingers crossed for ya

Interesting theory: North America has large oil reserves but it has always been cheaper to import then recover what is here. As oil broke $100/barrel it became economical to invest in the infrastructure to recover that oil and to invest in new technologies such as fracking. That threatened the profits of the current producers in OPEC. OPEC in general and Saudi Arabia in particular waited until the investments were made and then began cutting their prices back to levels that made extracting the local oil unprofitable while making those above investments to recover the local oil into business losses. If that is true have we just been played? Were the artificially high prices of the last few years part of a plan to create this situation? If so how many such cycles before people become gun shy in investing in local recovery? The "conspiracy theory" aspect is not my own although it seems plausible. That recovering N. American oil requires a relatively high price per barrel to be profitable and it is cheaper to import oil unless a threshold near $100 is met is considered a given. That Saudi Arabia has recently increased production and lowered prices drastically which lead to the current drop in crude prices is also true. I just found this interesting anyway. Your mileage may vary. $2.84 here today

Then they should not try to do it and certainly should not to continue lying to customers about delivery times that they know that they cannot meet.

To win I would have had to defeat myself

The fenders & front bumper from any '84-'96 XJ will work if you can find good used pieces. I could not give away the nice factory front bumper from my '91 & scrapped it so used may be a way to score some deals.

Everyone that I know who uses Alcan Springs have been happy with them

Why do more 4x4 vendors then not cheat/mistreat us this way? The product may be great but the guy is basically a thief if he keeps making the same delivery lies to get more orders. In the KJ world Rock Lizard ( now Tom Mudd ) has ripped off many and yet they are still taking orders. "Buyer beware" has never been more true then in the 4x4 world. I tried to buy a "little guy" front bumper because I #1 like supporting the little guy & #2 I preferred the design. After reviewing comments and contacting the guy about lead times and delivery dates I just bought one of Rusty's newer designs as the answers I got from the little guy left me suspecting I would be in a run around. From order to my front door from Rusty's? 5 business days.

The company that makes Lokka lockers originally made the Aussie locker in Australia of Australian steel for Torgue Masters. Lokka first changed to Chinese metal and then Chinese production. The failure rate skyrocketed. Torque Masters basically fired Lokka and moved Aussie production to the US and uses US steel. They also refined some of the designs. Lokka sells the 1st gen Aussie design under the Lokka name but it is the cheapened Chinese steel/manufacturing versions. The first Aussie that I used in my KJ was the lokka-built Chinese junker and it shattered. The one in the rear of the MJ is the US built version and it is noticeably smoother/tighter. The ten percent savings of the Chinese lokka versus the US Aussie doesn't seem like a bargain to me.

Can someone burp and change jeepcomj? That usually stops the crying. Pat still can't figure out that OVERSEAS versus HERE issue. Sad. Oh well. Back on block. Toodles.