Incommando

Factory MJ safety features beyond the seat belt and horn: :crossfingers:

I also recommend a check of its history. Here in the rust belt those early M-B's not only had the floor rust issue but serious frame rot-out issues as well. You might also randomly check the prices of some routine replacement parts. This may not be a problem at all for that car but replacement parts, like an alternator for example, for some less-than-popular older imports can be ridiculously expensive.

It seems to me that the conditions for posting here are well known and enforced uniformly by the owner & mods. No one here is worth the extra special kid-glove treatment you require no matter how highly they value themselves. The mods do not make special exceptions for themselves and they follow the same rules as everyone else. That should be the same for all of us and is, to my experience, they way things run here. IMHO if you can't handle this tame forum and its in-place rules that is your issue to deal with and granting you special privileges is not a good policy. If this bugs you refer to the butt-hurt comment you made above.

Yeah, that is a common conversion of a not-so-rare CJ10A military tug. It is not a true CJ10 pick-up. I have a friend who has done several of these conversions. It is basically a tug cab on a donor chassis most of the time. This looks to be set on a '80-up FSJ chassis, a common donor, or at least built using FSJ parts. At $25K he is at least 5 times too high on the price. Probably hoping to fool someone who thinks it is a CJ10. jeep from this ad: CJ10A tug like the one that donated the cab and not so stellar engine: Image Not Found Real & very rare CJ10

This is truly a very tame forum. To get offended here you probably have to also yell at kids to get off of your lawn.

oops

C ya and have fun

It doesn't just matter what the weather may be at the delivery location. The weather from the warehouse to the destination and every stop in between matters. We got just a mild blow here: 8" and 12 degrees.

Ohio did indeed beat the crap out of UMASS last night 51-23. I don't think that it has any bearing on the BCS though. Ohio State's win today muddies the waters. They should be a lock for #2 but struggling to beat an unranked team that was 7-4 coming in will not win them any style points. Huge rivalries often make for close games so who knows?

If that was to me yes I bought it for $800.

I was hoping to hear it was the A518. Get real familiar with the Getrag 360 5-speed repair manual...

The greatest rivalry in sports is today...and it is well north of the M-D. :brows:

What would you pay for this truck knowing it hwas a 4.0 auto 4x4 with a factory LSD D44 under the back and could (and was) driven for hundreds of miles at a time? In a rust belt state? My answer was $800.

It is like what the winged ricer crowd has turned into: heavily lifted diesel trucks with shortish tires and d-bag "stacks." They ought to mount white sunglasses across the grilles and off-centered ball caps on the cabs. I wish you could find some better shots of the obviously revolutionary suspension on that gem.

If we chopped 20% of the size and weight from a vehicle we would increase MPG. My current DD is a Chevy Sonic Turbo that beats the EPA est. of 40 mpg highway. It is a small car by today's standards but only by today's standards. It is larger than an Accord hatchback from the late 80's. I parked next to a Geo Metro (Suzuki Swift) 4dr the other day. The Sonic is larger than either: W/B Sonic 99.4 vs. Metro 89.2 vs. Accord H/B 93.7. Overall length 173.1" vs. M=146.1" vs. Accord 172". Width S= 68.3" vs M= 61" vs A= 65". HP/Tq S= 138/148 vs M= 55/40 vs A= 68/?. MPG S= 32/40 vs M= 32/37 vs. 26/29. Weight S= 2,720 vs M= 1,650 vs. A= 2,083.The Metro achieved decent MPG by today's standards because of its small size. I wonder what the Sonic drivetrain in a Metro (or Accord for that matter) would achieve in both performance and mileage as the Sonic beats the Metro & Accord soundly in MPG despite being both larger and much faster. ( Faster being a relative term...it is an econobox after all...) If you consider that the junk Smart ForTwo is too small, too slow, AND too inefficient along with beng unreliable we see that small alone is not the answer. But this is nothing new: a 1971 Road Runner was over 500#'s heavier than a 1970 due to increased crash standards relating to the bumpers and doors, primarily.

There is a market for a small truck, true. None of these trucks have been available for years. A recent Motorweek review of the Taco noted that you could buy a similarly equipped full-sized truck for the same money that also got better mileage (except for the Titan & Tundra) than the Taco... A truck of the size of an MJ or first-gen Dakota, which were the first of the "big" small trucks anyway, would be a plus. These small trucks started out as 2nd vehicles and starter transportation and were never intended for hauling families. That is what eventually killed them. The newest Ranger (not sold here) is about the size of a 1997 F150 and looks to be bigger than the first-gen "full-sized" Tundra for goodness sake. The new small Dodge I have heard about would be ( if made) based on the Dart platform ( or another uni-body pan) and have a one-piece cab/bed like the old Rampage. Like the mini-van based Honda Ridgeline or the El Camino calling it a truck would be a stretch IMHO. It makes sense from CAFE standings, maybe. I always thought it was funny that the small truck fad started with Chevy importing the Jap LUV from Isuzu, Ford importing the Jap Courier from Mazda, and Dodge importing the Jap D50 from Mitsubishi. But at the end Isuzu was selling a re-badged Chevy, Mazda was selling a re-badged Ford, and Mistsubishi was selling a re-badged Dodge. The 2nd Gen Nissan Titan was supposed to be a re-badged Dodge 1500 but that deal got cancelled in the bankruptcy. That is how the Titan wound up with the new small Cummins diesel and the Ram will have to settle with the probably junk VM Motori diesel because FIAT is an owner of VM Motori. When they put one in the Liberty they required many mods and a lot of money to even be considered reliable and have any longevity. Not just tuning...things like torque converters. Maybe these are better but considering FIAT's world-wide rep....

To answer a few questions: 1. It is a Cummins 5.9 liter 2500 Turbo. 2. It is an intercooled engine, but the intercooler is not currently hooked up. That is my current project. 3. Core support looks good to me. I will be fabricating some brackets for additional goodies beneath the hood in the near future. I did not mean to imply the truck was cobbled up. In fact it looks like they did a great job on the body. I figured the intercooler was an issue. Everyone I know of who has done this had to ditch the intercooler unless they cut a hole on the hood and they couldn't run a grill or stock core support as the intercooler sat that far forward. The early CTD's were not intercooled,anyway. The intercooler made no real difference in the power ratings ( the '93 had 160 hp and 400 #'s stock. I bought a '93 CTD dually new and kept it for 230,000 miles) but did aid in an over heating issue when pulling a heavy trailer up steeps grades, for example. You may or may not care but the "2500" designation did not start until the '94 re-design. Prior to that they used 100-350. The 3/4 ton was a 250 in '93. You would add "W" in front for a 4wd and "D" in front for 2 wheel drive. '93 W250 CTD. The did make '88 j-truck. I just couldn't find out how many were J10's vs j20's.

I think it may already be too late in some areas...prices are creeping up. :-(

This illustrates my concern about this vehicle. FIAT can advertise it doing all sorts of jeeply-things but for how long? 6.5" ring gear? Turning locked tires potentially with one bound up? The Dana 35 is considered very weak in part due to its 7.65" ring gear size, which is considered very small. The KJ used an 8.25. The JK uses an 8.5" ring gear. It is not looking like the new chero romeo is going to win any longevity prizes if you use it as a jeep. I will bet that they are counting on no one figuring that out until after the warranty period. Look how poor the FIAT 500 is reliability-wise. That is the main reason they failed in the U.S. the last time that they were here. Fix It Again Tony lives on.

Located a pic taken after the body was swapped onto the Dodge: I noted the incomplete front end and mangled core support. Others who have tried to swap a 6BT into a FSJ have run into issues with having enough room for the intercooler. the 6bt/radiator/intercooler combo is just too long. The only one that I know of that was able to retain the stock jeep sheet metal had to just go without the intercooler to make it work but they still had to fab a core support.The first 2.5 years of the CTD weren't intercooled anyway. The '93 was. Here is the finished product. They either resolved the intercooler issue or removed it. Hopefully it has some sort of core support under there. Image Not Found

Cool. Any word on diff housing material/strength or ring/pinion size?

Although the last J-trucks were built in the 1987 calendar year they were offered as 88's as well as the model year began in 1987. Reports that "production ceased in 1987" are accurate but it does not limit the trucks to being in the '87 model year. I can find no accurate numbers between '88 J10 & J20 sales. I am a firm believer that you can do anything you want with a vehicle that you own. However if that truck is as rare as claimed ( again, I can't confirm or contest that claim) it seems a shame to butcher it up with a CTD conversion. There are many factory CTD configurations that would exceed that J20 as a starting point without needing a major fab swap and they would retain a rare truck if it is indeed rare. Conversely there are other years of J20's that could have formed the base that are not very rare. To most folks any value & interest it had as a rare low production number truck ended as soon as it went under the knife. EDIT: Web searching shows that this truck, if it was the one purchased from Mt. Zion, is a J20 body swapped onto a '93 Dodge W250 CTD chassis. It appears that it is only cosmetically a Jeep even if it retained Jeep registration due to the J20 cab having the VIN tag. It was said to have been pretty much a junk J20 purchased out of a field. It was heavily rusted and had some pretty bad wreck damage on the driver's side. It must have undergone some extensive body work if the teasers pics are accurate. Scroll down for some info & pics after the swap from one post: http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=114603&page=9

I have never heard such a thing. I do know that limited slip differentials have been used for decades in street applications. If I had to make a guess, it would be that independent suspensions might use lighter axles and CV joints (thus keeping unsprung weight to a minimum, good for street suspension performance and manufacturing cost reduction) that could be overstressed in an off-road application? What is the nature of the cautions you have heard, from what sources, and where can I find out more on the subject? It is a common discussion in the IFS world so I can't see how the same would not be true for an IRS. You can find numerous discussions regarding the topic on Pirate and many others. I was wondering if the"locker" was actually a limited-slip differential (LSD) and not a true locker at all and there is no info that I can find on the matter. I just don't trust company P.R. completely. A locker increases stress on all of the unit's components in any application not just IFS/IRS. It appears that, as you mentioned, most OEM IFS/IRS systems are built inherently weaker. What kind of diff housing material are we talking about? Ring gear and pinion size? Half-shaft diameter? 8 separate joints on the 4 shafts alone and of what size? An LSD will act as a safety valve at some point and release before maximum carnage in many cases depending on its bias. An open diff will not even get in that trouble. A true locker will not. That pressure on the components increases greatly in off-roading when the suspensions are articulated or when one tire is in a bind, say stuck between two rocks. gh performance IRS street cars will never have to face the same challenges. Such street IRS's geometry would make it much easier to keep them alive even with a locker where a locker would be like dynamite in the off-road situations mentioned. IFS to SFA axle swaps are very common for most every IFS application due to the inherent lack of strength in the factory IFS designs for off-roading. You can find complete kits on the market for swapping from IFS to SFA for several models. I have cannibalized axle sets for re-sale to those doing such a swap several times. I have sold axle sets to go under Chevy trucks, Taco's & 4runners ,Nissan Frontiers, and X-terras. I am not talking about D60 fronts and such either. These were just D44/D44 or D44/AMCM23 sets from under FSJ's. There are some pretty remarkable IFS/SRA and even IFS/IRS off-road rigs out there but the top performers are extremely expensive customs and do not use either OEM components or geometry.

There are numerous cautions about using a locker in an independent suspension differential and I have no reason to discount them especially in a jeep created from a Fiat-produced car. How does this rear locker work? My google-fu is weak and I can't find an answer let alone one whose reliability I can rate. I can come up with plenty calling it a locker, but not what kind or how it works. There are those that argue that an LSD is technically a locker.

Now slip a locker in the 8.25 and maybe the D30 front, which is probably impossible in the Dart Wagon's FWD transaxle ( which is under the front of the AWD models,too.) Electronic nannies like traction control and the like can work wonders for people who can't drive any other way... until they break. Ask L.R. people how much fun it is when all of their electronics fail or gets confused by the terrain. Mention the "three amigos" or "holy trinity." To trade a transfer case with low range for a computer program that mimics low range makes me seriously doubt the credentials of that JK driver and his jeep. Is your source perhaps a company-related shill?