DirtyComanche

So how do you intend to use that 8.25" drop out third member?

Search USA6x6 for the TJ and the Dodge. Just don't ever order anything from whatever company they're doing business as currently. They built gearboxes that bolt to the pinion snout of the 9" or 14 Bolt, which gave you an input and output on the middle axle. The M715 was built by Mikel. It has a hybrid NP200/205 tcase in it (3 outputs), and two D70 rears that are offset from each other, IIRC. It also has a 6BT and NV4500? in it. His other fullsize Jeep is actually a J-truck, it has a 4BT in it. I think the M715 is leaf springs though, I'd have to go and look, I believe he tried links originally but it didn't perform how he wanted. The easiest solution is buying axles that were already setup for a tandem or 6x6 application. Rockwell, Dana, Meritor, Marmon-Herrington, etc, build a host of axles that were already meant to do this.

This reminds me... My JK has a fullsize spare. But I don't have the jack. Dodge... No spare. I leave it behind the shed because the winch thinger is broken so you wouldn't be able to lower it if you needed to anyways. Guess what? I have a jack in the Dodge. I keep meaning to snag one of the decent scissor jacks from the boneyard for the JK.

Hmm. Only 2400 miles, or 37 hours straight of driving... Tempting.

. :MJ 1: . Glad you got 'er on the road!

That will happen with TREs from time to time. Either keep tightening it, or clean the hole up with a taper reamer. Just don't strip it... I've also drilled a new hole on them in custom applications where I didn't want to ream the hole any deeper. Nothing from Teraflex indicates that it shouldn't fit.

Too big or too small? If it's too big of a hole, it might be wallowed out. Their instructions seem to indicate that it works with the factory bracket.

Yes, those test sockets are for the DRB II tool to adapt to. You can read some information from them using a multimeter, but for all sense and purpose it's pretty much useless without the tool.

I still don't know what the OP wants. But if it's Ford vs Chevy, I would absolutely buy a Chevy for the half ton market. The 5.3 is bulletproof, and the chassis they put it in lasts a long time with only minor issues. We have a whole fleet of them at work and they just keep going and going. If you're looking at a 1-ton I would be torn, I love the Duramax and how the IFS rides, but I am not a fan of the 6L gas jobby, nor do I like the lack of prowess of the truck in off-road situations, and the cost to keep the IFS together is slightly more (mostly because you can't let it wear out until it falls apart, it becomes undriveable before then). Also, the later diesels need to be be deleted and tuned, they just have too many issues with the DPF and associated junk otherwise. I have zero faith in anything diesel with a blue oval on it, unless it's the 7.3L. The newer Stuperduty trucks have an awesome chassis and axles though. I know nothing about Ford gas engines because I've never had to deal with them, and I plan to keep it that way. Ultimately, I would build a Fummins and put the cab from something that was actually cool on it. Or drop a later Duramax/Allison in. All above comments assume you want a 4wd truck.

It may not help that the buy and sell group I use most is called "Billbilly motor swap". As the name would imply, having teeth is not a requirement to join.

Just to give everyone an idea how terrible the body/bodywork actually is... Image Not Found Holes, bondo, bondo over holes, rusting from the backside: Image Not Found More holes: Image Not Found Holes, bondo, ah, you know what I'm talking about: Image Not Found More of the same: Image Not Found Has some sway bar links from something else???? Image Not Found Ooo, a random switch and fuse, just hanging out there. Image Not Found There is an engine in there: Image Not Found Anyways, still gotta finish the XJ before I do anything with this.

Also, the easiest way (IMHO) to measure across the axle to find a point to weld something on is to throw the brake rotors on and measure from the back sides of them. Some assumptions are made with this method of measuring, but if the axle is assembled correctly and the brake rotors are not worn, it is more than accurate enough. Or I will bolt a piece of flat bar to the backing plate/wheel bearing retaining nuts. Obviously you should do what works best in your situation.

I guessed on that one. I read a lot of other builds and came up with a number based on what they had all done. I didn't have a real welder at that point, so I cleaned the axle up, took all the old brackets off, and then took it to a welding shop with the new perches and told them to put them on at 42" center-center (IIRC) and to point the pinion up x*. I think my magic number was 6*, but that was 10? years ago. Also, it depends if you want to do a SYE w/ double cardon driveshaft or not. You want the pinion pointing about 2* below the output on the tcase if you have a SYE, you want it pointing basically level if you are not going to do one. Knowing what I know now, and having a digital angle finder, I just draw lines on the axle where the perches need to go in regards to center-center, then assemble everything with the u-bolts hand tight, then wiggle everything until the angle looks good, then I use a piece of pipe to simulate a driveshaft and check that I'm at the right angle, taking the angle of the 'driveshaft' and of the flange/yoke. At that point I can either tack the perches right there, or measure the angles and pull it out. Up to you, YMMV, my profession demands extreme degrees of precision but my hobbies do not.

The extra main leaf makes the spring pack more robust in general, and increases spring rate by maybe 20%. Increasing the spring rate gives you a little lift, and is a better match for most of the aftermarket front springs which are typically considerably higher rate than stock. It also means that you won't squat the truck as much when you put stuff in it, IMHO the factory got it wrong and should have gone with higher rate rear springs because of this reason alone. More ideal would be to find some aftermarket springs with a military wrap eye, as that gives you a much stronger setup in general, but I don't keep up on what's available as that sort of stuff is not affordable to me due to shipping.

When I swapped one in I used the factory 4wd MJ leafs, but I added an extra main leaf (with the eyes cut off) to each of them. It was pretty level. You could fine tune it with either zero rates (thin blocks that are part of the leaf pack, since you put the center pin through them), or with shackles

I'm not digging around on his site, because frankly I don't give a damn, but I bet in his warranty info there is a general disclaimer releasing him of liability and indicating that his products are intended for off road use only and may not meet legal requirements in all jurisdictions.

Did you check to make sure? Because vehicles leave the factory every day with spacers....

That firewall connector always looks like that. They put some semi-drying dielectric grease on it when they assemble it. I wish I knew what it was and where to get it, because it seems to work better than a lot of other things.

The Truetrac turned out to be a Trackloc (clutch pack type). I was tempted to still get it but ehh.... Figured it was too good to be true. Might have a line on the correct one if the guy will ever get back to me. But I did track down some tires/wheels. Found these Ipikes in 265/70R17: Image Not Found They should work good for what I want. Also got 5 stock JK P-tires with Moab wheels: Image Not Found I'll probably trade the P-tires to the tire shop in exchange for mounting/balancing the Ipikes, but we'll see. Might find some JK M/T tires and another set of wheels too, so I'll hold off on dealing with the tire shop until I have everything that I plan to do. These are the LCAs that were included with the truck: Image Not Found Yup, not doing much with that. Although I suppose I could cut them down if I wanted. These coils springs were in there too: Image Not Found I don't know what they are but I don't plan to use them. And these 30 spline axle shafts: Image Not Found I'm guessing they're spares for the D44. I'll have to look into it, not really that worried though. Not much else to report. I'm 95% certain I will be getting a RoughCountry long arm setup for very little money, I will know by tomorrow night. It's missing a few bits, but all the big pieces are there, and it looks like all the joints are still in good shape. Yes, I still haven't taken pictures of the truck, or actually done any work on it. :rotfl2:

I have had a couple people tell me that they had 'lost their ad' when I finally manage to get a hold of them. Another good one was a young woman (and not bad looking at that) with an ad for an XJ part out. I need a window regulator, asked 'her' if it was okay or not. Yup, tried it, it goes up and down. Perfect, get an address and go over there with my drill and bag of basic tools. Turns out it's a skiddy looking guy selling the stuff, he uses his GF's Facebook (what the hell is she doing with him anyways :dunno: ) because he's got too bad of a rep and is a 'contractor' (that probably burned tons of people), so he can't post things under his own Facebook. The window regulator clearly didn't work when I tried it. I got the hell out of there in a hurry. :doh:

The lack of organization and searchability of Facebook is appalling. With Kijiji here it makes you fill out year/make/model and a few other things, you can just select 'other' for all of them, but it's easier to just select the reasonably correct info. So normally it's close. With Facebook I'm searching a stupid amount of terms, and still not confident I covered what I wanted. And it organizes things in a very odd manner, it's not really chronological, so even if I browse through a whole group worth of listings I can't be sure if I saw all of them. BTW, buddy that was trying to sell me the wheels that I didn't want, well he's still lighting up my ad with a serious case of anal inflammation, but I'm quite satisfied. Somebody else messaged me and sold me the wheels I want for way less. :rotf:

New, used, age range, gas, diesel, 4wd, 2wd, towing or hauling? Do you need options/creature comforts/seating for 5? Dodge isn't even an option?

It's okay for the time being (forever, or until you have to take the pan off, if you don't care) unless you heard a really loud *CLANK CLANK CLANK* as the rod smashed the pan as it went by. Buy a good quality pan, or you will have a lot of trouble getting it to seal. Lots of the cheap ones come warped.

I'm at the point that I think these are worse than Craigslist/Kijiji. 90% of the time people don't reply to basic questions, regardless if you post in the ad or PM them or both. Even just telling some guy that I would take what he had and to message me so we could meet up, and *crickets* And I posted a WTB for some specific wheels, and I've got a guy arguing with me that I should buy the set he's selling that aren't the same style or size even... Anyone else having better luck?

HREW is comparable to pipe, something around only 50-60% of the strength of DOM. CREW is comparable to DOM, but you almost never see it because it's redundant/obsolete.