DirtyComanche

I hit a deer in my cutlass supreme, it looked like this: Image Not Found After I fixed it.... I wasn't much for paint at that time. But I drove it for a week with a smashed front end with big chunks of deer flesh hanging off it. It really impressed my vegetarian girlfriend (er, ex girlfriend). That car just had no luck with me. Two trannies and a deer. I actually miss it, it was really nice to drive. Oh well.

Electric... I don't pay for it, so it's all good. Most places that people actually care about not going broke have a wood stove to at least cut down the electric/gas bill. Here I pay flat rate on my rent, so it doesn't matter. I also plug my dodge in because my coolant mix is borderline at -40. That and diesels HATE cold. Like I said, I've seen a few wrecked blocks. It only takes a couple degrees the wrong way to cause major problems.

It's both! It doesn't matter, the other measurements were C, but you get the point.

;) How's about the negative 30's? I grew up north of you in PEI.....you don't get temps as cold as we get out here, but you get the wind which we don;t....all evens out. PEI? Prince Edward Island. It's been -41 here the one day this winter. With a bunch of -20s to -30s.

I too epoxied my shifter and broke it power shifting... It's not convenient to have your shifter come apart when you do have a rev limited and aren't big on letting off the skinny.

I've seen that before. I've also seen destroyed blocks from it. You definatly lucked out. You guys don't know cold. Although it actually hasn't been bad (yet) this winter.

That's what I figured... Should be worth a try. Depending if I bother. The reason is that there's a lot more NICE aftermarket rims for the chevy BP than ford/heep 5x4.5. There is some rims, but not likely what I want. And I have this half brained plan for something involving IFS eventually, and the S-truck stuff is probably easiest to 'borrow' the necessary parts from. But that's going to be depending on what my research comes up with.

I want to try drilling them from 5x4.5 to 5x4.75. Long story. Anyways, that's 1/8 farther out. Is there enough material on the flange to get away with it?

Takes about 5-10 on the MJ (probably less now), but on the XJ I had it took me about two hours... Stupid thing had A/C and a front skid. Better yet the front skid had been installed with SAE hardware (in metric pal nuts) and I had to cut it off after wasting a lot of time with less destructive methods (I hate front skids). So, if I'd budget a fair amount of time if you've never done it on that truck before.

I wouldn't powder coat anything that gets 'used'. It's not that tough, so it'll look like $#!& in no time, then if you touch it up with spray bomb it still looks like $#!&...

Who would have a brand new 2.1 not installed in anything? Seems kinda strange...

I wonder what my VIN is and if there's anything outstanding on mine. It'd be worth it just for the looks on their faces... :nuts:

Oh, you're another northerner... I live in Dawson Creek (for now at least).

A coathanger and a pocket knife works quite well. Straighten the hanger, then bend it into a L with the lower part of the L being about 3" long, and the bend being about 80* (measuring hte inside of the bend). Take the knife and push back the weather stripping on the door glass, and slide in the coathanger. You're aiming to snag the lock cable about half way down the door, so slide it down about that far and turn the hanger and bit and yard up. It'll take a bunch of tries if you've never done it before. Now, if your ignition key doesn't work... Wait, I shouldn't get into that.

What do you mean by that? There's some massive problems with how axleshafts are made. The only place that does it right (off my head) is sway-a-way. Apparently there's a bunch of good reasons why a axleshaft needs to a larger diameter at the splines. And aftermarket springs that 'settle' more than a tiny bit are not good news. Oh, and if you ever see anything that's critical and chrome plated, it's bad news (however, that's more of a problem with street rods). There's a few glaring problems with how people build roll cages, especially 4130 ones... And lots of other examples. Personally I liked to only let my welds (in mild steel) to partially air cool and then I'd typically water them, just to save time. Reasoning that mild steel isn't heat-treatable, I figured (wrongly) that it'd be okay. Nope, it causes a massive stress at the edge of the HAZ and I should be shot for doing it. It's just an observation about this entire customized vehicles thing. Lots of stuff works but isn't right...

The problem with attempting to tub one of these trucks is the frame in the rear is too wide. If a guy wishes to run a tire that is too wide for the wheel wells, he might as well look at cutting the whole frame off the back half and building a new one out of tube. I've thought about that. It's a matter of where I'd want to draw the line. 4-links are easy. But for anything but drag racing and rock crawling, a solid rear end isn't ideal. Too much unsprung weight. And camber doesn't change in an ideal way. Same with a solid front end. Hence the whole IFS thing... I'm still doing more reading into the workings of independant suspensions, but I now know enough to not be afraid of them. Somewhat unrelated, I also read a really good book on materials and realized how many bad things I've done in the past. And better yet, how many bad things most of the 4wd suppliers do.

Rust is always an issue! :roll: I've been doing some more reading (never good) and hence have been looking into some more radical things. IRS is one. Amusingly enough, a guy can buy a setup off the shelf (anybody read street rodder?) but they are all so poorly designed that I'm thinking the gene pool needs some chlorine.

I'm thinking they'll be worth it for the $40 worth of glass... I think I can mold a stock fender and reproduce it - but instead of using chopped mat that's absurdly thick I'd do it the 'right' way. Same goes for the hood. I hate buying stuff that I can make.

Should be close enough... But there might be minor rubbing on the control arms at full steering, or perhaps on some of the inner fenders.

With the right backspacing on the rims, should fit fine...

Is that only $160 for a glass hood? That's a good deal.

The disty won't take long to flood without being waterproofed. I can remember a time when my MJ was stock and I did some minor water crossings, and I pushed water with the bottoms of the headlights more than once, but as soon as it got a little higher the engine would quit. I've never driven in water deep enough to matter since then.

A ford motor? That's :nuts: You'll be in for a whole new world of unreliability.

The cabs are vented. It'd probably be okay... Sorta. Routing is do-able, run it over the engine and through the cowl above the blower motor (there's a huge space in there not used by anything) and into the cab. Buddy runs the intake in his YJ into where the blower motor would be on most vehicles (above the passenger's feet) and it's kinda loud.

As long as they aren't broken, it'll all just snap back together. Normally they break when you pull the trim though, they just get too brittle after years of exposure.