DirtyComanche

They're terrible. I was going to buy one instead of another JK but I couldn't find one in the right condition/price to do it for me. They all had blown transmissions, rotten frames, or some combination of both of those issues.

There is good reason that modern pickup truck design has evolved to the current state; the market spoke and manufacturers reacted. The last two year round DD trucks I've had have been crew cabs. Before them it was extended cabs, and before them it was the old single cab trucks. That is the natural progression of the market. This is excluding my "fun" DDs, which are always fairly useless and impractical (last was a TJ, before that a 2 door Cutlass, before that a MJ, and they are a whole other story). Yes, the single cab truck can still do truck things, but what it can't do is a much longer list. When I was a single guy doing single guy stuff, sure, you could stuff whatever you wanted to not get stolen/wet into the cab with you; but now, no. I always have a car seat, a backpack or bag of kid stuff, plus apparently I'm expected to pick family up from the airport or whatever and take them places, the average grocery shopping trip is more stuff than would even fit in the cab without a passenger, etc etc. Suddenly you're just accepting that a crew cab is what works. It's not 1980 anymore where you could just put the kids and extra family members in the box and tell them to hang on. There's also a cultural shift where now if it's in the back of your truck and not locked up, it might well walk away in the 10 minutes it takes you to run into a store to buy something. Personally, if I didn't regularly buy construction materials, landscaping supplies, greasy old transmissions and engines, and tow heavy, I would just wind up with a full size SUV myself, as interior space has become much more valuable on most days versus exterior space. So, long story short, for most people a single cab is nearly useless. That's why the sales numbers for them are generally dismal. Plus the other aspect of truck ownership is towing, and with modern everything being bigger/better, the demand is to be able to tow absurd amounts. That said, I think they still should make a 2 door single cab (with a little bit of space behind the seats) JT. My new "fun" DD is a JK because yeah, interior space. I have no idea how the Bogans in Upsidedownland handle using a Ute all the time. When I was working there I was given a fullsize car (a Ford something-or-other, it was a total POS) to tow a very small service trailer with because there is no trucks. I think that since the Land of Oz is basically entirely flat is the only reason you can get away with towing like that, and anyone who has to deal with towing anything bigger winds up with a small medium duty cabover. Meanwhile the Ute crowd seemed to mostly have them as a second vehicle, or they were young/single. The culture is different too, more people are clustered in the few large city centers and the rest of the country is a barren wasteland, so a lot less large outdoor toys, and people seemed to have most building/landscaping supplies delivered normally. I wasn't there long enough to fully flesh out the Ute culture, but I did enjoy the odd VB long neck for breakfast.

Also horribly overpriced and pretty useless. Speaking of which, I wish that the Aussie Utes were at least offered here. I mean, I wouldn't buy one new, but maybe an old one to daily for a couple months in the summer and then remember how terribly useless they are and sell for a loss in the fall. Yes, I could find an El Camino or Ranchero I guess, but there isn't any good driver ones for the price range I am talking about, plus you can't get them with the 80's build quality and cracked plastic interior that jangles my jimmies.

Limited through programing, not a mechanical governor. You'd pull out while putting the 400+HP of a stock Duramax to work and instantly hit the programmed limit, actually it was a bit worse, you'd blow through the limit and then it would cut power hard so it would come down to the limit and normally undershoot. You would feel yourself slowing down while beside them like if you had experienced a mechanical failure. It was great, best experience of my life. They limited them to 75mph. At the time their justification was that was the highest speed limit so "you would still be able to pass anyone who was going under the speed limit." The net result as far as reducing incidents? Well, the incident rate went up. Maybe not because of this, but it certainly was no silver bullet for eliminating them. The crappy drivers are still going to be crappy drivers. You could still drive 75mph on glare ice if you wanted, or next to a residential school.

They're going to do that anyway, unless you're going to ban performance modifications and altering factory tuning or settings.

No idea what the highest legal speed limit is in the USA. However, you sound a lot like you hate apple pie, bald eagles, and freedom. I worked at a company where all of the trucks were governed to lower than the factory setting (most GM vehicles govern at 100mph from the factory). It was at the request of one of our main clients, specifically their safety department. They made the logical "correlation equals causation" type conclusion that speed was a factor in the majority of auto accidents (reality is that the majority are either doing well over, or well under, the speed of traffic, "speed was a factor" is a statement that is improperly interpreted to mean "high speed was a factor") and therefore restricting speed would restrict all accidents. Those trucks were downright dangerous to drive given what the typical usage of them was. You would regularly be attempting to pass an ore or fuel Super-B, fully decked out ADR, 53' motorhome driven by somebody older than nuclear energy, or [insert whatever large vehicle that's going 20-30% under the speed limit] in places where there was no passing lanes and only very short stretches where passing was at all possible. This was because we typically would drive for 10-12 hours a day as our coverage area was larger than 90% of countries in the world, and you could not accept that you would be delayed by such a large factor, passing was just necessary, and you certainly weren't the only one doing it. There was several scenarios that would play out. The least worrying was you would pull out to pass, hit the governor, then proceed to pucker your rearmost lips for the next 10-15 seconds as you were trapped on the wrong side of the road and unable to accelerate more. Sometimes you'd realize you did not have the required safe distance once this happened, and have to abort passing, sometimes somewhat aggressively. Much worse was when you would pull out to pass and the person behind you, who was also waiting for the chance to do this, would follow you. Best case you could see them mouthing curse words at you when you hit the governor and effectively trapped both them and you in that oncoming lane, much worse was when you realized there was not going to be time and had to initiate aborting the pass and hope they realized you were doing that and also got on the brakes enough for both of you to make it back to safety. Much, much, much worse was when multiple vehicles would follow you. The other infuriating scenario, which applied particularly when you had a service trailer, was when you encountered the special type of person who would speed up when you tried to pass them. Given you were governed, it wasn't hard for them to make it impossible for you to get by them. You would also get your prairie drivers, who would drive exceptionally slow in all of the curved and narrow areas where you could not pass, but would immediately boot it when they hit the familiar embrace of straight blacktop; to pass those people you really need the top end. The reality is modern vehicles are very fast, and very comfortable at those speeds. My wife's suburban will do 80mph all day regardless of the type of road as long as it's reasonable weather conditions, and it will corner better and stop faster from those speeds than any 1980s vehicle. For it to do 85+ safely on a flat straight divided highway is not asking anything of it. Technology has come a long way, along with crash survivability. Traffic in all jurisdictions (that I've encountered) typically flows at 10-30% over the speed limit. You're safest doing the speed of traffic, and you're safest when passing to do it as concisely as possible. You may be resistant to change, but you're not going to roll the clock back. Also, this is why I don't daily a 1980's vehicle anymore. I will in the summer around town, but it just doesn't cut it on the modern highway. I'm not going to demand that everyone else change for me, that's selfish, and a lot like hating apple pie.

Why?

They are picking away at things. The electrician came by and put fixtures in the carports for lights: They strapped the back wall: They're doing a bunch of small things, soffits, flashing, some grading/backfill work, etc. So they are picking away at it but no big visual progress.

Agree. And they should have offered a 2 door on the same or shorter (4dr JL) wheelbase. It wouldn't sell great, but the R&D wouldn't have cost much, and there is a market for it that's currently being mostly taken by the Canyon/Colorado (at least here).

I'm doing floor heat so there will be two pads where there is no pex and that will be thicker. Otherwise I'd just do the whole thing. Floor heat is a luxury but I may go with an outdoor boiler at some point, and it's hard to integrate an outdoor boiler usefully otherwise. The house has a fully unfinished basement so it would be "easy" to add floor heat to it. Will I ever do that? Eh, who knows.

Sure, but it's a lot easier to load a 2 yards of gravel into a truck bed. And honestly a lot easier to get it back out.

Unfortunately you'll likely have to put more gas in it and see where it is leaking to confirm, unless you can see clear leaking marking, but I would probably just pull the sending unit lock plate off and look at the o-ring before adding and more gas. If it is from the sending unit o-ring, make sure to put some vaseline on the o-ring before you assemble it. It will help the sending unit lock ring to slide to the locked position without causing the o-ring to tear/extrude/split. Look for any nicks/burrs/cracks on the face of the seat in the tank and the lock plate too, as they may also cause the o-ring to fail or be ineffective.

Interesting idea. I suspect you'll struggle to keep the belts alive with the amount of snow you get and the torque of the motors. All the tractor mount snowblowers are either direct PTO drive using a gearbox, PTO and chain drive, or direct hydraulic drive, and they're much more reliable than anything belt driven and can chew the heavy/wet stuff. Having battery backup for the house would be a big bonus. I debated getting a cheap Tesla (or maybe a Ioniq) partly for that. I have a 6kw Kubota light plant but it's not the ideal thing to run all the time, but it would charge a car fairly efficiently if needed. Otherwise let the car battery run everything.

Sheathing and making gables. Top trusses on. It's stupid tall. Gables all done, double door framed in for the storage area and the bay doors cut out, windows in. Back windows in and I got them to put a single door on the back of the storage area. I will probably put a staircase on the back eventually. I may pay them to do it but the budget is pretty shot on this honestly, so more likely I'll make something out of steel later. A big thing I did not consider before this was that to access the storage area, well, it's about 17' to the floor. I have a Bobcat and a Clark forklift, neither can lift that high. There will be french doors on the front of it. I think (pending hearing better ideas) I will probably build a beam/trolly system for a hoist off the front french doors, and normally access it from the back. If I can find a forklift that can lift that high for the right price I will sell the one I have, but that's somewhat unlikely as 3 stage stuff tends to be more pricey.

More framing, and carport posts and beams. Carport roof framed, and bottom trusses going on (trusses are two piece because the roof pitch is so high). I went with "spacemaker" trusses because the roof pitch is so high you might as well, it will just be cold storage that is only accessible from outside. Beam installed.

I tracked down a beam for an overhead hoist. I put one in the last shop and it was invaluable, so I did the same but much beefier this time. That said, it's still only good for about 2500lbs single point, spanning 40' is asking a lot without getting really expensive. They got the foundation backfilled, foam insulation on, and did some compacting. Funny thing is you can see the tops of the piers for the carport posts, they formed them so they're square. The guys building this normally do custom homes, so they do some little things to make things nicer, and this does look nicer versus just having the round sonotube sticking up. Then it got cold again, but that's fine for framing. How bloody tall it is going to be started to be apparent. There will be a small washroom, which is what the window is for. The man door is a french door, and overheight. I wanted this as in the last shop I put an "oversize" door in for the man door, but I still found I often took large/awkward stuff through it in the winter versus opening the bay doors, so this should work better.

We finally got going with excavation and building forms. Oddly it warmed up way beyond what was seasonable, which they took advantage of in that they could pour concrete without having to heat it. The posts for the carports are 5' deep and the rest is only 4'. It's all clay, and we will have good grading so it should be happy.

I moved in the summer and lost my shop. Part of the deal/plan with this was that I would build a new, bigger, better shop. I did know somewhat what the costs were before I did this, but man, it's a hard pill to swallow. Ultimately I had to do it though, there was nothing for sale that met my criteria. Anyway, it's 40x40' and 16' ceilings, plus it has carports on both sides. I got hung up bad with permitting due to the area I live in (need permits from multiple levels of government, all of which decided to be on strike at some point in this), so we wound up starting construction in January. January is not one of the nicer months in this part of the world. Actually, it's probably the worst. Back in summer/fall I cleared off the access and site. I used my trusty but terrible 742B (arguably the worst machine Bobcat has ever sold, and man have they sold some bad machines) for lots of this. I relocated as many of the small trees as I could to other places on the property. Site in the winter, after the surveyor came out and verified I met setbacks: It's back pretty far from the house, and the driveway dog legs. It's what I wanted, not obvious or in your face.

It's my project, but I'm not doing much of the work so far: 40x40 with carports on each side. Contractor is doing most of it so far. I did do some clearing and driveway rough in work. He will take it to... I don't know, when I run out of money I guess. Hopefully that's mostly finished. It has space maker trusses so there's a storage area up top (not accessible from inside) and it will have a small washroom because it would be nice to have one that's accessible without going in the house. I also put a beam in for an overhead hoist like my last shop. Maybe I'll actually get back to vehicle projects when it is done.

I've said the odd thing I shouldn't have. For the most part this is a pretty relaxed and drama free group, so there wasn't much that I remember, at least not from back when I was active.

I think the stupid fad of using those slider boxes in the offroad world has finally passed.

That's a whole lot of WTF. And as said, D30/8.25.

I'd buy it. Their design is horrible and there is likely far more rust. If you want to restore it, then I would suggest doing a lot of research into how ugly they are to deal with from a sheetmetal standpoint. If you just want to build a driver and teach your kids some mechanical skills, then it looks like a great candidate.

For the vinegar to kill anything it needs to be strong, cleaning vinegar is about the minimum concentration at 10%. In the US it's fairly easy to purchase much stronger vinegar than that, just be careful as the higher concentrations can really hurt your skin/eyes/etc if you screw up. You also need to add salt (1 cup per gallon sort of thing) and a surfactant (soap, I just use dish soap, a good squeeze of it). The soap breaks down the protective lipids (fats) on the leaves and allows the vinegar to penetrate, where it then causes the leaves to die. The salt is there to soak into the ground near it and stop things from growing. I don't think you'll have great success at wiping out poison ivy with it, it's just a fairly benign option for controlling broad leaf weeds, but anything that can outgrow it will. Dandelions stand no chance against it though. I use it only because I have a well and would rather not use anything more toxic than that. Glyphosate is used almost everywhere and in massive quantities on a regular basis. As to if it causes cancer, it probably does (most things in your kitchen can), but like most things the exposure entry method, quantity, and duration likely affect the probability. If you use it be sure to follow the instructions and wear the appropriate PPE. Glyphosate does do an excellent job of killing the roots, as that is what it's designed to do. Triclopyr is fairly toxic, but it does break down fairly quickly (30-90 days). It's used all over the world (including the US) for spraying ditches and right of ways, as it's fairly indiscriminate in what it kills. I'm not a fan, but it does work well on poison ivy, and is well regarded for that. Again, PPE up and read the directions if you use it. Mechanical removal is the most effective method to kill things without risk of long term toxic effects. A rake and a hoe will do wonders. You could start off with the vinegar mix and follow up with the hoe a few days later. You just need to turn it up enough that the roots are removed. If you don't want anything to live there again, you can rake in a few bags of water softener salt. Or plant a cover crop on it that will choke out any future weeds.

I know a guy at the Ford dealership, so that's the main way. He gets me wholesale + 5%. I don't let them mount and balance them though. There is huge margins on tires, so the online suggestion is a good one too.