DirtyComanche

Does it matter? The driver is ultimately responsible - they put the clutch in or hit N/R when it starts to come up, unless they're crazy.

I had a bed liner that easily weighed 120lbs. It was a peice of 1" thick rubber than covered the whole bottom.

Yes, I'd do the weight savings. Lighter vehicles are more fuel effiecent, handle betterm accelerater faster, and are less likely to break parts. But, alloy wheels won't likely be worth 45-50lbs unless you're talking forged aluminum. Even then, I dunno... The stock steelies are quite light (I should throw one on the scale).

I don't know how complete they were at that price.

Some of those guys are nuts... If you look closely, that thing has portal axles. What they're out of I don't remember for sure, either a Mog or a russain machine of similar design.

I thought it was a 904... But maybe that one came with the I6s in the YJs? Dunno, they're both crap.

The stupid part is that it's 'done' except if I decide to final weld the Cs (they're just tacked). I don't have a plan for my front suspension, or the money for the parts quite frankly. And I'm not big on doing the gear setup until most of the welding is done on the housing. I can do more work on the cover, and clean it some more, weld the Cs, and that's it. I need parts to do anything on the rear too. They're on the way, but it'll be a week or so...

Does it put strain on the spotwelds at the front or what? It's like anything else that flaps. Something will crack because of the cyclic stresses. It might not ever present itself as a problem, but I'm just saying...

Have you asked them for a quote? IIRC, they were talking 9g for a steering axle.

Cs back on... Had a slight snag in doing it in that when I measured stickout before removing them, well, I didn't exactly take into account that it wouldn't be the same all the way around. It won't matter. Image Not Found Welded up the cover thingy... And started playing around with the design to make it stronger/more supportive to the housing. I am undecided. I also drilled and tapped the new hole. Image Not Found

Spark plugs are over-rated. I use copper. NGKs instead of champions right now, but only because that's what was in stock at the parts store. They have to be gapped every now and then. Which is alright, you should take them out and have a look at them anyways. IMHO, gapping and heat range has far more effect on performance than plug type.

I had pipe driveshafts. Actually, the rear one is still hanging on the wall I think. They're tough, you can let them spin on a rock for a long time without real damage. I didn't do such a nice job. They almost worked out so they'd be nice and straight, but not quite. So I just kinda threw them together once I realized they wouldn't be close.

Everything on the portal side of life. The boxes would crack in half under the side loading, or they'd break free from the axle tube and spin. The portal gears would carnage themselves (thus, there's some aftermarket gears out there made of some serious alloys), and the output shaft from the lower portal gear, and pretty much everything that was splined anywhere in there. I have no idea if they had any ring&pinion issues, but I doubt it as the stress is really concentrated on the portals. The problem was they were never designed for rock-crawling. I think stock volvos would be pretty slick with a set of 35s as long as your truck weighed under 4000lbs.

To the rest of the truck, no, not structeral. However, it's not good for the bed in the long term to leave them flopping around.

I got the housing cut down... Image Not Found They did it in a LATHE. I should have told them to just use the horizontal band-saw (that's what I'd expected), but they did it this way, so WTH. $35 for both sides isn't bad. I cleaned the cover up a bit: Image Not Found And shaved it to match the housing. It's a little iffy on the sealing. I drilled a new hole for that lower bolt cause it ain't gonna work. Then I realized I don't have a 5/16 UNC tap. I'll have to remember to buy one. Oh, as you can see that cover come off a working girl. I love previously wheeled parts. So, I got to work on it: Image Not Found I bent and welded on a peice of .125 FB first. The cover is about .150, so that gives me a little over 1/4" over the ring gear. If you need more than that, you were already being a major idiot. I also welded up the un-needed hole. I'll put a bit more FB on the bottom of it, and maybe build a girdle. Might as well try to give some strength back to the centre section since I shaved it so much.

Block heaters were standard on all XJs and MJs sold in western Canada, AFAIK. I've never used the one in my MJ or in the XJ I owned. The MJ would start fine in -40 conditions, so I could never be bothered to plug it in. The XJ had 3 (one inline in the rad hose, one in the heater hose, and one in the block), I never used them either, but they were there. My CTD has a plug too.. I'll plug it in at some time, it won't like the cold.

They're pretty sweet. I don't know if they're proven though. The volvo portals they're based on were only good for 36-37" tires if totally built and in a light weight buggy. They assumably improved the design an aweful lot. However, the only comp buggy that was lined up to run them (that I know of) had a falling out with them. If they are tough, then they're amazing... And you can run a hi9 in them and have issues with your driveshaft angle being too steep in the wrong direction!

Normally you bore it to a size that you can buy a throttle plate for. Making one is possible, but either it's going to be a huge PITA or require some nice tooling.

It depends who you talk to about u-joints. I run spicer sealed ones if I ever buy them new. Which actually hasn't happened - it's on my list but I don't get around to it. Sealed u-joints are great if you aren't going to bother to grease them. Greasables are great if you are going to grease them. Quality Gear sealed joints are great if you never use them.

Those hi-tech anti-sways are nifty...

It doesn't need TPS input to run. It's just another parameter that allows it to better regulate the fuel. Besides, no input is better than the wrong input...

Yeah, the dark can get depressing. It does that here too, just obviously not as bad. It looks like a really nice area there. What's the wheeling options like? I'm thinking about moving farther north at some point. The towns here are getting too big.

Okay, that's simple. I'll need to get another header since I removed my O2 bung. Blah.

Those panaramas make sweet pictures... How long are the days up there right now?

What's the difference between wide and narrow really? Summit has some really cheap ones.