DirtyComanche

For the 912A569 he's listing it at $546 USD. I don't think he'll have the wiggle to come in cheaper than the $625 CAD delivered. But I'll ask him.

That's why I'm building a second one up. Have a nice one for the summer, and keep the rotting one for the winter. Truth be told, if a guy had bedsides or a better box, and was willing to put the time into it, one could probably nip off all of the rust issues on my current driver. Finding a box? Hah, like that's going to happen. I'll stick with washing the frame out every time I go to the self serve car wash, and continuing to drive it. Maybe at some point I'll wire wheel the worst of the rust off it and patch things, just so it will last longer, but that doesn't need to happen anytime soon.

I picked up some heavily discounted micro SDXC cards off Amazon. That was it. Nothing else caught my eye. I did just about pull the trigger on another cheap action camera, but it's probably no better than the POS I have, so why bother. 4x4 vendors offering 10% off, meh, they do that all the time.

I've got a guy in the US that's probably cheaper if you want... Not sure how amazing his pricing is on Eaton stuff, but he will blow any Canadian price on Yukon stuff out of the water. Yukon makes a helical gear L/S too (not sure about your application).

Looks pretty decent considering.

So I've been poking on this little guy for a while, between the other stupid things I've got going on. Basically it's a 1989 2wd SWB, and it came with a dead 2.5L. Not exactly what I want. I didn't do a teardown on the engine but based on the amount of blowby in the airbox the rings were probably taken out at some point. So that junk came out, and I'm going to jam a Mercedes Benz OM617 in there, come hell or high water. I finally had the time to string some video together so I can share it with you. Warning, the video is 18~ minutes long. Obviously I need to fire my graphics designer that does the video thumbnails though.

I think something happened and the settings just reset on their own, or inadvertently by my own hand.

Yeah, I poked through the settings and I'd missed a whole bunch of them. I get emails for threads I start. Or I did, 'cause that can get bent. I'm not sure how that setting got turned on, because I didn't before, but it might have been a while since I started a thread since I'd been busy with stupid J trucks and other stuff for a while.

I just got an email letting me know you quoted me, so I'll go check that out.

If it was anything else I would have just turned around and gone home when I actually saw it in person. But the small bits on these trucks add up in value so fast I wasn't upset about it not being what I'd hoped, just bummed that I wasn't going to be able to take it cruising around town without major work. I was more than a little blown away by how hack things were when I finally got into it though. Thanks for watching and for the kind words.

Thanks! I think the truck has probably mostly been apart and wasn't driven much since then, as there isn't really evidence that anything is factory or at least hasn't been disturbed. The sheetmetal is way worse than it first appears. It's actually largely what suckered me in to start with, as it looks great in pictures taken from 20' away in poor light, and I figured if the guy was stretching the truth about the mechanical condition that good metal is still gold. It had a previous 'restoration' which I think involved wire wheeling the crust off and coating it with bondo and then gallons of implement paint. Where the paint has held together it looked good, there's holes clean through elsewhere. There's holes clean through the inside of the box, the bottom of the tailgate, every fender flare, the seams of the box sides, the rockers, the cab corners, the bottoms of the doors, the front fenders (not just the flares), the header panel, and the floor in the cab is another story too... The hood is really nice though. It really makes me wonder what the story on the truck actually is, I'd love to talk to whoever did the original work.

I would highly recommend trying the weld on nut trick as many times as needed, rather than resorting to cutting/drilling those out. It will go eventually. I buy bags of nuts to keep around for doing this, as sometimes it's just a bear to do properly due to access, contamination, or problems with the guy running the welder, but at the end of the day it's the least damaging way to do it. The AX-15 uses it's own crossmember with a drop section in it, so as long as it was an AX-15 XJ you'll be fine. Same with the mount, they're consistent for all years of the AX-15. If it was open like that for a while, I would hope it didn't get any water in it... Be prepared to flush it. For fluid personally I like the Amsoil MTG https://www.amsoil.com/shop/by-product/transmission-fluid/manual/manual-transmission-and-transaxle-gear-lube-75w-90/?code=MTGQT-EA . I think most guys run Redline MT-90 though.

Thanks. I put a ton of effort into trying to make the videos as good as I can. I've got a couple other little projects to clear off the table, then this thing should be back in for another round of work. I just have to decide what part of it I'll tackle next time, there's so many things wrong it's just hard to decide.

I've got my original 89 tank sitting in the shed right now. I could measure it and the Spectra that's in my DD if I really cared to know for sure... Which I guess means maybe I should. Personally I really like plastic tanks though. They were one of the better things to happen to automobiles in the last 25 years.

Went back and forth on posting this... Anyways, some years back I just wanted to get a J truck that I could drive around for the summer. This one came up for sale, it was a couple hours away, the guy said he drove it regularly, the price was right, looked a little rough but that's fine. It was just supposed to be something to drive for a couple months, then pass on. So I went and picked it up. Well, the story wasn't quite the same when I got there. And it certainly wasn't once I had a good look at it. Finally after trying to sell it and receiving offers via text message that read like "wud u trade for 89 yz50 doesnt run need hed work" or "$300" with no prior questions, along with the odd person that came to look at it who I believed would actually make it worse than it already was, I got annoyed and figured I'd just start working on the thing every now and then instead. Warning. The video isn't super short. None of mine are.

Yup. So true. If it was feasible I'd just get a nice rust-free shell from Arizona or whatever, rather than screwing with the junk I have. Import laws, insurance, and various other things make it nearly impossible. My current project truck will cost me a bundle of time, effort, and money (mostly on supplies, paint, etc) to fix, and it's actually one of the least rusty MJs I've seen in the last 10 years. That said, I'm going to do some minor body mods to it, so starting with the cleanest truck possible would be a bit of a shame.

I'd look for the tag(s), or spin it as Pete suggested.

I'll probably start a new thread on it if that happens... I managed to complete derail my own thread already.

Is it worth it to you? Then it's worth it. That truck will likely never be really nice. But you could clean up the worst of it and it will be pretty good. Or if you want to wheel it, just put fender flares on it and call it good.

I'm getting emails notifying me that I've been quoted. I went and turned off email notifications on content, in the user settings, I think that's what it was called... Still seem to be getting them. I'll just custom filter them into the trash if I have too, but it seems like something is broken? Or the option is somewhere else?

Yeah, I'd read that thread before, I just forgot some of the details. I'll have to think on it. Luckily there's no rush because I have a long list of projects to get done before I worry about this anyways.

No worries. It's really only the Spectra one I can buy anyways, based on the searching I've done since I started the thread. Maybe the Liland Global one, but it shows out of stock with no ETA. All the other ones are over $200 in shipping (yes, just for the shipping. Seriously. ) If I knew the Liland one was better than the Spectra I would order it and see what they come up with for an ETA.

I guess the backstory would help, but I'm not going to write a novel. I need this to work with a Renix gauge (hence the bodge sending unit I linked being 0-90ohms). I'd use the Dakota pump basket/sender assembly, but throw the bodge sender in elsewhere or gut the Dakota unit and put it there. I'd buy a whole tank with basket from the junkyard or somebody doing a part out. IMHO hacking an XJ or MJ pump into the side of the Dakota tank would be largely defeating the purpose of using one, but that's from the standpoint that I'm not doing a 97+ conversion, I just want a reliable fuel tank and I don't want to pay a lot for it (and then still have to paint it). Good to know I want an earlier tank for axle clearance though... There's a couple 01s and a 99 listed on the local buy and sell for part outs right now.