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Showing results for tags 'expedition'.
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Hello all. I wanted to gather opinions here, seeing as how y'all are the experts when it comes to the 'Manche's. This summer, I will be conducting some field work for my employer, in which I will be required to basically live out of my vehicle in areas ranging from wooded mountains in South-eastern New Mexico to the deserts of far West Texas. We will be operating in the vicinity of populated areas ( think approx 50-70 miles), but we will mostly operate on our own. The extent of this "camping trip" will be for about a month; from June to July. In this part of the country, we don't get a whole lot of rain during this time of year, but we do get extreme temperature changes. During the day, it can get as hot as 110 degrees, while at night, in the open desert, it can drop to the low 60's, to mid 50's. Now, this is mainly a mental exercise, but I will be taking suggestions from here as to what some of the future mods will be to my Comanche to get it to be able to pull off stints such as this. We won't be doing any XTREME ROK KRAWLIN!!!!!!, but we will definately be driving over some badly maintained fire roads, gravel utility roads, and at times, make some not-so-deep water crossings and maybe have to scramble up some jeep trails and ride some sand dunes. My knee jerk reaction to this scenario is to take my ZJ. Why? Well, it has a fantabulous suspension for fast, long distance off roading, is dead reliable, has plenty of lighting, and , if push comes to shove, I can sleep in it. The problems it has is that, quite frankly, it has crappy cargo room, it sucks gas down compared to the 2.5 MJ, and I already have it set up for what I want it to do. So let's look at what I have to start with: 1987 Jeep MJ 2.5L 4 cylinder (runs GREAT and is surprisingly capable and frugal after fixing the vacuum and electrical issues it had) AX5/NP231 swap currently in the works (Ditching the AX4) Non C Clip Dana 35 in rear. Originally came with 3.55's, but will be swapping in a set of 4.11's and either a Lock Right or a Spartan... maybe a Detroit if I can swing it. HP Dana 30, matching gear set, open diff. EBC USR rotors and green stuff pads. I like em on my ZJ.... I currently have the stock rear springs, ZJ V8 front springs with Energy Suspensions isolators and Skyjacker 10 stage Velocity Sensing shocks at all four corners. At this point I have insgtalled a pair of Hella Rallye 2000's, have plans for a new front and rear bumpers, and, to deal with the weight increase, I will probably step up to a pair of 3.5-4" springs in the front and maybe add a leaf from a XJ pack to my rears. Oh, and I'm running 31x10.5R15 BFG T/A KO's on 15x8 aluminum wheels. What else would you guys add?
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