I'm always down for wheeling man! I was supposed to go in October, but our Grandmother got really sick two weeks before the event. We decided to cancel the Moab trip to help care for her after she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung/brain cancer. She passed away a month later, so I was glad we stuck around. I might be going in April with the guys I wheel with though. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to do Moab or the NAXJA anniversary in Harlan. I really wish I could do both, but it'll be one or the other.

 

Got my driveshaft in today and started installing it. Holy crap is it cold out. I gave up after I couldn't move my hands anymore. I retreated inside and came back out and did this little project instead. Looks better than a gapping hole!

 

Got some more done this weekend. Got the rear driveshaft installed and it works great. I ended up flipping my front ds around and I need to clearance it just a hair on the tcase side. I also need to replace the u-joints before I head out. The limit straps and Prothanes are in. I flexed it out today and I'm planning on drilling the inserts I made to take a hockey puck. I don't have much in the way of pictures.

Insert for the Prothane, made from scraps from my steering and tcase skid.




Took it for it's first road test and it works great. It really soaks up the bumps now, which is nice with the roads being so crappy from this winter. Had it up to 60mph and no wobbles. I'm really happy with the progress!

 

Flexed her out on the snow pile this afternoon.

 

Got back from Winterfest on Sunday. Three days of wheeling and camping with people I consider part of my family and a pretty good shakedown run for the junk. Had a couple of issues with my transfer case and I'm going to have to mess with the adjustment some. Bent my rim twice, got part of a tree crammed into one tire, peeled a bead another day, ripped the latch out of my hatch, put a big old dent in the passenger side door, lost the nut on my track bar, and later had the bolts through the body come loose for the tb bracket (thanks Evan for not tightening those down and thanks to myself for not nutting and bolting everything). Other than those few things, she did great out there! I got to use the new winch twice to pull out two different vehicles and it worked perfectly.

 

you wouldn't happen to still have your bastard packs would ya?

 

No, I traded them off.

 

ah, oh well. I saw how you did yours and it made me want to do the same. You said they rode great, yeah?

 

So, what about that 3.4 swap?

 

Yeah, they rode really nice and were flexy.

Waiting for warmer weather, but it will be done this year. I'm doing some research on cams and heads right now. I want it to be a torquey ****.

 

Here's how my cargo area ended up looking. The "hi-lift" is attached to the floor and I notched the back trim so that it fit where I wanted it. I basically ran two bolts with a washer from up under the floor, used a washer and nut in the cargo area, slide the jack in place and used a washer and wing nuts to tighten it down.



I ended up having to run a return line to the cell. I was hoping I could block off the return line at the block pump, but it was a no go. I still need to run a grommet through the floor for that line.


So here's my current irritation, the front is lower than the rear. From the bottom of my rockers to the ground is 21.25" at the front and 22.75" in the rear. I'm thinking about stepping up to 5.5" coils. When I picked out the 4.5" coils, I had read that they run closer to a 5.5" coil. Well, I guess I didn't factor in how heavy my junk is, so they've settled rather quickly to what you see.


If you noticed, I ripped the latch out of my hatch at WF and ended up removing it all together. I decided to put one back on and swapped my old glass back in. Part of the fun of owning an '86 is trying to get stuff to work with later years. The majority of the plugs between the '86 body side and the '92 hatch side are different, so I'm going to make a harness to connect them.


Really thinking about stepping up to 35" ltb's or just buying another set of 33" tsl's. There's a 5lb difference between the two, the ltb coming in at 67lbs and the tsl at 62lbs. I'm not sure how much each wheel will weigh with the beadlocks yet, but it's going to be pretty heavy.

A couple more pics from WF:

Walking through the rock garden on white.


Sending out the bat signal, lol. Funny enough, I ran this trail earlier in the day with a couple of XJ's and it was completely frozen over. We came back in the afternoon to pre-run the trails for the next days group runs and it was broken through.

 

I decided to go with silver on my outer rings.


Inner rings are all welded on, just need to primer and paint them.

 

Shoot over to 60degreev6.com if you haven't already. You might want to look into a 3500 v6 swap as well. Tons and tons more potential than the 3.4 you've got. I think the heads and everything swap over, and the upper intake is much better flowing than the 3.4 one.

 

I've been poking around there. I just picked up another '86 parts vehicle with the Edelbrock intake and Holley Projection. There's been talk of slapping together a turbo setup for the 3.4. Everything is kind of up in the air right now with the engine.

 

Awesome build man!