Jon and Ben,
Thanks for chiming in. You both confirmed the same conclusion I reached. The 99's already have the best of bread Cherokee axles (at least other than the unicorn D44 rear) so I decided the waggy wasn't worth it. It means I should grab some trail spares and be content with what I have. Since I decided to pass on the Waggy I posted up details in the SoCal "junkyard finds" thread to see if it can help someone else. It's over at the Anaheim pick-your-part BTW (an oil slick of a yard for sure).
You're probably right about me not getting that stupid anymore (mostly). These days the Jeep is serving daily driver status after I screwed up my RX7. That means I A) can't tear into the Jeep too far and B) I can't be doing things that risk breakage until the other is fixed.
Side story on the RX7 mishap, since what the hell, it's the internet and half of most builds is pure entertainment anyways:
I had just finished a stroker LS2 and it's awesome (guessing pretty close to 600 wheel).
The thing pulls as hard as any vehicle I've ever been in but I haven't gotten the traction control installed yet. I'm out on was date night with Mrs. Frijolee, we're driving to dinner in the 7, and I was just in process of telling her how stoked I was on the car. "It corners like a go-cart, it goes stink..." etc. Right as I mention the later, I stand on it in 3rd gear to demonstrate (the things we'll do for a pretty lady riding shotgun, right?). I'm doing 50-55 mph or so on a divided/elevated frontage road merge thing when I get on it. It proceeds to near instantly light up the tires (this is with 295s and taller than normal 3:55 gears mind you) but instead of staying straight the back end snaps sideways hard to the right. Not sure if it was because the road was a little off camber, dirty on one side or what.
It snaps back left and I do an involuntary lane change left, I'm counter steering the wheel for all I'm worth but can't save it. It's
never bit me like this before.
The good news is that I manage to keep it straight enough that I avoid a K-rail on the left side (missed it by about 6 inches). The bad news is that the K-rail protected the elevated part of the road I'm on so just as I’m getting a handle on the fishtail I smack into a curb at a 45 degree angle and launch it off the side of the road, down about 3' to the lower lanes, and directly into oncoming traffic.
:wave:
We’re airborne, wife is screaming… I'm starring at not much but the ground on the road in front of me moment before I proceed to nose dive my way into the asphalt below. Miraculously no one hits us. It comes to rest. It's stalled and I'm now looking at the headlights of oncoming traffic (all of whom courteously have slowed to see what the hell is happening).
I try to start the car and it does, I suddenly envision myself explaining to the officer the exact circumstances upon which I lost control of the car and that's not a happy conversation with Johnny law. I flip a U-turn and start driving. No one hurt, no other parties involved, unknown damage but it's drive-able so I'm out, and at this point I don’t care if I’m on multiple flats...
Car starts heating up on the way home and I'm convinced I've blown my radiator (turned out to be a pinched sensor wire). Still it's only 5 minutes away so we get there without further incident and it doesn’t overheat. One headlight won't close, so I leave them both up and park the car. Climb in the Jeep and head back out on date night, both pretty shaken but no ill effects.
So yeah, that's my most recent "getting stupid" story and it kinda sucked so I'm taking it a little easy for a while.
I need to get the RX7 functional before I tackle big projects on the Jeep (ZJ rear disk brakes and WJ steering are likely going to squeak in under the "big project threshold). That said, before I can really work on the RX7 I have to get my garage usable (bought out first house and just finished building an attic storage area). And in the midst of all that, I'm a full time engineer lead with an intense job, I still want to be a good dad, and I run a business on the side selling RX7 parts (
www.roninspeedworks.com).
Busy busy busy. I guess that's just life in your mid 30s. I will say I'm kind of beginning to understand the 40 year-old's mid life crisis where folks just want to blow a wad of money on something ridiculous and go nuts. As far as I can tell, it's a backlash of being too responsible in your 30s while lusting after your testosterone fueled 20s. I guess that's life too.
-Joel
