The Stray

hot_rod_hooligans

hot_rod_hooligans

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Indianapolis
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Not sure how it happened, but somehow I ended up with my buddies Craigslist find. 89 Sport Truck, 2.5L, AX4 4 speed, 2wd, power steering, no AC, 348k, Jasper engine somewhere around 300k. It needs some TLC, the back of the drivers side of the bed has been hit, not bad enough to damage the frame or inside the bed, so it's repairable, but I'd be better off trying to find another bed, or a new bed side from a donor. The steering is BAD. Not death wobble bad, but my Dads 61 Impala is more responsive. Not sure if it needs tires balanced or if the 35 is going, but since it only seems to vibrate above 50-55 mph, I'm starting with tire balance. Now for the big one... I've got frame stiffeners from T&M Fab on the way, from the cab to midway back on the bed frame, to use as a back bone of sorts, to repair where the frame is rotting just in front of the front leaf spring bracket is, just under where the cab and bed meet.
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Really happy I have my plasma cutter now, going to make this a lot easier!
 
Over all build plans are very hazy, right now I'm just fixing stuff, and will upgrade when the opportunity presents itself. Use it as my daily while I'm doing work on the XJ that will require some down time.
 
frame fails right in front of the spring hanger. BTDT.

You'll find that the rail is probably rotten to the middle cab support.
 
It looks like it's scaled a bit around one of the drain holes, but still solid. Another reason I'm doing the frame stiffeners. End result of this build is not an off road rig, and it's staying 2wd. This thing isn't going to see the twisty trails, and rocks, and mud that a lot of Jeeps end up seeing.

My problem is that I'm torn between two possible directions as far as the overall appearance, and a lot of it my very well depend on the bed. The drivers side corner is going to require a LOT of body work to get right again, and the passenger side is a little beat up, so I've been looking for good donor beds, complete bed sides from a donor, or fiberglass replacements. That is where it goes wildly in different directions.

If I end up doing the fiberglass bedsides, to my knowledge, Hannemann is my only option, and those are larger wheel well openings than factory, with a 3"-6" bulge, so I am looking at doing fenders to match. Huge wheel well openings and stock tires would look ridiculous, so add bigger tires to the list. I really am not interested in building another Jeepspeed looking rig, and would prefer to keep the Jeep low so I don't have to get into all the junk that comes along with lifting a Jeep. So, I'm thinking something that looks more like this:
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As little lift as possible, probably 33's, Glassworks fenders with Hannemann 3" bedsides, and swap in an 8.8 with appropriate gears for a 2.5/AX4 and 33" tires 4.88? 5.13?
 
The other option is something I don't see nearly as often, and after driving it the last couple weeks, keep thinking about more and more. I've even played around with the idea several times in the past. Build a "Sport Truck", lower it a bit and build it as a driver/autocross toy. It has bounced around in my head over the years since I first got my 89 Pioneer.....
Pick up a short bed, drop it, swap an AWD transfer case in, limited slip diffs front and rear......

I don't think I'll go all out like that(I wanted a 91/92, 4.0/AW4), and have very little desire to do a 4wd swap on a 2.5(ease of finding an AW4 vs AX4/AX5 in 4wd, front axle with 4.10s, etc), I think I'll leave it 2wd for the foreseeable future.
Surprisingly the little 2.5 has a bit more get up and go than I was expecting, and should be sufficient for having some fun on winding roads. Make some upgrades to the steering and brakes, 8.8 with limited slip, maybe some Mustang take offs. See what those Archer boys saw in those old trucks back in the day.
 
Hi everyone,

I've got an 88 MJ longbed with rust in the same areas. I have been looking at T+M's site.

Are you going with all 4 sections? What thickness?

Anyone else have experience with T+M?

Thanks!

Gene
 
Work has started to fix at least the immediate rust problem by the drivers side leaf spring hanger, next step is it get the jeep over to the car wash so I can power wash everything
 
I run my MJ 2wd on 33s, actually, pretty much same set up you are talking about with the fiberglass. Anyway, I'm running a 29 spline 8.25, LS diff and Richmond 4.11s. It goes really good, but my truck is powered by a 302 and a t5. So I think you are right on the money with numerically higher, between 4.56 and 5.13.

I ran the numbers, 4.56 seems good.
 
OffroaderJohn said:
have you found a donor for the bed? interesting build you got here. good luck!
Click to expand...

Not yet, right now the bed isn't at the top of the list of priorities(see below)

XJ-ARNIE said:
I run my MJ 2wd on 33s, actually, pretty much same set up you are talking about with the fiberglass. Anyway, I'm running a 29 spline 8.25, LS diff and Richmond 4.11s. It goes really good, but my truck is powered by a 302 and a t5. So I think you are right on the money with numerically higher, between 4.56 and 5.13.

I ran the numbers, 4.56 seems good.
Click to expand...

I'm still torn, but I'm leaning more towards the lowered SCCA truck look, but I'm still tempted to swap my fenders and 33s off of my XJ over to see how it looks, and how the 33s clear with no lift.
 
So here is what I'm working with at the spring hanger.




There is more at the back of where the cross member bolts up.

I've got the T&M Fab stiffeners for under the cab and the front part of the bed frame, and my father-in-law has templates to make some for the inside of the frame rails, as well as a cap for the bottom of the frame rail.


I've got some new wheels on order and I'm looking at tire options, as well as upgrades to the brakes, including an 8.8 swap with 3.73 and LSD
 
So I've been keeping busy with a few different projects, mostly as a result of me being both ADD and OCD, partly because when I couldn't really work on the frame repair, I found something else to keep me busy.

Stereo instalation and rewire since the PO hacked the factory plug off.



Upgrading the instrument cluster(recalibrated the odometer, LED lighting, Kentucky chrome treatment for better lighting)



96 brake booster and Master cylinder, Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve. Since I had to pull all of the fuel and brake lines out to do the frame repair, I figured now was a good time to ditch the rear proportioning valve, upgrade the booster/mc, and run fresh line(nickel copper) while I'm at it.


Now on to the frame repair




It is a LOT worse than we had originally thought




Out with the bad

I ran my shop-vac hose clear up to the lower control arm mount, sucking rust chunks out of the frame for a good 3-4 minutes, then sprayed what I could with Rustmort(HIGHLY recommended by the body shop guys I deal with at work) to hopefully stop the spread.

In with the new

The inner plate wraps underneath the frame rail, and the T&M Fab stiffeners I have will also wrap underneath, overlapping the inner plate, should be pretty damned sturdy when I'm done.
 
I wish I had went with a little different design on the inner plating, they were designed before I removed the inner and outer braces at the rear of the cab. I would have made the inner plate about 2' longer to the rear, so I could offset the break in what is essentially the new frame. I really don't like the "seam" being at the now weakest part of the original frame, and where the unibody extends into the frame, right where it needs to be the strongest. I'm probably overthinking it, since it's all 10 gauge plate, and most of the original structure is still there.

Just incase, I'm going to bridge the intside seam with a couple of feet of 2"-.120" angle, and bridge the outside with a couple of feet of 10 gauge flat plate.... For good measure.


Anyway, I got a little more progress made on the rebuild. Here is the bottom plate my father in law bent up for me, I just had to make the notches to be able to get it to contour what will remain of the old frame once I cut out the bad stuff.





Right now, the biggest hurdle is getting the bottom of it to line up flat with the cab section, that's where the 2" angle comes in. I'll weld it into place on the cab section, attach the rear bottom plate to it, clamp it the rest of the way back, and weld it all in place. Somewhere in there I'll have to weld the front spring hanger back on while I can still take the bottom plate out.


This is a whole LOT of test fit, modify, test fit, modify.......
 
Last edited:
care to share your secrets on changing the odo?

I'll need to match my new one to the old one in my project.
cause I don't play giant gas gauge and no tach.
 
I used this write up, but still haven't gotten to try it out yet, got started pulling fuel and brake lines so I could repair the frame before I got that far, and I still need to switch the oil pressure sending unit for the guage type.
 
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