Little Red

I'd tow that boat with that MJ no problem..... are those stock rear springs?

87manche said:

I assume that's the certified envelope I need to go pick up.

got the notice saturday.

Click to expand...

letter was from the hospital trying to give me 15 dollars back, no sign of keys.

jbain08 said:

I'd tow that boat with that MJ no problem..... are those stock rear springs?

Click to expand...

yeah, surprisingly they sagged very little. I was kind of debating bagging the rear when I swapped 44 in, but after hooking it up I don't think it's required.
It only sagged about 2" at the bumper, still plenty of room to the bumps. I've had it worse with a load of wood.

They have pills to keep your wood from sagging.

18 miles towing it on the bumper.
yes, broke the weight cap, no church bus hit.

I'll have hitch installed for springtime.
Truck does fine.

I used to have an 87 shortbed MJ... Stock springs weren't sagged at all, but anything more than a couple of camping chairs in the bed would make it sag... I ended up with a set of 56" Chevy springs from an 86 2wd Suburban. It gave about 2" lift, only slightly firmed up the ride, I didn't lose any flex, and could actually use it as a half ton pickup without sitting anywhere near the bumps... The truck was only on 30s, and didn't look funny... With the HD replacement front coils and empty, it was only about an inch higher in the back. With an 850# engine and transmission on a pallet it squatted about 2" but was still easily driveable... Wag rear springs are also a direct boltin...

I have no reason to swap rear springs. Squatting 2" with 400 lbs of tongue weight is fine. I drive it daily. I like the soft ride provided by factory springs.

If I decide to do something stupid and deviate from stock I will have metric tonne packs made for it. $500 from deaver and be done with it.

This is how it sat. And it still had a fairly soft, comfortable ride. Just substantially increased payload without the severe squatting...

So I own this thing now. I traded a good longbed truck for the stripped shortbed chassis. Plans are to use the 4.56 geared hp30, super 8.8, and the 4.0/ax15/231 combo from the ugly truck. For now ill be retaining the short arm suspension and keep it as low as possible on 35's with a full tube bed. Basically a lower shorter version of the ugly truck built to last. I had too much fun wheeling it to mess with success.

Got it unloaded after the long trip back to the south from ohio. Theres one small rust area in the driver floor but it will all be replaced when the rocker protection goes in.


Wheelbase will remain stock at 113 so it should be a great all around length for what the region has to offer.



While I was waiting to get the chassis down here the drivetrain came out of the ugly truck and got a good cleaning and coat of paint. New intake and valve cover gaskets went on the motor as well as a fresh clutch. I initially planned on rebuilding the original ax15 but i got lucky and happened upon a wrecked 98 with a mint external slave ax15 so it was subbed in on the cheap.

Right now parts are gathered and i need to do lots of pressure washing and build the bed floor to mount the battery and RCI cell.

Overall goals are a capable daily driveable rig with enough extra safe storage in the bed to haul my camera equipment along on trail rides.

Motor went in this past weekend. Everything went smoothly and it even runs! I still have a lot of little details to tie up but it moves around with the cell strapped to the bedrail.



Nice clean drivetrain in place of the leaky oily rattling mess that came out



Fancy egr blockoff security lug nut. Just jb welded it into the manifold. Normally in a renix I like to keep the stock vacuum and egr systems intact but this is going to be a hard wheeler destined for an obd1 swap eventually. For now it needs to simply run with minimal fuss and investment
https://vimeo.com/135922914

Wife managed to get a video of me putting it up and managing to shred the belt. An errant heater hose found its way across it and burned it up.

Now if i could only get my other MJ sold i could really be buying parts. Until then its more work on small details

it's such a curse to have too many MJ projects.

87manche said:

it's such a curse to have too many MJ projects.

Click to expand...

That's why im trying to get one gone