And the car is a Jeep! I grenaded the trans in the Baja a couple weeks ago. I bowed to peer pressure and found this built rock crawler TJ about 4 hours away in Ohio. Here's some specs and pics:
Specs: 1997 Jeep Wrangler 4 popper five speed. Five 15X10 M/T aluminum wheels. Five 36X12.5 TSL radials, Dana 30 front end with cromoly axles, 4:88 gears, and a lock rite locker. Ford 9” rear with 35 spline axles, 4:88 gears, a Detroit locker, and disc brakes. Rubicon Express 4-1/2” superflex lift kit, 1.25” body lift, Poison Spider rocker knockers, and probably some things I am forgetting.
Pics:
And what thrown_hammer post would be complete without a little mechanical failure and some drama...
Yesterday a friend and I drove 4-1/2 hours to look at a 1997 Wrangler. My friend has a nice XJ and knows his stuff. I am new at this whole “Jeep thing” so I wanted him there to kind of guide me along and check the Jeep out. We get there a little early and have a chance to crawl around under the Jeep before the guy gets home. This thing is built right with no shortcuts. Looks really good.
When the owner gets home we get the keys and go out for a drive stopping in a gravel parking lot to check the lockers. Everything works as it should. Next we head down the highway and get it up to speed and up to temp. Handles nicely enough. (for a jacked up big tire TJ.) A/C works great, and the heat too. Holds good oil pressure going down the road and at idle. Then we go out on some country roads and find a nice ditch to check out the four wheel drive. We put it in four high and drove down the ditch meandering back and forth listening for any weird noises. No problems. Same with four low. So we head back to the house.
I am very bad at haggling so I let my friend do the talking. He offered $1,500 below asking price. After a lot of deep thought the guy took the offer! We pack everything up and get ready to hit the road. About an hour into the drive I start losing power MAJOR! We pull into a gas station and the front wheel wells are SMOKING. I pull over to a hose and my friend hoses the wheels down. Instant steam. He informs me the brake pads were glowing orange. Not good…
We head for Advanced Auto. We run in and buy the whole front end, and a jack big enough to lift this thing up. We change the rotors, calipers, pads, bleed the brakes and have the Jeep on the ground within an hour. Just in time to get the core for the calipers!
Back on the road in the dark it’s about 9:30 PM and we still have a long way to go. Awhile later I get in front of my friend on the interstate and he informs me that the rear axle is covered in fluid. So we pull off at some highway garage in the middle of nowhere. Grab a flashlight and crawl under. The rear seal on the transfer case is leaking. Out of all the tools we brought we didn’t have a 10MM allen to check the fluid level. So we stop at Wal-Mart and get a set. It’s only about an 1/8” low so we keep driving. We stop to check it about once and hour and even though it is definetly leaking fluid it never got down scary low.
We rolled into my driveway at approx. 3AM. I still feel pretty good about my purchase even with the issues on the drive home. This is a trail rig not a freeway flyer so I suppose the drive home was a good shakedown cruise. I am just glad we came prepared to have problems.