Which way do I go?

[MBDIAGMAN]

He's 77. Don't spend all of his future SS checks for him.
p.s. Every time I see your screen name. I think......DAMN, she bought a TJ too.
p.p.s. For the Geezers (older than me), Google Rihanna.

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I appreciate You’re concern boogieman, but I keep two airplanes in the sky, so the Jeep is not a huge strain by comparison. I am very blessed to be able to have fun in my retirement years. That said, my money tree does indeed have a limited number of branches.

 

[MBDIAGMAN]

You are going to be sorely disappointed if we ever go off-road together.

I wouldn’t worry about the last name being a girls name. The strongest, toughest, most, bada$$ guy I ever knew, was a buddy when in the army whose name was Francis. I often wondered why he was so tough, like Johnny Cash’s “Boy Named Sue.”

 

[RHanna]

Okay, please dont anyone take anything I write as argumentative. Even if I were an arguer, I don’t know enough about the subject matter yet to put up any kind of debate at all. Some of my posts might sound that way just because of the way I am trying to clarify in my mind what is being said, so………:

As I understand it, the Tj Rubicons have Dana 44 axles front and rear. If I understand correctly, this means that the housings are stronger and facilitate rebuilding the differential sections and maybe upgrading to chrome Molly axles. Additionally, when the axle fails, that would be the time to upgrade center sections and change gear ratios.

So, with a TJ sport are the axle housings equal to or inferior to those of a Rubicon? What other differences are there with a Rubicon. I’ve had people tell me that I would be money ahead by starting with a Rubicon because of the axles. I guess that’s where I am seeing mixed signals and of course I understand that different people have different experiences and different opinions

I read one post that led me to believe that the TJ Rubicon housings would be adequately robust to upgrade and repair the innards as necessary and could take me at least as far as 37’s if I go there.

So, what if I started with a Sport? What am I faced with when it comes to needs for axle breakage and upgrade? I like things to be durable.

I want to thank everyone for your patience with me.

To answer Doug’s question, pretty much the only on road use of this vehicle will be transporting it to off-roading locations. I want to leave the path open to 37’s or beyond.

You can be argumentative all you want on this forum. Sometimes those are the best threads.

You are asking a lot of questions that are more controversial. It's my understanding that the rubicon axles are not strong enough for 37s. Usually this statement assumes a lot. Like you drive it normal offroad where you might need to give it a lot more gas to get over an obstacle. Yes, you will find people running the stock dana 44s on 37s and they'll chime in saying "I've run it for 5 years no problem". That's correct and you might be able to get away with it but you need to be mindful while wheeling. The axles are more likely to break with that much more weight and leverage.

I caution about advice given when you say things like 37 and beyond. In my opinion you can build any tj model to handle 35s no problem without breaking the bank. Once you cross over to 37 and above you are either playing it safe and go with stretched wheelbase, bigger axles, outboarding shocks, maybe coilovers, 40”+ LS/hemi engine swap, etc. When you start adding it up it gets expense fast.

 

[Zorba]

View attachment 616727

I want those earrings. Give them to me now!

 

[RHanna]

I want those earrings. Give them to me now!

No

 

[ColoJeep]

I want those earrings. Give them to me now!

Just let the pretty girl keep them . It is for the best .....

 

[Zorba]

Just let the pretty girl keep them . It is for the best .....

Hush you, I'm working the angles here...

 

[MBDIAGMAN]

Guys, I want to thank you all for the input and quick education, not to mention the wonderful civility and camaraderie seen here.

Several weeks ago I wrapped up some things and was moving toward having time look to for a good a good CJ 7. Thanks to you guys, I got away from that idea. They are cool, but clearly inferior to a TJ in so many ways. Then I was reading some things in other forums until I landed here. You guys have been helpful and tolerant of a rookie.

I believe now, that a TJ is the sweet spot combination when you put together the sweet I6, but injected, along with the 4 link and coils.

I started a search for a Rubicon to have Dana 44 axles and that would have a great base to build from. Several things were against that plan though: The affordable ones I found were either in rust country and showing it, were very far away or both. I found a couple of interesting ones two hours away at a Jeep specialist that were insanely expen$ive, so that wasn’t going to work.

I had been internet shopping a lot and then Sunday decided I should see what was in the classified section of this forum. I looked and was amazed. A few hours earlier an ad was put up by a guy about twenty five minutes from me. I went to look at it last night and got some help from a few of the great members here to sort through the long list of equipment work done. I bought it for a great price and I think I was helping him also. A win/win which is how I like to see deals come together.

He has done lots of great work on it and about the only thing I want to add is safety equipment like roll bar additions and restraints. As much as I would enjoy doing a build, I just have too much going on to pay the attention to it that it deserves. It will involve maintaining it which may very well turning out to improvement when parts break, and I’m good with that.

SO……. I am very pleased with my TJ. I didn’t end up with Dana 44’s, but it has a Super 35 with Eaton E Locker in the rear and Dana 30 with Eaton locker front and 35’s. I had in mind bigger tires, but thanks to the encouragement and guidance guys offered, I think 35’s are best for me. It has 4.88’s which seem to work out very well with the 35’s. It is a six speed which is claimed not to be the best, but I like driving the six speed and even though many make a great case for an automatics superiority on the trails, I am just a stick shift guy and can’t help it.

I expect to be around here a long time and hope to shake some of your hands some day. Thanks for the help!

 

[ColoJeep]

Guys, I want to thank you all for the input and quick education, not to mention the wonderful civility and camaraderie seen here.

Several weeks ago I wrapped up some things and was moving toward having time look to for a good a good CJ 7. Thanks to you guys, I got away from that idea. They are cool, but clearly inferior to a TJ in so many ways. Then I was reading some things in other forums until I landed here. You guys have been helpful and tolerant of a rookie.

I believe now, that a TJ is the sweet spot combination when you put together the sweet I6, but injected, along with the 4 link and coils.

I started a search for a Rubicon to have Dana 44 axles and that would have a great base to build from. Several things were against that plan though: The affordable ones I found were either in rust country and showing it, were very far away or both. I found a couple of interesting ones two hours away at a Jeep specialist that were insanely expen$ive, so that wasn’t going to work.

I had been internet shopping a lot and then Sunday decided I should see what was in the classified section of this forum. I looked and was amazed. A few hours earlier an ad was put up by a guy about twenty five minutes from me. I went to look at it last night and got some help from a few of the great members here to sort through the long list of equipment work done. I bought it for a great price and I think I was helping him also. A win/win which is how I like to see deals come together.

He has done lots of great work on it and about the only thing I want to add is safety equipment like roll bar additions and restraints. As much as I would enjoy doing a build, I just have too much going on to pay the attention to it that it deserves. It will involve maintaining it which may very well turning out to improvement when parts break, and I’m good with that.

SO……. I am very pleased with my TJ. I didn’t end up with Dana 44’s, but it has a Super 35 with Eaton E Locker in the rear and Dana 30 with Eaton locker front and 35’s. I had in mind bigger tires, but thanks to the encouragement and guidance guys offered, I think 35’s are best for me. It has 4.88’s which seem to work out very well with the 35’s. It is a six speed which is claimed not to be the best, but I like driving the six speed and even though many make a great case for an automatics superiority on the trails, I am just a stick shift guy and can’t help it.

I expect to be around here a long time and hope to shake some of your hands some day. Thanks for the help!

Photos would be great !

 

[Rickyd]

Yeah, yeah. When is your next concert?

He makes a poor substitute. I want my money back!

 

[MBDIAGMAN]

Pictures soon.

 

[Zorba]

I found a couple of interesting ones two hours away at a Jeep specialist that were insanely expen$ive, so that wasn’t going to work.

Collins Bros?

 

[MBDIAGMAN]

How did you guess?

 

[Zorba]

How did you guess?

They're well known, very expensive, and in Texas...

With that said, I actually just bought a service manual from them - they were less than half the cost of anyone else I could find...

 

[MBDIAGMAN]

Here are a couple of pictures as requested. I expect that is the cleanest it will ever be while I own it.

The tires are a little long in the tooth, but good enough to get me started. I will be seeking tire suggestions very soon. They are 35 12.50 15 and I will stay with that size.

 

[AdventurePig]

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Here are a couple of pictures as requested. I expect that is the cleanest it will ever be while I own it.

The tires are a little long in the tooth, but good enough to get me started. I will be seeking tire suggestions very soon. They are 35 12.50 15 and I will stay with that size.

View attachment 617797

Very cool!

Sounds like, from the list of parts/specs that it’ll do really well for your uses.

As far as rim/tire sizes, we run 315/75R16’s are are pretty happy with the choices we have available to us, but i think 15’s and 17’s have lots of choices too.

 

[MBDIAGMAN]

Not much of a picture, but I got it dirty today. Went to Barnwell Mountain.

I wish there would have been someone to document some of my obstacle conquering with pictures. This Jeep does incredible things. The I6 has really wonderful torque. The torque and the lockers pulled me over stuff really well. It and the lockers almost worked too well when going over some big rocks and it wheelies up from a bounce and the grip from the rear wheels pulled up the front in the air just about before I could get off the throttle. At least that is how it seemed. The manual transmission was fun and worked well for me.

 

[MBDIAGMAN]

At the age of 76, I have been around long enough to learn that I have to laugh at myself sometimes.

I was fumbling yesterday with the E locker switch for the rear diff. I thought that I had turned it on, but I wasn’t sure because there was no indicator light. So all this time that I thought that I was operating with a locked rear differential, I was working with effectively an open differential. The Jeep impressively climbed over a number of challenging obstacles, and all this time I thought I was doing it with the locker rear dif while it was actually not.

I found out last night how to turn it on. LOL

Edit:

After thinking about my experiences yesterday, I realized that this machine isn’t a dirt bike. When I did trail riding on dirt bikes, the throttle was the solution for many problems: “When in doubt, wind it out.” That’s not cool on four wheels with breakable components. I need to work on crawling instead of being heavy on the throttle. I might have the wrong idea, but next time I will try less on the loud pedal and more on the steady going. Maybe I’m wrong.

 

[AdventurePig]

At the age of 76, I have been around long enough to learn that I have to laugh at myself sometimes.

I was fumbling yesterday with the E locker switch for the rear diff. I thought that I had turned it on, but I wasn’t sure because there was no indicator light. So all this time that I thought that I was operating with a locked rear differential, I was working with effectively an open differential. The Jeep impressively climbed over a number of challenging obstacles, and all this time I thought I was doing it with the locker rear dif while it was actually not.

I found out last night how to turn it on. LOL

Live and learn.

 

[RHanna]

On my first trip after I bought my jeep pretty much the same thing was happening but the guys behind me were yelling I didn't have my locker on. I thought I had it figured out but the next trip same thing happened. I ended up pulling the cover off to figure out what the problem was since I needed to change the fluid anyway. Sure enough the wheels would keep spinning not matter what button I pushed. My volt meter showed power going to the plug right outside the diff so I used jumper cables and hot wired straight into that plug. It finally locked and I ended up just cutting the plug off and soldering the connection.

On my next trip it finally worked and the jeep performed so much better it was shocking.