Ol' Blue . . . . . .
Mountain Jeep Alliance, that is. Fred Grant from somewhere in Pennsylvania, probably near Hazelton, has a '98 TJ. He's a member of the Blue Mountain Jeep Alliance, which wheels in Paragon Adventure Park and Rausch Creek Off Road Park. His Jeep has all the stock sport goodies with a Ford 8.8 rear and D30 front sporting 4.56 gears for good measure. The 4.56s help to turn 37x12.50-15 Goodyear MT/Rs on 15x8 American Racing 589 rims. Allowing the tires to clear the fenders is a Black Diamond 3.5-inch lift with 1.75-inch spacers and a 1-inch body lift. Up front is an old-style Warn 8274-50 winch and modified flatfenders la CJ-2A. The TJ also has a Four X Doctor front diff guard, Skid Row control-arm skids, Currie Rock Ribz rocker guards, and a TeraFlex belly-up skid for the middle bits.
Sideways YJ
Jerry Bullard of Lake Forest, California, sent us this shot of his '93 Wrangler on Moab Rim in Moab, Utah, for Sideways. Being the miscreants that we are, we've decided to put it here and tell you about his Jeep. It's got Dana 44s front and rear running the stock engine and trans but an Atlas 4.3 transfer case. He flopped it on its side trying to show off for a bunch of hikers. That's his son Daniel on the left, who simply couldn't believe that Dad flopped the Jeep. It was built to wheel, though, not sit in the driveway and look pretty.
Little Flightline Jeep
Lisa DePasqua put a ton of time into her "Little Jeep." It's an M-38AI with an all-original drivetrain gone over by Lisa and her friend Bruce Steinhauer. It's sporting the F-head 134ci engine, a T-90 transmission, a Spicer model 18 transfer case, and a Dana 44 rear and Dana 27 front axle in the stock 5.38:1 gear ratio. Since Lisa is an airplane nut as well, she used a lot of airplane-type stuff to update the Jeep. It's wired like an airplane with multiple terminal strips and a wiring diagram to aid in troubleshooting with a combination of circuit breakers and fuses for shorts. She used navigation lights from a Cessna for side turn signals and landing gear indicators from a 727 for the dashboard turn-signal indicator. The corner guards and rocker guards are 1/4-inch aluminum held on by solid aircraft rivets to the tune of 98 in the corner and 56 in the rocker. Sitting in the seat is her new pup Boeing, who gives the whole thing his paw of approval.
Always Broken
It doesn't matter much what we tell you about Andy Rivard's '91 Wrangler because by the time you read this, he will have broken all the parts we listed. Nonetheless, here goes. Andy built his 4.7L stroker from the Jeep's stock 4.0 and an amalgamation of CJ 258ci parts. Then he bolted that up to an NV3550 and NP231. Somewhere in the midst of several exploding NP231s, he put in the HD chain and 242 sun gearset, as he's heard it's stronger than what he's used to blowing up. Right now there is a spring-over on stock axles and leaves that clear the 35x12.50-15 BFG ATs, but by the time you read this he expects to have a Ford high-pinion front 44 and a 14-bolt rear in it. Hopefully that will end the exploding Dana 30 and Dana 35 issues.
Revenge of the Squirrels, eh?
OK, we know that not everyone in Canada ends all their statements with "eh?" However, we find ourselves unable to omit the "eh?" we imagine when we read e-mails from the Great White North. Something about the phraseology, perhaps. Mike Knox is from Vancouver, British Columbia, as is his '98 Wrangler with the 2.5L I-4 engine. The engine is ripsnorting now with a 4.0 throttle body and an Airaid intake breathing through a Flowmaster muffler. The stock axles with 4.88s turn the 33x12.50-15 Goodyear MT/Rs mounted on American Racing Eagle 15x8 rims. The rear bumper is a Currie Enterprises unit and the 1-inch body lift working with the Rubicon Express 3.5-inch lift provides ample clearance for those tires. The Warn front bumper holds a Warn X8000i winch in place, and a Cobra CB allows him to reach out and touch someone when he needs a hand.
I'll Take It Black
Phil Massie hails from Seattle, the birthplace of Starbucks (we doubt he hears that phrase often). Be that as it may, his '97 TJ Sport with the stock inline-six, AX-15, and NP231 sure is black. He sent us a nice picture of it, so we had to run it. Phil's Jeep has a 6-inch Superlift with RockRunner control arms and extended braided stainless steel lines. The stock axles have been regeared to 4.10, and with a locker in the front and a limited-slip rear, he has no problems turning the 33x13.50 Super Swampers. He goes wheeling most often in the Gold Mountain ORV area and tells us that a Jeep is the perfect size for the trails winding through the trees.