Which brings us to October 96 - otherwise known as the 'declining years' of the Jeep.  I decided to slap on a set of 33x15.50" Interco TSX Super Swampers on some new 15x10 black modular rims along with a 4" Explorer Pro-Comp lift kit.  My main failure in thought was expecting that a tire shop in West Texas could handle the simple job of putting it all together without something going wrong or it not being expensive.  Dumb-ass me.

So I take it to Tom's Tire World and I knew something should've been up when he wouldn't quote me a solid price.  And then he was going to charge me almost $1000 for a $300 lift kit.  When I called him on that, he called his supplier and asked why their magazine ad was cheaper than what they charged him - to which I'm sure he passed the savings right along to me (yeah, right).  Anyway, he promised it done within 5 days... that's cool - I could live with that.  I was on leave after all... and couldn't care less.  Except that the boneheads kept calling me asking me how to do the installation... and took another 4 days to get it done.  And that only cost me $2300-ish, all said and done.  Geez!  If I knew now what I knew then, I'd have saved around $900 in labor by doing it at the Auto Hobby Shop.

And of course, the story doesn't end there.  A short while later, my transmission locks up at 70mph going down the freeway from oil starvation.  Why?  Because those idiots forgot to refill the transmission after I pointed out the puddle of 90 weight on the floor when I went to visit one day.  Apparently, it had a bad seal somewhere, and they left the tranny/transfer case hanging overnight and it bled out.  They told me they'd take care of it when it all got put back together.  Dumb-ass me believed them too... so I never bothered to check the level in the tranny when I picked it up - I was too awestruck with the new altitude and mudders.

So I spent the bigger part of September '97 learning how to rebuild a T-176 four-speed.

The first cool modification I did after rebuilding the transmission, was the fenders so they could swing back and out of the way to make working in the engine compartment and the front suspension a bit easier.  I saw this trick in an issue of Peterson 4-Wheel & Off Road and decided to give it a shot.  The 4 feet of stainless piano hinge cost a whole $8, and the handful of pop-rivets were free.  I got to use the plasma cutter, since the inner fenders wouldn't clear the tops of the tires when I tried to open them.  As well as I had to re-route some of the wires for the signal lights and horn, as well as relocate the windshield washer bottle.  Fun stuff... I hadn't even bothered to clean the Jeep before I worked on it.  The last picture is from a car show in 2005 where the Jeep won "Best in Class - Modified."  I give credit to the fenders.   

 A few months later, I decided to do something about how badly the sides looked with all the scratched and chips in the paint.  So I got some masking tape, an X-acto knife, a Sharpie, and some black engine enamel and came up with this.  I traced out the tread lugs on the Swampers and made the pattern down the side on the masking tape.  Then Jim helped me cut it out with the X-acto knife, which only took like 2 hours.  Then 15 minutes later, this is what we had come up with.

Around Christmas of 2003, I scored a deal with a guy in the Dallas area who was selling his Widetrac AMC20 axle for $400.  It also came with 4.10 ring & pinion gears, Moser 1 piece axles, and a Detroit Locker... so naturally I jumped on it.  A quick trip up to Dallas and back, and my new axle was here.  I tore it apart and made sure all the seals and bearings were good to go and stuffed it under the Jeep.

Around May of 2003, I bought a Widetrac Dana 30 for $250 from one of the guys in the Concho 4 Wheelers who was upgrading to a Dana 44.  It was already torn apart and missing the carrier and ring & pinion, so I got some new bearings and seals and my wife found a new carrier on eBay for me (only $30).  Then I called Matt at West Texas Off Road and had him order a 4.10 ring & pinion kit for me that ran about $150.  Once everything showed up, I put it all together and Dave helped me get it under the Jeep just before the Concho 4 Wheelers 4th of July Run - which we wound up missing anyway, but at least I have Widetracs now.  The last picture was during a club run while it was trying to rain.

In November 2003, I decided to see what was making all the clacking noise under the hood.  It sounded like lifters or rockers to me, so I pulled the head off and changed out the parts.  No dice.

So I waited until April 2004 then pulled the bottom end off the engine to see what the rod bearings looked like.  They were toast and I had spun a couple of them.  So I replaced all of them and hoped that was the problem.  Nope.  Not quite.

Then awhile later (somewhere around October 2004, I think), I decided to pull the head off again and see what was going on.  Jim wondered if a wrist pin was going bad, so we pulled all the pistons.  The number 4 piston had a cracked skirt - and I was convinced that this was the problem.  So I took all of the pistons down to a local machine shop, had them checked and replaced the #4 piston.  Then put it all back together with a re-ring kit after honing the cylinders.  It ran better - tighter - that's for sure.  But the noise persisted.

Then I finally sucked it up and pulled the engine in February 2005, and bought a new crank.  Since the rod bearings were so bad, I figured this was the time to get it all right.  I really want to get my AMC 360 done, but if I rebuild the 6-cylinder, I can at least drive the Jeep while waiting for the engine rebuild.  So, I got a new timing chain/gears, crank, oil pump, oil sender, lifters, bearings, seals, water pump, pretty much the whole tamale - everything but the cam and new rocker arms.

Since the rebuild, the engine still makes the noise only slightly, so I'm thinking it's worn-out rocker arms.  Since the noise doesn't get any louder with the engine temperature, I'm inclined to rule out wrist-pins. Oh well, hopefully, it'll just hang in there long enough to get the 360 done and drop it in.