New guy here,
Ive always wanted an eagle since I was a kid, but the pickings are slim here in the missouri rust belt. Every once in awhile Id check craigslist but never find a decent example for sale.
This one popped up in conway, ar, and I had to check it out. 88 wagon, 100k miles, an old lady bought it new and it never saw any snow or offroad use, at all. Always garage kept. $1000 Sounded too good to be true.
Completely rust free, not one spot, anywhere on or under it. When I tore it down in February I was amazed, never found a speck of rust anywhere under it, all the chassis bolts came out looking new, even the catalytic converter bolts came right out.
Body is very straight, good paint, and the interior looks like a brand new car!
I dont have any before pics:
First off, the wheezy 4.2 had to go.
Built a 4.6 stroker, no EFI, sticking with carb. weber 38 will go on it later. Found out the hard way that a cherokee serpentine setup will not work in the eagle, alternator hits the frame. You need to source that from a wrangler.
Engine and AW4 trans installed. to shift the trans Ive got one of these:
http://www.radesignsproducts.com/Baja.html its a manual shifter that hooks up with just a couple of wires, throw that stock tcu and sensors away. A friend of mine has one in his xj and its awesome. I will have to hook up the Tv cable to the carb, but Im not there just yet.
For the transfer case I picked up a pair of 242 selec trac cases for $125 , one had a cracked case, the other blown up. I was able to take two and make one, eliminated the slip yoke while I was at it. I did have to whack the floor a little for the case to clear, under the drivers seat. the speedometer cable does clear, barely:
I havent built the 4wd shifter yet, not sure what to use there.
For the suspension Ive fabricated my own lift, staying IFS.
the subframe and drag link mounts have been spaced off the frame, lowering the engine, front diff and lower a-arms 2" off the body
Tricky part is what to do with the steering and the upper control arms. Didnt have time to build new ones, so I built arm extensions to mount the ball joints out of 2x3" .250 wall rectangle tube, shaped to fit into the arm recess snugly. The problem most folks have extending the stock arms is getting the geometry correct. Im a good hand with suspension, built a pair of successful road race cars in the past.
By extending the ball joint straight off the arm, you end up with positive camber, and also little to no caster.
with the two inch spacing I ended up offsetting the ball joint .6" inward and .25" toward the back.
at ride height there is exactly 0deg camber with the adjusting bolts centered, 6.5deg caster. The front geometry behaves itself through the full sweep of movement.
Now I had to do something with the steering, it had to drop 2" like everything else. I upgraded the p/s gear to a variable ratio box from a jeep zj and mounted it with a drop plate I made.
I cut the end of the stock column off and replaced it with a flexible gm unit
And I also had to drop the idler arm bracket as well:
I used a modified stock trans crossmember dropped 2" down and moved back to accomodate the longer trans:
With all that done all the suspension geometry and cv angles are the same as stock, but its all moved 2" away from the body.
The rear isnt done yet but Im using cherokee springs with a limited slip D35. I wanted a late model 8.25, but the d35 was a good deal.
Thats it so far, next I need to get the rear put together and figure out front vs. rear ride height.
I need to come up with or fab a 4wd shifter
Got to get a wrangler serpentine accessory set and install that
I need some parts though, cant find anything locally.
3.54 front axle
front skid plate
drivers ext. door handle
Also I have some nice parts to sell of or trade,
The 4.2 block and head are in fantastic condition, neither need any machine work. I stole the crank and rods for my stroker, but the rest of it is there with aluminum valve cover
np129 tcase with vaccum thingy
Topic: Big angry eagle. Lift, stroker, aw4 (Read 45127 times)