My sons truck has me sentimental about 2nd gens.
I was a young teen when the body style came out. Never forget seeing the first ones on the lot. New and old school at the same time. I still don’t think the body style is dated.
My first veh ended up being a CJ7 that I built and in my early 20s I got a ‘98.5 (new style cab with rear doors) Xcab LB 4x4 12v auto CA emissions…lemon law buyback. Good factory warranty. PO must have just been a complainer. Had a lot of fun in that truck and unfortunately beat it up pretty good like I do everything. Sold it when we had our first kid. Buyers too it to Mexicali and had a cheap yellow paint job sprayed on it. Still see it around. Years later I came across a guy selling what ended up being my ‘95 in Bakersfield. It had been an auto dually. He converted it to SRW Dana 80, NV4500. Early days of diesel hotrodding, marine injectors (wrong angle for the piston bowls) big turbo, gutted AFC. 434 hp. Smoke out 4 lanes of freeway if you wanted. Would just keep making more power and boost and speed all the way up to redline in 5th. 4.10s and 37s then I went to 39” milsurp tires. 63” Chevy leaf springs on all 4 corners. Airbags in the rear. Rides good flexes good simple. Reliable. Leans in the corners.
hydraulic assist steering ram. Added limited slip in the rear and locker in the front which was kinda pointless as it flexed so well it hardly spun a tire anyway. Front would break Dana 60 stub shafts like candy canes. Blew a head gasket, redid with arp, blew again. 46 psi…Years later it started mixing oil into the water but not vice versa. Was losing power. Tore it down and it was shot. Parked it and built a Sweptline out of junk and saved my $. Scored ‘96 for like $3400 IIRC. Swapped the engine into the ‘95 but just warmed up a little. My buddy did it and traded hi all the leftovers. It’s Ok, but missed the power. One time cruising down a hill - this one :
I rolled in 4lo in gear with the clutch in down the last bit. Crunch. No go. Spun the friction material off the disc and packed it around the OD of the flywheel. One of my guys FIL has a friction co in Mexico, relined it. Didn’t work, too thick. Swears…do it again.
Broke the tailhousing of the tcase twice. Blew the driveline clear out of the truck dragging a burnt super duty out of the rocks in the mountains. Broke the Dana 80 1410 yoke and slashed the fuel tank open on its way. Recovered a lot of scrap vehs over the years.
