i've been looking around on this forum and see alot of people saying full size axels are great and i belive that to be true so here is my problem i dont fab at all and i do turn wrench's so the question is this? do i buy a lift or pay a shop to fab one up prob #1 i have a set of full size axel's off a 05 f250 which i want to put on my 98 tj prob#2 i have a 3.8 out of a 02 mustang with harness and a buddy who's got a 3.9 cummins diesel engine so with a choice of these two engine's to decide from i want to here the pro's and con's for an install on either prob#3 time and money
:confused:

in, for the answers

this is way broad. If you do not have the skills or know someone that can help, a good fab shop is the way to go, but will cost you. As far as suspension, really depends on what yo want To do with the rig, what trails you do, any street driving involved, etc. There is no one size fits all answer here.


If it was me on a TJ, and you have the axles from the 250, I would look into buying a ready long arm kit like RE long arm or Rockkrawler, buy the axle brackets (i.e. mad4wd or other vendors here), and get it installed. remember the 8 lug pattern on the fords may limit wheel options. Also remember that you will need to lock and gear the axles. You may be able to get it all done in the $5-8K range depending of how much you can do on your own, or maybe even less. Good luck!

As far as engine options you raised above, I woudl leave that for last after axles and suspension are done. Remnember that thsi will be custome and unless you do a lot of homewrk, nothinbg is cheap!

my vote is if the engine in it runs leave it alone..... an injected 4 will do great on the trails and the straight 6 is even better.

1) Pay someone else to write your posts. I feel like I need to hire a clairvoyant to figure out what the hell you are asking.

2) If you have to ask this question, you probably don't need full-width axles.

3) Search "4 BT Cummins".

In all seriousness you need to lock yourself in the basement and read the Jeep FAQ at the top of the page for the whole weekend. It will answer a lot of the simple strategic questions and negate the need for you to post dumb questions like this one.

it's got a 2.5 thats not going to last the summer and i looked at the RK 5.5 with a 7 in stretch the only thing is im not finding any real good man. transmissions out there to hook ethier engine to that cover both ends (street/hi-way and low gear to help offroad) i guess i shouldn't ask for everything at once thanks for the info and i looked at ballistic and R.E. for axel brackets any opinions on ethier:smokin:

well after reading that last post 6 times I finally figured out what you were saying..... i think..... hardcore sure has gone soft again....
Dude if these are your questions you need to look in the yellow pages for a 4x4 shop.... go in and tell them what your budget is and hand em the keys... the decisions you are trying to make require way more knowledge than you are gonna get from this thread

I would install the engine first. Then build the suspension. At least them you know what you have to work around. The front axle you have is going to cause major problems if you choose to run coils. Coil overs would be much easier. The problem is the diff side of the axle. It is way out to the side as compared to a 78-79 ford 60 front. I personally have not bothered working with that axle.

I would say the difficuly level might be a bit high. Keep in mind it is your safety and others on the road if the job is not done correctly. I would assume by posting this your skill set might not be up to the challenge for this job. I am not saying that you should not do the job. Sounds like you have a lot of homework to do before even considering taking action.

Everyone on this board had a first project. Everyone here had to learn the hard way which is doing. You can read all you want, but until you actually start cutting and beating on some metal it means nothing. I will say that some tasks are better left to the pros. I dont know you and dont have a clue what you are able to do and learn. I would recommend sitting back and looking at the entire picture here before chopping into the Jeep.

If TIME and MONEY are a problem I would not even consider doing this swap. If you pay a pro to do the work you are going to come off some coin. If you decide to do the work yourself you will still come off the coin. There are many things you will have to spend money on. Steering, driveshafts, and so on. The money from the "quick trips" for bolts and other things add up real fast.

So if you still think you want to go forward with the project I would recommend searching and reading everything you can. The project is not going to be something you can complete in a weekend. It is going to require a major time investment to go with the coin.

Dan

Step one: Sell the F250 axles. With questions like these I'm guessing your take on hard core wheeling isn't going to require any bigger axles than the ones you already have.
Step two: Use the money from the sale of the axles to buy a long arm kit. There are many good ones out there -find the one that you like and meets your budget. If you take your time you can install it yourself and save mad $$$.
Step three: Don't let your engine options be so narrow. Good engines are popping up all over for cheap with everyone being short on cash. Find one that's solid and meets your budget and get going. If the stock axles fail in the future pick up a stouter set from craigslist or somewhere like it. I've seen sets of 44s for under $500 and used 14 bolts in decent shape for as little as $100.
Just my two cents...

Sell axles, sell tj.

Buy built tj.

Save $15G's and cut me a consultant commission of 10%.

You are welcome.

fo shizzle........ there are TONS of rigs avail all the time for a fraction of what they cost to build

Step one: Sell the F250 axles.

This is the best step. Setting up steering for these axles and having it work without major slop is difficult. The tie rod end is too close to the wheel to run the drag link on top of the knuckle with a hiem joint that most fullsize axle jeeps end up with.

In.

Whoops, am I supposed to say that? :laughing:

#3 kills the cummins swap as an option.

By the sounds of these questions, you do not have a need for these f250 axles, sell them and purchase said lift kit.... You can install that yourself and is a good learning project to start with, make sure you get a kit that has everything you will need..

as for the engine, i would try to get something that will bolt in, again, from these questions, i don't see you needing a 5.0 mustang engine... sell it, buy a 4.0 and a manual tranny to bolt to it, nv3550....

wheel this until it breaks an axle... by then you will know if you want to continue down this road of insanity of dumping endless amounts of money and time into this hobby...

1) Pay someone else to write your posts. I feel like I need to hire a clairvoyant to figure out what the hell you are asking.

2) If you have to ask this question, you probably don't need full-width axles.

3) Search "4 BT Cummins".

In all seriousness you need to lock yourself in the basement and read the Jeep FAQ at the top of the page for the whole weekend. It will answer a lot of the simple strategic questions and negate the need for you to post dumb questions like this one.

X2 You have A LOT of reading to do

Sell axles, sell tj.

Buy built tj.

Save $15G's and cut me a consultant commission of 10%.

You are welcome.

X2, Buying is cheaper and easier than building. Let someone else do all the foot work and knuckle busting

well i kinda aghree, but the downside is you ost likely will end up buying a built rig that has been molested along with any headaches that come with it. And tehn end up putting more money and tiemn to fix stuff what can be frustrating :) With teh economy as is though, findinga rig that is built and all teh stuff is there is very rewarding plus will save ya some money.

The other thing with builiding the stuff on your own, if you have the skills is that you will learn more about fixing stuff and what you have on teh rig,m what ius a plus skill to have specially as you will break your junk on the trail. I and friends have helped several times guys that bought built rigs or took rigs to 4wheelparts to have lift installs, etc, that borke their rigs and had no idea what to do. so that is the other side of the coin :)

what is going on? i see all kinds of flaming in the nonhardcore. and now i see this in hardcore. wtf.

I'm surprised it's lasted this long in Hardcore :shaking: