Oh, where to start...
As some of you may remember, I had a decent Cherokee in which I swapped a GM 5.3l into. Put about 25k miles on it. Rather than leave well enough alone, I decided to swap an Isuzu diesel into next. Ran out of steam, and ended up parting the truck. Stupid, stupid, stupid
Really wish today that I had left well enough alone.
Anyway, I decided I wanted to build a Willys wagon. Looked for awhile in my part of the world, but even rust buckets brought way too much. I ended up finding a complete Willys body sans frame or drivetrain in AZ for half of what a rotten out piece of trash goes for around here. My buddy Joe and I drove out a couple Easters ago and drug it home. The first three pictures were in AZ, the last was back home in PA. We drove 30 hours straight to AZ, and 36 hours straight back.
My plans at the time were to build a custom frame and suspension. I went through many designs, but in the end my job took over my life and the Willys sat.
About a year after we drug it home, I came across a deal for a NOS Cherokee. I bought it with the plan to put it back together. Again work got in the way, and rather than let it sit, I sold most of the parts that came with it. I kept the frame, suspension, tires and axles. The axles consist of rebuilt D60s with ARBs, alloy shafts, and disk brakes front and rear. The suspension is custom SOA springs. And the frame has been blasted and painted. And the tires are new 35" Kevlars on 17" aluminum wheels.
While I had the Cherokee, I decided I wanted to give it diesel power. I found an Isuzu 6BD1 for a song. For those not familiar with the engine, think Cummins 6BT, only smoother. I built an adapter to mate it up to a NV4500. As it turned out, a small block Mopar pattern works best with the Isuzu, and I found a SB Dodge NV4500 with a passenger drop NP241D on craigslist.
So now I have a pile of parts that don't really go together. I have no 4X4, and I am missing playing in the woods. What's a guy to do? Make 'em fit (insert evil laugh
)