I've had this truck since 1996 and it was my 3rd FSJ. My first two were wagoneers. When I first started building it, there were no aftermarket lifts, or much of any support in the aftermarket community for FSJ- with the exception of intake manifolds.
It originally came with a townside bed, 327 vig. engine, T-86 3sp tranny, dana 20 transfer case. After breaking a few exhaust manifolds and waiting weeks for water pumps, and misc parts that broke whenever I trailed it hard, I decided to swap in a better transmission, the T-18 and added a DANA 300 transfer case with an after market coupler.
Using the same donor rig (1978 j20) that the t-18 came out of, I relocated the front springs to mate up J20 axles (the rear axle was a straight swap). I also added rear disc brakes to the DANA 60 (the 44 in front had the discs already. The pics of the front axle swap did not survive the two computer crashes. The chunk of ice on the last pic rattled so badly, I thought I broke something! 4:09 gears in the front, 4:10 in the rear with a "lunch box locker".
Next came the 48 gallon gas tank mounted where the spare tire sits. I prepped the underside of the then stock townside bed for epoxy paint I bought off 'fleabay'.
Next came the 75 401. Mild cam, alum. intake, Barry Grant Speed Demon Carb, MSD ignition system, hi flo air filter, alumn. headers...
Afterwards, I sold the 8' stock bed to a guy in Florida via fleabay. While I fabb'd up the stepside version, I had to have something...
This is the only pic of the bed being fabb'd! I'd kick the wife's rig out of the small garage and get to work. Then, when it was close to being done, I leave my rig out side and the bed would sit in my spot. This was before I began building my shop out in the back yard. I used 2" exhaust tubing on the bed rails to match the scale and size of the j truck. I grafted j truck flares onto the rear fenders that I also widened and stretched 2" to fit the large 35 inch tires. It took two stock stepside beds to get usable parts- hinges, stake pockets, bed skirts, etc. to make up a new bed.
On to the interior. I answered an ad on CL for a 150.00 jeep... 1414X
I left the jeep, but bought a few parts. I swapped in 2007 grand cherokee leather seats, too. 1200 watt AM/FM 6 CD dics changer, diamond plate door panels that I bought at the hardware store when I worked there while I went to college, I built an A pillar gauge cluster, I installed the
tilt column from the J20 I cannibalized for the drive train with a custom bracket I made...
Here's a random shot of one of my wagoneer's interior:
The addiction continues... as does the build.