Got the winch wired this morning and went out for a spin. No chances to use the winch though I did take quite a few chances I wouldn't have before I got the winch.
Apparently if you have a 4WD vehicle you are supposed to take a picture like this. The opportunity presented itself today, so here you go. 
33"s look HUGE on that thing.
I saw a picture of one the other day that had 44"s on it. It looked like a monster truck or a cartoon.
Kind of like this.
I'm thinking 33s are plenty big enough. If they won't reach the bottom I need to be somewhere else.
That is the cleanest samurai I have seen in a very very long time.
Flight Service wrote: That is the cleanest samurai I have seen in a very very long time.
x2
I'm pretty sure it's the cleanest one i've seen, ever.
I approve of this project.
In reply to Swank Force One:
I took it for another spin today to see if I could find a reason to test the winch. It's not clean anymore.
It was a near thing though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obDK9skEuP8
For those of you that will be concerned, this is on a county road that is no longer maintained. This is not in the national forest or anywhere near the national forest. This hole is in the middle of the road and is one of many.
Well that's certainly one way to do it!!! 
Yeah, and I'm not sure I want to do that again unless it's absolutely necessary.
It took the better part of two hours to clean up that mess.
I had to take the scrub brush to the interior as well as the exterior. 
Looks like you'll need to put a couple rubber A/C drains in the floor
In reply to Cone_Junkie:
Under all that muddy water are a couple of rubber drains. They've been removed and the interior hosed out. I sure am glad it doesn't have carpet.
Another small update.
Removed quality battery hold down.
Built and installed a slightly stronger battery hold down.
I also wired a 15 amp fused circuit from the battery to the glove box to power a 150 watt inverter for charging duties and added 3 attitional power outlets to power my dash camera, gps and whatever else I can think of. No pictures of that, it was kind of boring.
That's it I think. More to come.
Edit: Oh and I fixed the hinges on the glove box, drained the muddy water out of the air box and cleaned the 1/4" layer of muddy dust off the heater core, so the fan would actually move some air.
That's it for sure.
Judging from the youtube video, I'd probably be replacing the diff fluids, maybe trans & transfer case too.
When I got my Jeep, I was (a teenager) all about "mudding" then I discovered rock crawling, and never had a desire to get very muddy ever again.
I love the Tin Top, I've always been pretty fond of those little Zukes.
In reply to bigdaddylee82:
The fluids were checked that day, but thanks for pointing that out. All the vents had been extended to keep the water out. I can't say it will never see water that deep again, but I'll think twice before attempting that again. There is still mud and sand everywhere, even after cleaning it for two hours.
Rock crawling would be fun too, but unfortunately, the closest rock is 200 miles from me. There is a big Suzuki meet at the Uwharrie National Forest in April I'm going to. I'll get to play in the rocks then.
Update time again and I got a good bit done today.
The transfercase was whining pretty good when I bought it and has been getting worse. I sourced a used one from Ebay. Today I changed it out. While I was at it I extended the vent for it up into the engine bay to keep water out of it.
The vents are pressed into the case on these so I had to tap the case to accept a barbed fitting. Rather than disassembling the case, I greased up the tap, stuffed the bottom of the hole with a rubber glove and tapped. Most of the metal shavings stick to the grease and pulling the rubber glove back out of the hole pulls the rest clear.
Next on the agenda were the differentials. It came with a spare set of diffs with, what the PO said, were 5.12 gears. Stock is 3.73. I need the taller gears to make up for the 33" tires. As it sits now, with the 3.73s, 5th gear is unusable. Before installing them I wanted to go through them. The front had a lot of end play in the pinion shaft so it obviously needed work. I also wanted to install a Spartan Locker in the front.
First up, was disassemble and clean. The front diff was nasty, but what do I find when I get it opened...
A Spartan Locker already installed. That's what I get for spending money when I don't know for sure what I already have. It also has 5.38 gears. That will bump my 55mph cruise up another 100 RPMs. I pulled it the rest of the way down and found all the spring pins in the locker broken so I went ahead and installed the new one.
It looks like the rear has one installed as well, but I didn't get into it today.
This was my first time setting up a differential. What a PITA. I'm not looking forward to doing another tomorrow.
More to come tomorrow. I'll try to shoot more pictures of the differential.
Well, today's project when to E36 M3 in a hurry. What I was supposed to do, was clean up the rear 3rd member, find out what kind of locker it has, and install it. Yeah, that didn't work
The problems started with the differential. I thought it might have a locker in it. Wrong. It's got one of these:
That, for those that have never seen one, is a mini spool. Not what I wanted to see. Good, bad or ugly, it's going in. I'll see if I like it. From what I've read, they aren't too bad unless you drive on ice a lot. If I hate it, I'll pull the open carrier out of my stock 3rd and install it with the 5.38 gears.
That simple 3rd swap failed to happen. What actually happened was, attempting to install the 3rd member. After installing the heavy bastard the 4th time and not finding what was hitting the ring gear, I pulled the entire rear end so I could see what I was doing.
The 5.38 gears were hitting the rear of the housing. Once I could see what was hitting where, it was nothing a brass punch and a 4 pound hammer couldn't fix. 3rd member promptly fell back in. The axle is now back together and ready to go back in.
It then became a while it's apart project. The YJ Jeep spring conversion for the rear axle has begun. That means new front spring mounts, new lower shock mounts, new spring shackles. The process has begun.
This is the old spring and mount. They are 6" shorter than the YJ spring and stiff.
This is the new front spring mount. It could be bolted or welded, I opted to weld it.
This is sitting on the new springs. I temporarily used the missing link shackles I have for the front springs. That let me load the spring so I can figure out the mount position and shackle length.
That's as far as I made it today other than welding the lower shock mounts onto the axle housing.
More to come.
My shop/house are about 20 min from the ohv trails in the uhawharries. Lemme know when youre coming this way to wheel. Or need a tool due to wheeling.
This thread kinda makes me miss my 84 ram 1 ton on 39s. It amost always looked like the sammy did after you took it mudding. Only with a lot more body damage from wheeling all over the kentucky/tn/nc mountain ar ea. Hell, that truck rolled pretty easy....
I want pics of that 84 ram 1 ton. lol
Knocked off early today and started working on the spring shackles.
The frame mounts will have to move back 2" so the shackle angles will work out. I made these, but already don't like them so they will change before they are mounted. That's going to be a Saturday project. It's going to take some doing to get it done so I like it.
The shackles are coming together. I've got the lengths figured out so I made the sides for them. I still haven't figured out if I should make them bridged or not.
Oh, and just to let you know, a 4.5" grinder with a flap disk on it will remove amazing amounts of material in a short time. Especially when it's removing skin.
earning your stripes I see hehe
I can't wait to show you the food mechanic, you will want one in your off-road rig.
soon...
In reply to fidelity101:
?????
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