Dr. Marneaus
Station Wagoneer
Well, folks. It was bound to happen. After 9 years and 30,000 miles with the 1973 Wagoneer, my wife and I have upgraded. There were a lot of reasons for this, of which the largest was that it was time for my wife to get a new more Reno appropriate daily driver. That coupled with the fact that the wagoneer had essentially become the limiting factor in our outdoor exploration lifestyle (comfort, range, reliability, capability), we decided to get something that could combine those two roles and better serve us. We had very basic requirements: 4 doors, modern, 4x4, nice enough for a daily driver for my wife. We looked at a 4runner and she did not like it at all, the next day we came home with a 2019 JLU Rubicon. 3.6l, Billet Silver. Outfitted precisely the way I wanted. All the good stuff, none of the extra frills.
So, the plans are pretty dang simple. This one will stay "mostly" stock until she is done driving it (realistically 3 or so years) or until the AT's wear out, which is realistically 5 years. At that point, it should be "my" daily driver, she will get something else, and the build may go a little further. The reason behind buying a Rubicon is that I will not HAVE TO do anything major to it for it to be suitable for our needs. It's got a set of great 33's on it, some basic skid plates, lockers, sway bar disconnect, decent recovery points, and clearance for even larger tires while still remaining stock height. If we had bought a 4Runner, I would have had to throw about $3000 at it before winter to ditch the trash tires it came with and give it a little lift to fit something larger, but still not as large as this.
What you will see here will be a log of the minor mods I do on this, mostly for personal reference and for questions I need to ask, etc. This will consist mostly of convenience/safety type outfitting for camping and longer exploring trips. Aside from that, it will probably get bumpers, likely a winch, and likely some more substantial armor. Small changes to a mostly stock platform. I will also use this as a place to post pictures of our trips and adventures as I have done in the past with the Wagoneer.
FWIW, I still have the Wagoneer and there are no immediate plans to get rid of it. There's nothing seriously wrong with it. I still intend to clean up the interior which was my next step in the process. However, it will likely see much much much less camping/road trip time, and less driving in general as now my personal daily driver is a 1974 Ford F250. Folks have been giving me crap about moving to a modern platform, but in colsolidating our vehicles, we are actually even more of a vintage car family now. We still have the 1969 Nova, the 1973 Wagoneer, and the 1974 Ford, and a 1979 Yamaha dirtbike. So, we're still living the vintage life! We got rid of the 2011 Challenger and 2004 Dakota that I had been driving
With that, Here's the new thing.
His and Hers:
So, the plans are pretty dang simple. This one will stay "mostly" stock until she is done driving it (realistically 3 or so years) or until the AT's wear out, which is realistically 5 years. At that point, it should be "my" daily driver, she will get something else, and the build may go a little further. The reason behind buying a Rubicon is that I will not HAVE TO do anything major to it for it to be suitable for our needs. It's got a set of great 33's on it, some basic skid plates, lockers, sway bar disconnect, decent recovery points, and clearance for even larger tires while still remaining stock height. If we had bought a 4Runner, I would have had to throw about $3000 at it before winter to ditch the trash tires it came with and give it a little lift to fit something larger, but still not as large as this.
What you will see here will be a log of the minor mods I do on this, mostly for personal reference and for questions I need to ask, etc. This will consist mostly of convenience/safety type outfitting for camping and longer exploring trips. Aside from that, it will probably get bumpers, likely a winch, and likely some more substantial armor. Small changes to a mostly stock platform. I will also use this as a place to post pictures of our trips and adventures as I have done in the past with the Wagoneer.
FWIW, I still have the Wagoneer and there are no immediate plans to get rid of it. There's nothing seriously wrong with it. I still intend to clean up the interior which was my next step in the process. However, it will likely see much much much less camping/road trip time, and less driving in general as now my personal daily driver is a 1974 Ford F250. Folks have been giving me crap about moving to a modern platform, but in colsolidating our vehicles, we are actually even more of a vintage car family now. We still have the 1969 Nova, the 1973 Wagoneer, and the 1974 Ford, and a 1979 Yamaha dirtbike. So, we're still living the vintage life! We got rid of the 2011 Challenger and 2004 Dakota that I had been driving
With that, Here's the new thing.
His and Hers:
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