Purchased for $3500 it came to me with 209K mi, manual transmission, 4.88 gears with spartan lockers front and rear, 285/75r16s mounted on 80 series aluminum 5 spoke rims, shaved upper control arms, 1” BL, Toytec coilovers, OME rear coils, Outdoor Logic front bumper, and OL boat sliders made to have UHMWPE mounted on them. It had STI seats, CB radio/megaphone, shorty antenna, and a Kicker audio system. Some of that was done by a previous owner who had a thread on it here. SoCal's Build Thread I believe that there was more than one owner between us though.




Gears had been grenaded and I couldn’t drive it when I bought it but the intent was to help me and a friend out at the same time with it. He had a 97 that he wanted to manual swap and I needed something that I was willing to drive on long road trips with my wife. She doesn’t like manual transmission and needed to drive occasionally when she was feeling carsick. Her chevy cruze wasn’t going to cut it. Sorry, I still feel the need to justify to myself why I made it an automatic.

We began the swap and I finished it up in about a week. A lot was traded during this to get mine roadworthy asap. He got the wheels, the 1” BL, the seats, the MT and the center console since mine had the newer one with cupholders and I was putting a Marlin doubler in his at the same time. Needed the space for the extra shifter. I went to 265/75-16s on steelies, 4.30 gears open front, scion tc seats, and his AT. For those looking into the AT/MT swap, even though this was 97 to 97, the entire wiring harness for engine, transmission, and behind the dash had to be swapped with the ECUs. The cruise control assembly also had to be swapped. This one is the one everything was swapped with.


Once on the road discovered that on engine decel I had sever rod knock. Based on looking at the caps for the main bearings I realized that the engine had been run dry at some point and needed to be rebuilt. So I had it rebuilt by a local shop that several race friends had faith in.

When I installed the AT I immediately installed an external cooler, an auxiliary transmission filter, and a transmission temp gauge.


Painted the bumpers black with rattle can rustoleum bedliner spray because I have had many good experiences touching it up on another off-road project.
Installed an e-locker using my own wiring with a 15A DPDT relay mounted under the center console.

this is what it became for a while.


since then:

Kill switch
Total chaos upper control arms
Spindle gusset
13 WL tundra brake upgrade
King IFP front shocks
Braided brake lines
Heimed tie rods made from 1.125”-0.219” wall DOM with double shear lower ball joint steering arm



100W halogen KC daylighters
Piaa fog lights
Winch


F350 mult bulb rear dome light
Rocklights installed in rear hatch for working out of the back


Subaru compass/altimeter/outside temp sensor
Fabricated 1/2” extended lower control arms and converted from bushing to 1” uniballs on the inner mount





M14 wheel lugs


76 chevy blazer brake master cylinder


Scs f5 wheels with 3.5” BS
305/70/R16s
eimKeith rear bumper