papalowell

Hello All,
First off I'm new to the site so I would like to thank all of you for the info I have already received. I have been sitting on a 1984 Xtra Cab with the 22r for about 10 years now, it used to be my grandpas. So I have finally decided its time to make it road worthy or more accurately off-road worthy. So I fired it up a few weeks ago, five year old gas and a battery! Running pretty rough so I looked into carb kits and whatnot then I found kawaZX636's thread on desmoging and got turned onto the weber. Once I got hooked up with LCE I was a gonner so I purchased a new offy dual plane and a weber with electric choke. Did new valve cover gasket, exhaust manifold gasket and all the shiny block of plates. Still need to time it and setup carb but after plug change shes actually running pretty good. I dropped the tank and found a major nest of rust and debris in the tank so I think I have decided to do a fuel cell. I ordered all new shocks and leafs with a 3" lift. Man those bushings are stubborn. Tore apart my rear end and found the ring and pinion to be shot, which I new. Building a flat deck so the back end is nice and open right now.
I would like to setup the truck to be a dual purpose on/off road unit, mainly hunting and some light mud runs.

So after all that rambling here are my questions:

1) with the 3" taller leafs can I also go with taller shackles or will I run into issues with the steering?
2) if I go fuel cell is plastic going to be tough enough? I will probably mount it up on the deck.
3) should I junkyard a rear diff or am I better off saving my pennies for a locker? I would like to do a gear change eventually but doing front and rear is a bit expensive right now.

Thanks for any and all help guys.

lowell

How it looked when I first got it.



After weber conversion and a decent engine cleaning. Valve cover was more black than silver before.





31 year old suspension components.





Lots of teeth gone!





Chunks of ring and pinion.





shortened the deck almost 12" and added a rack. Still not done but its closer.














Scabbed up deck that I built a few years ago.

josh21

Lookin good so far man! If I were you I would definitely stay with steel on the fuel cell because it's a lot easier for something to happen to plastic and I definitely wouldn't wanna be stuck somewhere with a hole in my tank. I'd say go with a locker if you're gonna be doing a lot of off-roading because the open diff sucks, This is just my opinion I'm not an expert but good luck with everything and whichever way you choose to go.