You can't beat the low resale value of a Geo! I put coil spacers, a homemade body lift and 31's on it. After my first time off road I realized that wouldn't cut it so within a few months I had a junked 1985 toyota pickup sitting at the bottom of my driveway, much to my neigbors' disgust and in violation of more than one homeowner's association rule. Ever since I took the torch to the IFS it has been a work in progress. Pretty much everything I've done to it has been redone, sometimes more than once. I've got most of the major bugs worked out of it by now, but the thought of beating on it for a week straight has really got me nervous. So to prepare the poor little Geo for more punishment than it should ever see, I'm trying to fix it up as best I can. I installed a new belts, starter, water pump, thermostat, upper and lower hoses, and took the radiator out to hose mud out of it. I upgraded the alternator to a GM 105A and just finished a rear disc brake conversion. Before the trip I want to add an engine oil cooler, make stronger rear sway bar links, add a hand throttle, rig up some kind of tie down system for the back, and I need to fix the leak at the front pinion and figure out what the new leak is that just started dripping out of the bell housing. To pass the pre-trip inspection, I recently added a MileMarker PE8000 winch and made a new bumper to protect the investment (that's number 4 for the front bumper!), and I need to install a roll cage which is still sitting in pieces on my garage floor. I've also started to collect together the spare parts I want to bring on the trip. This includes 2 birfields, a set of front axle shafts, one spare rear axle shaft, a set of locking hubs, a spare rear driveshaft, a spare U-joint for the front driveshaft, a spare third member, and a bunch of miscellaneous parts like front and rear axle seals, a spare front brake line, brake line plugs, spare air line for the ARBs, wheel lugs, spindle nut lock washers, etc, etc, etc. I have most of the parts except the driveshaft (which is on it's way to JE Reel to be resized and balanced), the third member (I just ordered a new 5.71 ring, pinion and install kit to rebuild and lincoln-lock a stock 4.10 from the junkyard), and the rear axle shaft (which needs to have the backing plate removed and be turned down to fit the new Chevy rotors). All total I've weighed the spare parts in at close to 200 lbs, then I still need to bring tools, food, extra gas, fluids, and maybe a change of underwear or two. To be quite honest, I don't think the bone stock 80hp engine can pull all this, so I'll be playing catch-up on the road for sure. To stick true to the rest of the build, and because I'm
cheap, I'm going to attempt to get all this done myself which should be a challenge since I've never rebuilt a differential before or welded up a roll cage. Some of the guys from the off road club I'm in, Twisted Axles (Syracuse, NY), have offered to help so together we should be able to get it done in time. It'll be close...