New J10 owner

[carballom]

Hi,

Wanted to say hi, I recently bought a 78 J10 on the oregon coast.

http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc487/carballom/2012-06-24_17-58-21_28.jpg

It has a bunch of rust, but if I can get it to look decent and get 5 years out of it, I will have got my money's worth. I paid $800 for it and it runs fine, I used it to haul firewood and it climbed the hill like a champ!

It has the 258 in it and it feels like it's geared really low.

I've started on the bodywork a little bit, this is what it looks like now:

http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc487/carballom/2012-07-30_12-32-52_203.jpg

I got some spray on bedliner on the mirrors and the trim, but I wanna paint the doors before I put the mirrors back on. :)

[44BZ]

Very nice, I watched this one on Craigslist for awhile. 258/T18 combo isn't it? What color are you painting it?

[Brizio]

Cool! Congrats!

[carballom]

Goin' w/ rattlecan green. The hood came out ok.

The guy that had it looks like did a rattlecan camo, but he didn't use the right colors. He also didn't do any prep work on it, if you look closely the decals are still on it underneath the paint.

Without spending too much time on it I'm going to strip it, prime it and green it.

Most of the rust damage is in the floorboards, and the left rear fender. A little on the front left blinker, then just some random spots all over.

The guy had it parked between two trees and it had leaves and brush in the bed which didn't help w/ the rust. He did give me three spare tires though :)

It is 258, not sure the tranny in it. Don't know enough about these to know just by looking at it. I know it's a granny gear + 3 and it doesnt like to go over 60.

[Wayne]

Welcom to the fun. Looks like a good start.
I paid $800 for mine too, and I've got my moneys worth out of it.
Had the same tires on mine till I got my new ones a couple weeks ago.

[carballom]

Yeah, I'm lookin forward to hunting this year w/ it.

So is there a transmission that might work better for me? I want to be able to go 65ish on the highway, but if I do it sounds like the motor's about to blow up. If I had a 5th gear it'd be perfect

[austinaubinoe]

You could get a T5 behind the 258 in the 80's, but it is a pretty weak trans (or so Ive heard).

Would be much easier to swap axles. Or get bigger tires!

[Carnuck]

AX-15 from a Cherokee ('91 up) is stronger than the T5

[carballom]

I thought messing with the gearing in the diffs might be easier too, and I am sure I can do the job, I am not sure what gearing I need to look for to get the highway speeds I want. Not even sure what is in there now.

As far as tires, the guy sold it to me w/ seven tires and wheels and most have good tread on them so I intend on wearing them down before I go buy new tires.