Finally, its time to kick off the fun part!. First thing is first, this is not a true off road car build. Im not building a desert beater or race car. Clearly this level of detail isn't necessary for a car like that. This is what I call a High wheeler, a lifted big tire bug that is capable of multi use, both street, off road and snow. With that in mind I reached out to my transaxle builder Benco for a good happy medium trans to suit the large tires but also long distance driving use I have planned for this car. We came up with a fresh IRS box. We went with a pro street box 4.37 gear and heavy duty side plate with super diff. Im also going with type 2 axles so we swapped the output shafts over as well.

Some fresh stock trans mounts and the powder coated cradle and it slid right into the chassis.

Next up I installed one of our Dual Circuit master cylinder upgrade kits which gives you the ability to run disc/drum or disc/disc on the car. I am planning to go with front disc and rear drum so it was a perfect upgrade. We use the Varga masters since they seem to be the highest quality you can get these days. Ill get the reservoir on later.


I also went with one of the HD shift couplers since the last few stock ones failed on my previous cars. I will give this a try and see how it does.

The last piece I installed was our rear Truss bar set up. Its a bolt on deal, no mods needed. It triangulates the rear frame horns through the upper shock mounts to keep the flexing of the rear of the car to a minimum. On a car like this with some decent HP coming, potential off road use as well as the inherent flex in the rear of these cars it was the perfect venue to use this part.

So far its going together pretty easily. I can't recall the last registration date on this car but I believe it was in the early 90s. It never looked this good, that I know. Im shooting for a quick finish on this car and having it driving in late January. First I just need to make it a roller!