So this might be a little premature since I won't really have time to do any work on this for at least a few weeks but I thought I would get it started anyway.

My current build is my white '97 DI which I've been building for years. I've learned a few things while building this and would like to do somethings different. Also, with it being a '97 I keep having to worry about passing emissions every year. So I decided to start over.

I finally found myself a nice '95 that I decided to use for my next build. I got it home and unloaded this weekend. A lot of things are still up in the air and I'll figure them out as I get into it. But for right now I'm thinking along the lines of my concept drawing. But we'll see where things end up.

The truck is a '95 with around 160k on the clock. The body is actually pretty clean and the frame is spotless. The interior is totally trashed and mostly covered in mold. It's a good thing that won't be staying there very long. Engine wise it definitely needs some serious TLC. But I did manage to get it fired up today and it's actually running pretty good although with low oil pressure but what else is now. I'll probably convert and swap one of my 4.0's into it at some point so I'm not that concerned.

Now that it's running the next step will be to strip the interior so I can actually sit in it w/o worrying about catching some mold born disease.

There probably won't be any major updates for the next few weeks but I'll try and keep this thread updates as I manage to make some progress.

 

Some more information, The truck did come with 2" RTE springs and a 2" body lift. I plan to keep it at the 2" lift. I'm not a big fan of the heavy rear RTE springs but I do have some 3" front springs (245 lbs/in rate) in the garage that I might try in the rear to see how they would work. I'm thinking they should give around a 1.5-1.75" lift in the rear. I can always add a small spacer if I need to level it out.

I also managed to pick up a banged up factory winch tray. This will become the center point for the front of the truck. I really like this because it's the right width for the frame and having to straighten it and add some additional welding is a lot quicker than trying build something from scratch.

 

I have a RTE 2" body lift (in addition to suspension lift) on my '95. It's a good way to get some extra tire clearance without raising the center of gravity as much as a suspension lift does.

 

Not too worried about tire clearance on this truck. My '97 I needed to go higher because I was rubbing against the rear tub to clear the 35's. This one won't have the rear tub so that won't be an issue.

I was half tempted to run it on stock springs but since it came with the 2" ones I'll just keep those to help get a little more frame clearance.

 

I don't know if you've noticed, but if you remove the body lift kit you'll have to replace the steering shaft. The shafts had to be cut and an extension inserted.

If you're not keeping the kit, I might be interested and I can swap you a stock steering shaft.

 

#nobypasses
Looking forward to the build!

 

It might be slow for a while but should be fun. How is your '95 coming?

 

I'll keep that in mind if I decide to pull it.

 

Hey Buddy Lee, nice looking Discovery! I love those tires. Super Swampers? What size?

And are you saying you've got 2" spring lift and 2" body lift? Did you have to trim the fenders? Did you upgrade anything else under there because you have 4" of lift? Like the driveshaft?

 

I think you're getting the trucks confused. The green truck has the 2" + 2" lift. It clears the stock size tires just fine.

The white truck is my current trail truck. I just added the picture of it for reference as to what my first build looked like. The swampers are size Q78 (roughly 35.5x9.5). It has around 5"-6" of lift with lots and lots of trimming and pretty much everything upgraded.