Unless you have a GBR or Tom Woods HD driveshaftS (frt AND back),you will be snapping those little 1300 Ujoints made for a f*ckn' Ford Ranger, every other time you leave a traffic light, riding 35-37" tires. That's saying nothing for O/R. You Def should upgrade your springs and shocks both to +3" when you get the tires and gears or relocate the axle; safety, reliability, function. Then you still have castor-correction and linkage to address.

when I was talking about "daily driving" mine, I specifically mentioned Dallas which is something of a feat. I'm talking about a 30-mile round trip for my job everyday which includes no less than 1.5 hour of bumper-to-bumper traffic, hard accelerating highway access, non-stop braking, multiple traffic lights, ambient temps that are as high as 110 deg between June and Sept. I mean, just a Discos worst nightmare. When something goes out, you are probably in the middle of a 5-lane interstate or a 3-lane city avenue, and delaying the commute of thousands. Nobody around to help and waiting on a tow-truck. So, in a nutshell that's why I make sure all is mechanically sound and nothing left to chance.
That's why I can only do portals. Not only does everything remain stock, but over 50% of the stress and tension forces is relieved from the drivetrain. Instead of all power going directly to the hub, the planetary gears absorb that while reducing the drive ratio for engine output driving larger tires. You can't beat it.

 

That would be true with 35s on stock gears, but with the 4.11s there will be no more stress on the driveshafts than my current 32s on stock gears. That said, I could probably use a couple new u-joints either way.

I actually am currently on 3.5" lift (with no castor correction, stock shocks, and stock brake lines ). I do need to replace the shocks and I'm also going to modify my shock mounts lower pretty soon, at least the fronts since I have an extra set of towers I can cut and weld. I also talked to the guy at RTE and he's going to be helping me out with the castor correction and keeping everything safe and functional.

Ah, yea, that's different from me. We don't have any large cities very close, so my daily driving is either an hour-hour and a half o highway/interstate driving or just town driving, or some combination there of. Definitely not quite as hard as what you're talking about, but I will definitely be experiencing some of that in the future when I move to Florida after school. I do however do a good amount of pulling with trailers between 3000 and 7000 lbs. I'm going to have to add an engine oil cooler and maybe a second or a single larger transmission cooler.

 

Regardless of gearing, you're spinning more rotational mass. There will be more stress on pretty much everything.

 

There is more mass, but the gearing will actually be slightly lower than current so it will nearly even out.

 

I would really like to do this soon.

 

You and me both! Once the paychecks start coming in I'll be getting started though. Can't wait.

 

I'm interested in the fibreglass kits made in the uk to cover the roof and provide a new windowed back wall. There doesn't appear to be any distribution in the US and they are rather large so it may get welded.

 

Have you guys seen these custom Defender's before? from some of the Land Rover Defender builders who are currently the best in the market.

 

Thanks for the spam...

 

Yea, I've seen those. They're interesting, but for making the top removable I think they would be harder to use and definitely less sturdy off road. If you bump a tree with metal it just dents, but if you bump a tree with fiberglass then there goes your panel. I also don't like that those kits shrink the rear side windows. I want to shrink the metal on either side of the windows and keep the windows themselves the same size.