Well, I have opted to sell my Cherokee. Please don't ask why cause I really don't know. I guess 3 SUV's is too many. I have however had an old dream reawakened. I remember when I seen my first AMC Eagle station wagon. Imagine a car with solid axles! Insert redneck joke here. I know they were full-time 4wd. What I am wondering is if the t-case out of an 86' cherokee with 4.2L I6 and 5sp manual will fit either an 86' or 87' Eagle with 4.2L and 5sp? Are the trannies the same? If not, could I swap tranny too? I am thinking of picking one up and making a part-time 4x4 out of it. Maybe locking the rear and swapping out the gears on the 30 and 35 axles. Heck, who knows, maybe I could swap in Dana 44's. I am only looking to run maybe a 30" tire, anyone know of a really wide 30" tire? Maybe a 30x10.50 or 11.50 the wider the better. I want something that will skip across mud and handle pretty well on the highway. Wonder how much effort would be needed for a V8, maybe a 318 or a 360. Aah thats just a thought for the future. Anyway just some food for thought. Any ideas and suggestions are always very appreciated.



PS In case you are wondering what sparked my memory, I found an old issue of Fourwheeler from back in 80 (I believe). The cover and quite a few of outside pages were missing.  

That is awesome! I can't answer your question but I would sure love to see you do it!

Be sure to post up with what you do!  

The Eagle was ahead of its time. The 80 model had only fulltime 4x4 drive. In late 81 they added part time(2x4 or 4x4) drive as a option and it became standard in 82 on. Never was a low range.  It might be possible to install a Borgwarner Quadratrac in its place as it has the correct drive shaft alignment.. You migth be able to flip and Dana 300 with a adapter and use it but these all would take some work. The Qtrac would likely be the easiest because you would be able to use a lot of stock parts.  

Thanks guys, I have been doing a little research on the web. The eagle uses all the drivetrain parts of the cherokee of the corresponding years. With the exception of transfer cases. The t-cases in all of the eagles are hydraulic not gear or chain drive. I would imagine that would make swapping  cases pretty much a bolt on and go deal, of course some custom driveshafts may be necessary. I am going to do a little more looking and see what i can come up with. I have been looking at a site called amceaglesnest and they have some pretty impressive mudslingers and even a few rock crawling eagles! I will never be crawling over any rocks just alot of high speed mud flinging. I will definitely take alot of pics throughout this build. Heck who knows maybe even get myself an article in the mag. Hey a guy can dream can't he?  

They are chain driven completely and the differential was a series on clutch plates in a bath of silicone fluid.  

I was doing some more reading and seen that the 229 t-case is a 2 speed wich can be found in the grand wagoneers. Alot of these guys are using them as a direct bolt in. I was however totally disappointed to discover that the dana 35 in the front is only the dif, thats right it is IFS! Of course alot of the eagles I looked at were running solid axle conversions using d35s out of cherokees. There is alot of fabbing to be done to make it work but it would be worth it. Besides I still have the old 35 out of my cherokee. I managed to sell the old cherokee yesterday, I got 9k for it. A little less than the 10k I wanted but cash speaks very loudly. Hopefully the 18 yr old kid I sold it to will respect the work I put into it. I kept the bumpers and winch, and put an old set of tires and wheels on it so the big investments didn't go to waste. Now I have a d35 and a 44 (from the junked scout) to go under my new project. I may even get enough room under it to use the 33's but probably just keep em around to throw on the Bronco when summer rolls around. That will definitely give new meaning to rotating tires.  

The eagle was ahead of its time but chopping one up to put 33's on it is pretty silly in my book. Many try to turn some i9nt something it is not and bigger tires make fainl drive ratio on it a lot taller and it has tall axle to begin with and adds a lot of strain to drive train. If you leave stock or very close to stock tires sizes, you will not have any drive train issues but start chopping it up and you will have a car the is neither a car or a 4x4 or reliable. The D35 will hold up just fine as long as you do not try to fit the biggest tire you can on it.  

I was just kidding about the 33's. I will probably get a set of the 29x11.50 super swampers. They will fit with just a little trimming of the fenders. The solid axle swap is something I will be doing though, as I despise IFS. Alot of those guys are doing it to strengthen the frontend. Now as far as making something into something it isn't, one of the guys has built his eagle into a rig that is a serious off-roader. This rig is running 33's on a set of d60's, it is running a 4.0 HO, and has a complete exo-cage. It is a serious machine that according to him has navigated the rubicon with no trouble. Now I know that with endless resources and knowledge, anything is possible. Thats not what I am shooting for, I just think it will be neat to have a car that will sling mud better than any stock 4x4 truck. Of course nowadays that isn't going to be a huge challenge. I figure a solid axle, gnarly tires, maybe 4.10 or 4.56 gearing, and a part-time t-case with low range, and that is it. I know that using all of the cherokee front end parts are gonna lift the front a bit and I can use a set of cherokee springs in the back to match it. But just because you have the space doesn't mean you have to fill it up with rubber. Who knows this car may never even see asphalt, I have ten acres with my own mudbog and real nice set of trails up and down the hill that is my yard, all of wich have become very boring to ride in my Bronco, so maybe this will make them exciting again.  

Here is a link to the monster eagle that I was refering to, you should check it out, it is really impressive;


http://forums.amceaglenest.com/index.php?topic=8137.0  

well that didn't work out right. But please don' let that prevent you from checking it out.  

You wanted to do it this way...

http://forums.amceaglenest.com/index.php?topic=8137.0