Jeffbethandkidz
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- November 12, 2007
- Messages
- 115
- Reaction score
- 5
- City, State
- Gypsum, Colorado
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '94 Eddie Bauer
So awhile back I decided it was time to start doing some mods to my X. Some mods that would make it better off road. A friend of a friend had a Warn 9000xd that had only been used once. He rolled his Toyota and they used it to roll it back over. I made him an offer of $300 cash and thought we had a deal. A couple of weeks later, our mutual friend is asking me if I can help him figure out how to wire it up to make sure it works! He sold it out from under me! Of course I told them to figure it out for themselves.
Fast forward about a month to the weekend of my birthday. My wife and kidz are taking me out of town to celebrate. As we are getting in her truck to leave she hands me the keys the car in the garage and tells me to check the trunk. I'm thinking it must be tools or something, after all, it's a Miata. The trunk space is about the size of a shoe box. So I opened it up and WOW! I wouldn't have been more suprised if someone would have jumped out and hit me between the eyes with a pipe! My winch was laying in the trunk! My wife went behind my back and bought it out from under me. Then she had them make sure it still worked and rewrap the cable so it looked pretty for me. She really is the best!
So now that I have a winch I decide to lift the X a little for more clearance. I started with the F-150 coil spacers and had my buddy Karl (professional welder) build me a set of shackles for the rear. This helped, but my goal of running 33x12.50R15s was going to take more. I didn't want to spend a bunch doing a big lift on the ttb since I plan on going SAS at some point. That left me with a body lift. The information I found said that it would be tight and fender trimming would be a probability. They also said those tires wouldn't fit right on the stock rims. I don't listen well and decided to go for it anyway and bought the 3 inch body lift and installed it. I don't have any pictures of the install, but it went just like the instructions said. I didn't raise the bumpers since I was planning on custom bumpers, and also have an electric fan.
I drove it around lifted with the stock sized tires and stock bumpers in their original position for quite awhile before I was able to begin building the custom bumpers. Here are some pictures of her in the mock up phase.
Fast forward about a month to the weekend of my birthday. My wife and kidz are taking me out of town to celebrate. As we are getting in her truck to leave she hands me the keys the car in the garage and tells me to check the trunk. I'm thinking it must be tools or something, after all, it's a Miata. The trunk space is about the size of a shoe box. So I opened it up and WOW! I wouldn't have been more suprised if someone would have jumped out and hit me between the eyes with a pipe! My winch was laying in the trunk! My wife went behind my back and bought it out from under me. Then she had them make sure it still worked and rewrap the cable so it looked pretty for me. She really is the best!
So now that I have a winch I decide to lift the X a little for more clearance. I started with the F-150 coil spacers and had my buddy Karl (professional welder) build me a set of shackles for the rear. This helped, but my goal of running 33x12.50R15s was going to take more. I didn't want to spend a bunch doing a big lift on the ttb since I plan on going SAS at some point. That left me with a body lift. The information I found said that it would be tight and fender trimming would be a probability. They also said those tires wouldn't fit right on the stock rims. I don't listen well and decided to go for it anyway and bought the 3 inch body lift and installed it. I don't have any pictures of the install, but it went just like the instructions said. I didn't raise the bumpers since I was planning on custom bumpers, and also have an electric fan.
I drove it around lifted with the stock sized tires and stock bumpers in their original position for quite awhile before I was able to begin building the custom bumpers. Here are some pictures of her in the mock up phase.