Mingo is a 1998 Jeep TJ Wrangler Sport that we got from a very good friend of ours. This gun metal blue pearl beauty was built into a capable trail rig right here at Skid Row Offroad roughly 15 years ago. It was equipped to handle some of the toughest trails all over the East coast and it did great providing plenty of fun along the way. It was wheeled in a variety of cool locales including Tellico more than once, Paragon plenty of times, and at Rausch Creek Offroad Park. Unfortunately, that was literally years ago now and two of those parks have since closed. Today you'll find Mingo playing at Rausch Creek and AOAA.
Fast forward to today and you could easily say that this poor Jeep had seen better days. Despite its deceiving good looks, it was missing a good portion of the driver's side floor along with at least four body mounts....and we're not talking about the easy to repair body mounts on the chassis. No, we're talking about major damage to the tub. This isn't uncommon here in the Northeast, but it's always sad to see. In addition to trail duty, this Jeep was used as a daily driver by its original owner and was subject to heavy doses of road salt during the Pennsylvania winters. Eventually, it sat unused in the woods for several years, which meant plenty of humidity to encourage even more rust. To date, the driver's side floor and body mounts have been replaced with new sheetmetal. One of these days we'll tackle the passenger side as well.
When it was originally built, we equipped it with a 4.5" Rubicon Express suspension lift in order to clear a set of 35"x 10.50 Interco Super Swamper tires. Those tires are long gone and today we're running 35"x 12.50 Toyo M/T tires that we modified for a bit more flex. They're mounted on Hutchinson Rock Monster double beadlock wheels.
There's a 1" Daystar body lift along with a set of 1" raised motor mounts to gain a little extra clearance. We also swapped out the original flares for a set of wider flares from a 2003 Rubicon to gain a little extra coverage for the tires. It was an easy swap that helped Mingo pass Pennsylvania's annual state safety inspections.
Naturally, once we had clearance for the tires we were going to run, we still had to address the axles. We knew that the stock Dana 35 rear axle wouldn't hold up to those 35" tires for long, so we sourced a Dana 44 out of a low mileage 2000 TJ Sport. We added a Detroit electric locker and a set of 4.56 gears to compensate for the increased tire size. That original locker recently failed spectacularly and was replaced with a full time Eaton locker. Up front we kept the original Dana 30 but added a set of matching 4.56 gears along with an Ox Locker for its versatility. Yes, we realized that the 35" tires were likely to destroy the factory axle shafts, but the plan was to upgrade them once they snapped. Somehow, they never did. Even so, we eventually replaced them with a set of RCV axle shafts.
When lifting a short wheelbase vehicle like a Jeep, driveline angles become an important aspect to consider. In order to eliminate any vibration from the rear driveshaft, we determined that the best solution was to add a short shaft kit to the original NP231 transfer case. We then ordered a new rear, double cardan joint driveshaft from Tom Wood's Custom Driveshafts. We've used their driveshafts for many vehicles over the years because they're well-made and the folks at Tom Wood's know their stuff....and they're fast. We've never had an issue with one of their products. The only issue we had with this part of the project was getting the rear axle rotated to the correct angle for the new driveshaft. We ended up adding a set of adjustable control arms from Teraflex and they solved the problem. There weren't as many options then as there are today and those Teraflex upper control arms worked.
For safety's sake we added a Rock Hard 4x4 bolt-in roll cage to the interior to protect the passengers just in case things get a little upside down. It includes an overhead console that let us install a CB radio there. We added the control cable for the Ox locker to the shifter console and then installed a hand throttle on the shifter. Ya never know when you might need an extra foot! For storage, there's a Tuffy Security drawer in the rear that holds our tools and recovery gear. Other than those modifications, the interior is stock and looks great to this day.
-The black, half-cab style top with tonneau cover is from MasterTop and it's augmented with our Skid Row Top Props to keep the noise down while driving. One fits in the cab and the other above where the rear seat once was. In addition, one of our Tonno Props is used to keep water from collecting on the tonneau cover during summer rainstorms.
Naturally, we outfitted Mingo with a complete array of Skid Row Offroad armor to make sure that damage was kept to a minimum.
We also added a few currently out of production goodies including set of our Modular Nightcrawler bumpers which are literally the original modular bumpers that all others are modeled after. While we haven't made these bumpers for some time now, we're considering bringing them back. For recovery work, we have a Warn winch up front and our heavy-duty screw clevis plates provide secure mounting points.
Finally, we added a set of our Mirror Relocation Brackets that we never came up with a cute name for. When the doors are off, we still wanted to be able to see to either side without craning our necks. Our Skid Row mirror brackets are unique in that the passenger side mirror is mounted so that you view it through the windshield. It's literally the only set of mirror brackets made this way and while some people think it looks funny, it works! Positioning the mirror in front of the windshield creates a usable passenger side mirror and it's one of the many innovative designs from Skid Row Offroad.
What's in store for Mingo now after being brought in from its resting place? As you can see from our Facebook and Instagram posts, he's been out having fun and showing off on local trails here in Pennsylvania.
