Hello, It's bin awhile since I have been on here, hope everyone is doing fine.

Anyways I have a few questions and hope somebody can point me in a good direction. I have recently sold my two door camo sidekick and in the process of building a four door.
My dilemma is this, I have two parts vehicles both two door. my new ride is a 91 4 door 185k on an auto trans.....and I am kinda diggin the auto trans. I have already put a 2" body lift in it and am doing the 3" deluxe alter ego suspension lift in it this weekend. I already bought the tires, 30 X 9.5 r15 Firestone destination mt tires. I was talking with my neibour who already has a killer sidekick. He was telling me if I like the auto trans he would swap out the 5 speed diffs from the 2 door and put in mine while I was doing the suspension lift. said it would be better and if i switch it out to the 5 speed the diffs would already be done. He was talking about gearing and so on. Any ideas on his revaluations? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Shane

I think:

• You will like the auto, it grows on you.
• Switching the diffs is a good idea.
• You have a good neighbor.

Going stick will entail pedal mods and such. Automatic is a pretty good wheeler to my understanding.

Talon has one which I think is auto. He will probably appear and chime in soon.

I have an auto in mine with 36" tires and love it, they are one tough tranny

Biker,
are you running the stock diffs? have you changed your gearing? how does it go on the highway? how does it go in low for crawling?
my tires are considerably smaller. Do you know the difference between auto diffs and 5 speed diffs what effect does it have doing this mod? please anybody chirp in.
Thanks,
shane

I'm running Toy diffs with 5.29 gears. I have a Kicker 2 t-case setup so I have tons of gearing for offroad. Onroad it was a slug until I put a turbo on it, now it goes like stink Details in my build thread Kickota. I think the autos come with 4.62 gears in the diff and 5spd comes with 5.12 gears. So putting the 5.12's in your auto rig will allow you to run bigger tires and keep a near stock power feel. Do some research though as 91 4 doors came with 5.38 in the 5 spd but I'm not positive what the auto came with. I'm sure the correct info is here on this site.
Cheers

If you have the 3 speed auto you should have 4.30 in the diff.  Here is the info from the White Rabbit, my 2-door automatic build with the 3-speed:

Drive-train:
Engine: 1.6L 8v - 85hp, 89lb
Transmission - GM TH180/3L30 - 2.40, 1.47, 1:1
Transfer Case - Stock - 1.8:1, 1:1

Stock Axle and Tires:
Front Diff - Aluminum - 4.30:1
Rear Diff - Steel - 4.30:1
Tire - 205/75/15 - 27x8x15

Current Axle and Tires:
Front Diff - Steel + ARB - 5.12:1
Rear Diff - Steel + Mini-Spool - 5.12:1 - Swapped to 12 Bolt Rear End
Tire - 33x12.5x15 Pro-Comp Xterrain

The 4-door 8 valve manual Trackers have the 5.38, the 4-door automatic 3-speed should have the 4.625 gears.

With the 5.12 gears swapped in you should be perfect for the 30" tires, I would probably loose the 2" body lift as it won't be necessary with the 3" suspension lift.  I find, like biker said, it's a bit of a dog on the road.  It is fine up to 50 but she doesn't have a lot of top end, that is where his turbo probably helps the most.  But with only 30" tires you might not run into that issue. 

With a 4-door going with the Kicker 2 is a great option, and I might do it with my 4-door as well this winter. I found that running around on trails I needed the low range, but not 4 wheel drive, and I was just a bit over-geared for rock crawling.  The extra t-case giving you a 5:1 would be perfect for playing on rocks while giving you the straight 1.8:1 for normal trail driving.  Best of both worlds.

OOT industries is working on the Kicker 1 and Kicker 2 units again and hope to start making the Kicker 3 units again this winter.  The Kicker2 unit is around 1200 or so.

Thanks for all the post's it has helped out tremendously. I will post some pics of the transformation.
Shane

If you have the 3 speed auto you should have 4.30 in the diff.

Actually, the '91 4 door is the exception to that rule, it's the only 4 door that came with the 8v & 3 sped auto & has 4.625 diffs. He will still benefit from putting the 5.12's in though.

PDF attached:

Well I got going on it yesterday at 10:30 am and finished at1:13 am. I went with the diff swap while I was doing the suspension (thanks for all the input). It went very well as far as I am concerned , No real problems good thing I had two spare rear diffs Used one for the replacement and the brakes and drums from another seems how the four door rear drums are larger and don't fit the 2 door diff. The kit was fairly simple to install I had to oblong the top hole on the strut for camber, that was the only modification to the original parts. Tires fit nice and looks great. Here are a couple photos.
Thanks again for all the input.
Shane

Looks sweet, great job

So I got to take it in for the wheel alignment today, drives great 120km/hr no problems seems to have lots of power. Tires are not noisy. I definitely like the 5 speed for the bottom end. I could barely spin the tires in the dirt with the auto trans. I heard a header, 2" exhaust, cam and 4 Degree time cog would take care of that, Anybody familiar with this set up? Hopefully have some Camo accents on it this weekend.
Cheers,
Shane

well got the body work and paint done this weekend! here are a couple pics.

started new rear bumper today prefab is done weld it up and paint it tomorrow.

Rear bumper painted up and installed lights done.  I am very happy with the way this one turned out!