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Hello again Taylor95,
My wife has been really supportive.
Hmm, the gear swap might not actually be that bad with my current tires - peak torque for the 4.0 OHV is at 2750RPM vs 3000RPM on the SOHC. Swapping in 4.10 gears with the 235/75R15's would take 55mph/5th gear rpms from ~1848 to ~2135 - still below torque peak, so probably on the same BSFC "island" (don't have a map for this engine). What has me more worried is the effect of an LSD in winter with RWD on road manners. Hello fishtailing!
I don't *have* to get new tires - I have two sets of good tires, one 235/75R15 and one 32x11.5R15. I just don't want to run the 32x11.5R15 mud tires in winter due to the bad effects of wide tire and lack of siping on winter roads. 33x10.5 are not cheap, so I'd need to do very well selling the 32x11.5R15's to get those. 32x11.5R15 fit with only a bit of "persuading" of some plastic fender liner bits. Narrower tires should be similar/better - people have reported 33x10.5 with the same mods that fit 32x11.5, so long as you get the backspacing correct to fit the wheelwell. The 255/75R17 Jeep Rubicon take-offs are inexpensive - and often come with wheels that just need spacers to fit. 265/70R18 are an inexpensive size, just need 18" rims that fit. These larger rim sizes are not ideal for off-road, but most of this truck's miles will be on-road commuting. I can save my pennies and get some bias-ply P78x16C Buckshot Mudders or 33x9.5 Super Swampers to put on a set of used cheap steel Explorer rims for off-road use only. If I swap in the 4.10 gears.
Either way, sometime in late February or early March one of the two trucks *must* be out of the garage, unless I buy a shed to stuff all the not-truck stuff into so I can make room. GS Cookie Season - need a place to store all the cookies for the Troop... No work in the garage during that time-frame, either. Given that it took me 4 months to replace a clutch, I can't put Green Truck into the garage for a big job at all, as it'll never be done in time. I *might* be able to pull off a rear axle swap with parking brake actuator repair in that time-frame - 24 bolts per truck, plus 1 brake line fitting per truck and 1 parking brake cable connection per truck. 4.10 in the rear, 3.55 in the front - no front driveshaft. Rear ABS sensor reads the ring gear, so it should not freak out with the different ratio. Then I need to plan on a time after GS Cookie Season to do the front axle swap, complete with new hubs and rotors and shocks and at least the upper ball joints... Or I can just fix the rear brake line for now to get Green Truck rolling again and just start stripping Black Truck of all the goodies I want to put into Green Truck. A stretch goal would be to swap the lift shackles and rear shocks in, too, to get a stable rear end height. That's only 16 more bolts. Right rear shackle on Green Truck is rotten/cracked, so I *should* do that sooner rather than later.
In lieu of parking brake, I just tied together a set of wheel chocks. Put one under each driver-side tire, and the rope fits over the driver mirror so it doesn't get buried in the snow. I had to do this because the truck will now back down the driveway against engine compression with the truck in reverse. Don't need to wake up to find it half-way into the street, with a ticket on it and a plow berm piled up around it, or a vehicle slammed into it...
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