Mike DeVore
My name is Mike DeVore and I've been the store manager of the Indianapolis, IN 4 Wheel Parts since September 2002. I've worked in the aftermarket truck accessory industry for most of my life – at least 18 years. Working in the industry has always been a way to express my love for off roading, which I've been doing since before I had a legal license to drive.
Along the way, I have driven full-size vehicles, SUVs, Jeeps, ATVs, foreign and domestic vehicles, and whatever else I can find to get me in the wood and mud. My current off road vehicle started out as a 1980 Jeep CJ7. I saw parts of it in a rundown shop on my brother-in-law's property and started bartering for it. Two year later, I had worn him down and got to bring it home to Indiana from Missouri on the back of the trailer in milk crates.
I put it in the garage and started to resurrect it. The first thing I did was take what was left of the body off the frame. Parts of the frame were in such bad shape that I had to take them out completely. Then I started building a new suspension for it since I wanted full-width axles. I ended up going with a crazy fourlink design using quarter elliptical springs that I designed on a Waffle House napkin.
Since the drivetrain was completely missing when I got the Jeep, I did some bartering for a rolling chassis out of an S10 Blazer. I started the drivetrain using the 4.3L out of the Blazer and traded for a Turbo 350 transmission. Originally, I used a 205 transfer case but I traded for a Dana 44 front and spent most of my Mondays off junkyarding for a Ford 9 inch rear. On a rainy day when the junkyard was covered in mud and no one there wanted to come out, I scored one for $75 bucks! With enough pieces of metal to hold the body together, I took the tub to Linex and had it sprayed inside and out.
In 8 years of driving it, the Jeep has undergone several renovations and has evolved into Dana 60/8 lug front and rear with ARB Lockers with 538 gears, custom 35 spline shafts, and front drive flanges. It has a 5.7L throttle body injected engine, manual valve body turbo 350 transmission, and twinstick 4 to 1 Dana 300 transfer case. A full roll cage keeps the people in the back seat safe. It also has 17-inch Pro Comp wheels with Staun internal beadlocks and 40-inch Nitto Mud Grappler tires. I recently added Corbeau seats, 5-point harnesses, and rear cutting brakes to help steer in the rocks.
