Growth Spurt

This YJ Can’t Lose With 42S.

- Harry Wagner

TEENAGERS AND THEIR PARENTS DON’T ALWAYS HAVE A lot of common ground. People try to blame the current generation, but it has been a phase of life for as long as parents made rules and kids had to follow them. Fortunately Jake Garfinkle and his father, Dan, have always been able to find common ground through four-wheeling. His father has been into Jeeps since college and currently drives a JK Wrangler. It only made sense that Garfinkle would follow in his dad’s footsteps. He got a four cylinder YJ when he was 17. That was seven years ago, and they Jeep has seen a lot of changes since.

First Garfinkle put a Dana 44 and Ford 8.8 under the Jeep and did a spring-over lift to fit 37-inch tires. Then the engine came out, and one thing led to another. Garfinkle had been doing all of the work himself with the help of family and friends, but that changed last year when he joined the Air Force and trained to be a crew chief for Lockheed C-130s. During the eight months that Garfinkle spent at Lackland AFB, Sheppard AFB, and Little Rock AFB, Samco Fabrication in Reno, Nevada, built a completely custom suspension for the YJ to complement the V-8 engine, 1-ton axles, and 42-inch tires that this once little YJ acquired over the past seven years.