I know it's been preached a million times on the board. I do plan to use Superwich manuals on the 3.0 when it's done.
Today I went out in the sloppy mud, 5 out of the past 6 weeks we've had rain near every day. I was going to go down a slight drop off and missed the turn so I backed up a bit to make the turn, still in 4low. I got down into the nasty bit of mud and low and be hold, no 4wd. I was scared *&))#less I thought for sure I was not making it out of the woods. My lovely the cup's half empty thinking had me believing I broke something very high $$$. Man so scary. The auto hubs had un locked. I wasn't sure when they locked up again. Luckily they did. The worst part at the time was I had a friend and his Jeep owning female friend on board. When it was not such a bad problem and we made it through some very nasty places. It was priceless to here her say, "I wish my Jeep could do this"
I've gotta get the 3.0 up and running and start spending the $$ on it for the extra needful things, such as the manual hubs. I just don't want to spend $$$ or time on the 2.6 only to park it in a few weeks. But I want to wheel it right up until I do. Man the dilemma.