The daily driver.
Now:

It's a '96 Geo Tracker 2-door convertible with a 6" Calmini lift (3" body and 3" suspension). Originally it was riding around on 31x10.5R15 BFG Long Trail tires on some 15x7 steel wheels with 2.5" of backspacing.

I wanted better tires so I sold those BFG's and eventually got some 31x10.5R15 Wild Country RVT's which I put on those rims after I cleaned them up and repainted them:

I need to regear it to 5.12 so I can actually turn them. The gas mileage isn't that great with the stock 4.30 gears and the 5.12's. I'd still be running the stock tires but one had some issues and I decided to just throw the 31's on anyways.

If you notice above the wheels were kinda crusty from surface rust. The previous owner seemed surprised that spray paint didn't protect raw steel well from Michigan winters and road salt. I cleaned the wheels up, put down two coats of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator paint, and then covered them in Rustoleum Hammered Black. They looked really good sitting in my shed while waiting for the 31" muds.

Meanwhile I was driving around on the 215/75R15 Goodyear Wrangler GS/A's I have for sale. It didn't handle bad or seem tippy thanks to the stiff Calmini suspension but it did look kinda silly. Reminded me of a roller skate. Along with the 31's some 5.12 geared thirds out of my '90 parts donor are going in to regear it for the bigger tires. It's pretty slow with the 31's and the stock 4.30 gears meant for 27" tires.

The previous owner wasn't much of a mechanic so I've been fixing his (or whoever he got ripped off by to do work on it) "work". One of the first problems I ran into was that the air filter box was basically sealed shut. Someone stripped out the screws and jammed in bigger round head slot bolts with nuts on the end...which were rusted into one piece. I ended up going with a setup that tracker_camps96 (he's in my friends list if you want to see his Tracker) told me about. It was cheaper than getting another used air filter box and filter.

The basics are you remove the stock air filter box and install a K&N cone filter on the end of the air tube. It really isn't very hard. First off the K&N part number is RU-3610 and it's available anywhere you can get K&N filters. Price seems to be in the $35-40 US range.
You'll notice in the picture on the left above I removed the air box but left the hose that runs from the fender to it. I figure it can't hurt anything there and it's always throwing a bit of cold air at the intake at any rate. Now there are a few things you will need to deal with to make the filter mount up.
First off there's a rubber ring on the end of the MAF sensor housing that has to come off. On mine the coating of dust and grime made it appear to be part of the housing but simply twisting it brought it off the housing easily.

After that the K&N can be installed. I used the hose clamp that came with the filter to clamp the filter to the MAF housing.
Next you have to deal with the IAT sensor that was originally plugged into the side of the stock air box. You'll have to remove it from the stock airbox to take the airbox off.
Note that the IAT must be in front of the MAF. You can't put it behind the MAF in the air tube.
I simply took a drill bit slightly smaller than the threads of the sensor and drilled a hole in the rubber edge of the K&N after the pleats. Then I just twisted/pushed the filter in there. Since the edge of the K&N is a rubber material if you drill the hole slightly small it should retain the sensor well.

The last step is to keep the filter off the hood and or any other body work. If you just let it hang off the end of the air tube it would likely start rubbing against something as you drove down the road and would eventually wear a hole in itself. My Tracker has a 3" body lift so the engine and air tube are down 3" in relation to the fender where I mounted it, but the procedure should be similar for all vehicles of this type. Anyways, back to the mounting. Underneath the MAF housing is a flat piece of metal that mounts on the "rear" side of the housing and then extends downwards to a piece that runs horizontally under the housing. It originally mounted to the stock air box. I left it on the MAF sensor housing and bent the horizontal piece so it went vertically down from the MAF sensor housing. Then I simply positioned the filter so that it is not touching any body work and ran a sheet metal screw through the hole in the end of the metal and into the fender. Simple and easy.

I'll update this if I have to make any changes or improve anything. So far though, the installation was very simple and relatively cheap. It's also much better than the dodgy bodgework I had before and the paper filter that was GREY with crap. I had to stick a flashlight into the opening on the airbox to even see that...glad I replaced it. Afterwards you should notice a bit more of a growl coming from in front of you because of the new air intake and a bit better throttle response. I make no claims on performance or mileage but it does seem to respond a bit better now and with as big and free flowing a filter as it has now, I can't see how it could hurt anything. Although in my case even another stock paper filter would be better than the filthy one that was in my sealed airbox.
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If you live somewhere that rust isn't an issue, BE THANKFUL!
It's Labor Day '06 and the plan was to take the fenders off, treat all the rust I could see on the body with Magnet Paint's Chassis Saver, and then put Herculiner bedliner half way up the body to cover this and prevent future rust. I can't paint for $hit anyways.
Then I started disassembling stuff:



Some of this I knew was going to be an issue, some of this I didn't. I'm pretty sure I can fix it for now but this thing won't be around in 2020 to put it mildly. Least I can keep the floorboards from getting wet while I own it.

Got the Herculiner on this week and painted the grill with Duplicolor Hammered black spray paint. Looks pretty good if you ask me.

If you're wondering what I did to cover the rust holes it was actually pretty simple and I owe it to something done on Project TrailLex in 4-Wheel & Off-Road magazine. After the rust was taken care of and the Chassis black was dried I took small squares of duct tape and placed them over all of the rust holes and a few of the holes left over from the rocker panel fascia and rear bumper fascia. Then I simply Herculined over them. After 2 coats of the stuff you can't even tell where they are.

A picture from before the grill was painted and another after the grill was painted:

Close up of the Hammered finish if you haven't seen it before. Good stuff for covering up rust, crappy body work, or you just want a durable finish that doesn't show your crappy spray painting skills...like mine:

Just a tip for anyone with one of these and the Calmini 3" suspension lift, I found a cheaper (and better) shock to use in the rear. A rear shock for a 98 (I think that means 97-03 but don't quote me on that) Ford F150 2wd (non-Lightning) fits about perfect. The NAPA Response shocks for this application are actually both slightly shorter and longer than the Calmini shock while they cost $25 each instead of $30+ and then shipping Calmini wants fore each of their crappy shocks.

You can even reuse the stock lower shock bolts but in my case I had to cut both off. Damn Michigan road salt.

Because the 31x10.5R15's are mounted on 15x7's with only 2.5" of backspacing the tires stick out a noticeable amount. To try and keep the body as clean as possible and hopefully intercept any debris the tires kick up on or offroad I got some flexible rubber fender flares. Yep, they're the ones from JCWhitney. They're actually a pretty good product for what you pay and if I have any problems with them I doubt it will be from anything other than my particular mounting methods. We'll see how it goes but they look good so far.

The rear doors on these things are known for cracking around the spare tire's mount due to the stresses associated with holding it up, even on stock sizes. My '90 has a nice big crack there and it's never had anything larger than a stock sized 27" tire on there.
Meanwhile I've got this nice, big 31x10.5R15 on a steel rim to hang on there and ever since I sold the 205 spare there hasn't been any squeaking like I got when the spare was hanging off of the door. I decided I liked the lack of squeaking more than the crappy subwoofer and amp setup of the previous owner so I'm in the process of removing the mount from the rear door, taking out the subs and amp and their wiring, and then mounting the spare and it's mount to the passenger side of the inside of the Tracker. That will keep it out of the way and leave me with some floorspace to fit tools and such. When there's no rear seat in these things they actually have a decent amount of room back there.

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Page 2 is stuff for sale and the parts donor.