Ax15 Clutch Questions

Ax15 Clutch Questions

Allen9878

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Location
Central Wisconsin
Vehicle(s)
1980 Jeep Cj5 Renegade
I258 1987 Engine
Aisin Warner Ax15 Transmission
Dana 300 Transfer Case
I have a 80' CJ5 which I am throwing in a 4.0 with the ax15 Transmission mounted to a Dana 300 . Currently it has an internal slave cylinder and I was wondering if I should replace it with a external slave. What are the benefits and pitfalls of each?

What is involved with making this change and what do I need? I read in another forum that I will need a different input collar... Do they sell a kit? Any information is welcome. Is there anything else I need to do this?
 
Must not be a common thing huh?
 
The factory slave seems to be pretty robust. If it were me, I would replace it with the original equipment.
 
I appreciate the info, I wasn't sure because of reading the below quotes in another post, which prodded me to find out for sure before I go through the work of putting it in:

if you can get the external setup, go for it, if the internal, about 3 years use is all it gets and you will need a new setup when starting your project as the old one is self destructive when you mess with it.


You can blled either of them.Its one is internal and one is external.The external can be changed without pulling the Transmission off the motor.The internal requires splitting the engine Transmission to change.Both styles can be bled.

If using the external on on internal Transmission you will need to change the input collar.



Any other thoughts?
 
I have lots of thought LOL.

First off I can tell you from experience you cannot just "throw" and AX15 into the cj.

To answer your question though the benifit of not using the internal slave is that if your slave cylinder goes out you can replace it without dropping the whole Transmission . With the external slave you could just unbolt the slave and replace it if need be.

You can convert an internal slave ax15 to external but you will need some parts from an external slave model (bellhousing, throw out fork, etc) I dont know the exact stuff because I just bought an external model when I did it.

Things that you will need to make your AX15 swap
AX15(of course)
4.0 flywheel
4.0 inspection plate
4.0 starter
Advance adapter Dana 300 to ax15 kit
tranny mount (preferably from an ax 15 I fabed my own)
New driveshafts( you may be able to just have a shop shorten/lengthen you old shafts)

That should be it mostly.

There are issues that you should be aware of as well:

With a stock height suspension I currently only have about an inch of clearence with between the front drive shaft and the bell housing. THis can be negated in several ways. First (what I am going to try) My stock springs are obviously warped and need to be replaced, Second is a spring lift to push the axle down further and third is to get offset motor mounts from novak or AA and push your engine towar the drivers fender well.

That being said, if you are running any sort of lift on your CJ5 I would definitely put some time into measuring your old drive train compared to your new one. In a CJ7 the rear axle is further back than your 5 and I am currently at like 19.5 inches on the rear drive shaft. Since your axle is closer then I could imagine this would get alot shorter and if you were running any lift you are looking at an extremeley steep angle between your yolks. I am not saying it won't work but I am saying that you should make sure that it will before you install the tranny.

Also you are most likely not going to be able to avoid cutting your tub to make room for your shifter. I went twin stick on my swap so I had to cut alot more up but I don't see how you could avoid cutting even retaining the original shifter.

Finally I suggest you put alot of thought into your clutch pedal. The geometry on the pedals was well thought out by a team of engineers at jeep. So if you do something different then say in a yj where one of these trannies would be found then youa re basically reverse engineering what these engineers did. It takes very little effort to swap in the pedal assembly from a YJ. The brakets are only slighty different so you may be able to get away with just swapping the YJ clutch pedal to the cj assembly but I like to do things all the way. I swapped in the entire assembly and this also allowed me to swap in a YJ brake booster and avoid that trouble people have with adjusting the brake rod for the CJ pedals. Now all my pedals will function like in a factory jeep and not like someone made it in a garage on the fly.
 
I did read your forum before I decided to go ahead with this change out. It was definitely very helpful and alowed me to see almost all of the problems I would have and remedy them before I got to that point. I have the engine and Transmission mounted together and set. I have the clocking ring in the mail with the kit to make that happen.

The Transmission came with the mount so that will help considerably. I will have to make sure the front drive shaft will clear the bell housing. The rear will need to be changed as it will only be roughly 14 or so inches. I will have to go with a double cardan drive shaft to account for the angle of the dangle.

To be honest if I need to get a different bell housing and clutch fork, and possibly more, I wouldn't be inclined to do it. The question I would have is, what are chances that the slave cylinder is going to go bad? Its all in great shape at the moment. . . But I know things happen. Thoughts?
 
I did read your forum before I decided to go ahead with this change out. It was definitely very helpful and alowed me to see almost all of the problems I would have and remedy them before I got to that point. I have the engine and Transmission mounted together and set. I have the clocking ring in the mail with the kit to make that happen.

The Transmission came with the mount so that will help considerably. I will have to make sure the front drive shaft will clear the bell housing. The rear will need to be changed as it will only be roughly 14 or so inches. I will have to go with a double cardan drive shaft to account for the angle of the dangle.

To be honest if I need to get a different bell housing and clutch fork, and possibly more, I wouldn't be inclined to do it. The question I would have is, what are chances that the slave cylinder is going to go bad? Its all in great shape at the moment. . . But I know things happen. Thoughts?

Well correct me if I am wrong but doesn't a new clutch kit for that year come with a new internal slave? I mean if you are doing this you may as well replace the clutch anyhow and if it comes with a new one problem solved...
 
To be honest I have no idea whether it does or not. I was planning on throwing a new one in when I separate it to drop it in. If it does come with a new one that would be sweet.
 
I have lots of thought LOL.

First off I can tell you from experience you cannot just "throw" and AX15 into the cj.

To answer your question though the benifit of not using the internal slave is that if your slave cylinder goes out you can replace it without dropping the whole Transmission . With the external slave you could just unbolt the slave and replace it if need be.

You can convert an internal slave ax15 to external but you will need some parts from an external slave model (bellhousing, throw out fork, etc) I dont know the exact stuff because I just bought an external model when I did it.

Things that you will need to make your AX15 swap
AX15(of course)
4.0 flywheel
4.0 inspection plate
4.0 starter
Advance adapter Dana 300 to ax15 kit
tranny mount (preferably from an ax 15 I fabed my own)
New driveshafts( you may be able to just have a shop shorten/lengthen you old shafts)

That should be it mostly.

There are issues that you should be aware of as well:

With a stock height suspension I currently only have about an inch of clearence with between the front drive shaft and the bell housing. THis can be negated in several ways. First (what I am going to try) My stock springs are obviously warped and need to be replaced, Second is a spring lift to push the axle down further and third is to get offset motor mounts from novak or AA and push your engine towar the drivers fender well.

That being said, if you are running any sort of lift on your CJ5 I would definitely put some time into measuring your old drive train compared to your new one. In a CJ7 the rear axle is further back than your 5 and I am currently at like 19.5 inches on the rear drive shaft. Since your axle is closer then I could imagine this would get alot shorter and if you were running any lift you are looking at an extremeley steep angle between your yolks. I am not saying it won't work but I am saying that you should make sure that it will before you install the tranny.

Also you are most likely not going to be able to avoid cutting your tub to make room for your shifter. I went twin stick on my swap so I had to cut alot more up but I don't see how you could avoid cutting even retaining the original shifter.

Finally I suggest you put alot of thought into your clutch pedal. The geometry on the pedals was well thought out by a team of engineers at jeep. So if you do something different then say in a yj where one of these trannies would be found then youa re basically reverse engineering what these engineers did. It takes very little effort to swap in the pedal assembly from a YJ. The brakets are only slighty different so you may be able to get away with just swapping the YJ clutch pedal to the cj assembly but I like to do things all the way. I swapped in the entire assembly and this also allowed me to swap in a YJ brake booster and avoid that trouble people have with adjusting the brake rod for the CJ pedals. Now all my pedals will function like in a factory jeep and not like someone made it in a garage on the fly.


I found a yj pedal assembly on ebay, would this work for my CJ5 ?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Jeep...ptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories
 
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do you have photos of your AX15 install? I'd love to see them or even the completed job. You mentioned in your post that you used a clocking ring on your Dana 300 . I don't imagine that this is required but only highly desirable. Isn't that correct? Also, I wouldn't imagine that I would need the ring if I'm installing a NP231 behind the AX15. What do you think?
 
If the crossmember of from the AX15 donor is available, how closely does it mate up to the CJ frame? what mods need to be made to the frame to make it work?
 
do you have photos of your AX15 install? I'd love to see them or even the completed job. You mentioned in your post that you used a clocking ring on your Dana 300 . I don't imagine that this is required but only highly desirable. Isn't that correct? Also, I wouldn't imagine that I would need the ring if I'm installing a NP231 behind the AX15. What do you think?
Honestly with the Dana 300 It looks as if you could go without the clocking ring, but only if you drill new holes in the tail of the ax15. I do not recommend this. It is my opinion that would compromise the mating of the two, and be a poor solution. Another reason that I would purchase the clocking ring kit would be because the Dana 300 needs a different bearing that is completely sealed with this set-up, and this comes with the kit. I don't know if you could get this bearing without the kit; I looked.

As for doing this with the np231 I am not sure. That is a setup I am not farmiliar with.
 
If the crossmember of from the AX15 donor is available, how closely does it mate up to the CJ frame? what mods need to be made to the frame to make it work?
I did not have the ax15 crossmember to give it a try. I did order a mounting kit that would have attached the tranny to the original skid plate on my 80' CJ5 . It turned out to be too thick and would have raised the Transmission too much and put the rear driveshaft at a angle I didn't like. I decided to make my own, which was extemely easy. alls it took was 2 polyurathane bushings with a inside metal sleeve ($40) and a quarter inch thich piece of metal roughly 2'' by 6''. I drilled holes in it and the bushings went on both sides of the plate between the skid and the Transmission . It was better made tha the kit sold by Advance adapters (also where I bought the clocking ring)
 
Honestly with the Dana 300 It looks as if you could go without the clocking ring, but only if you drill new holes in the tail of the ax15. I do not recommend this. It is my opinion that would compromise the mating of the two, and be a poor solution. Another reason that I would purchase the clocking ring kit would be because the Dana 300 needs a different bearing that is completely sealed with this set-up, and this comes with the kit. I don't know if you could get this bearing without the kit; I looked.

As for doing this with the np231 I am not sure. That is a setup I am not farmiliar with.

The Dana 300 should have a new process mounting pattern like the np231. With the new bearing you may be able to mount the Dana 300 to the ax 15 directly to the.ax 15 but i am not sire how the angle will turn out.

The np 231 is drivers drop BTW so unless u can flip it or swap in drivers drop axles it won't work for your purposes.....
 

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