Doing a Ax15,and YJ Booster Swap

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Got a longer bolt from lowes for that side that I couldn't get threaded. It was a tad too long so I got a nut and used it as a spacer and pressed it together. It popped back out a little but was enough to thread the original bolt. I was able to drop it down a little and tilt the engine enough to get in with extender and a joint for the socket driver and got the top two. One of the original starter bolts was way to short to make it through the metal in the new starter and still thread, so I had to run to the store and get a longer one.

For anyone doing this swap there are a few differences in the bolts between the 2 trannies. The bottom three bolts on the bottom of the T-5 bellhousing screw into the belhousing from the engine side of the Spacer plate. on the ax15 the bolt in the center at the bottom bolts the same way but is a different thread pattern and the two on the outside bottom both thread completely through and use a nut to bolt up. Luckily the bolts between the alignment dowels and the upper engine bolts on the T-5 bolt the same way so I used them on the bottom. The T-5 has a centered top bolt to the engine and the ax15 doesn't.

The bolts that were designed to mount into the housing were not the correct thread to take from the T-5 to the ax15. THey aren't structural and as far as i can tell they just keep the spacer plate from rattling so I left em out. If it rattles I will go to the pick and pull some other time.

I hooked up the starter. It came with my 01 nv3350 so i may be different if you get one from a donor, this one required I run wire from an acc on line to it.

I haven't got the Redline MTL in the mail yet so I didnt want to run the engine, also haven't fabbed a tranny mount yet but I did have the GF tap the starter while I stared at the output spline. It TURNS!!!! Eureka!!:cheers2: Hopefully by the time the AA clocking kit gets in I will have the tranny mounted and have figured out the hydraulic linkages.

Bolt I used to to press the BH onto the dowell

Just some shots I got trying to show the BH mated. You can see my 50 cent starter bolt.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Today I decided to focus on the Transmission plate and mount. I wanted to try to reuse one of the ones I already had(one from the T-5 and one from the AX5 I mistakenly picked up the AX15 didnt have it) I decided on the AX5 mount, not because it fit better or anything as both the T-5 and AX5 mounts did not match the bottom of the 15, because the rubber bushing on it was in mucho better condition than the T5s.(If you do this and have the original Tranny mount use it!) My measurement on how far to space out the new bolt hole was off by a good bit, around a 1/4 of an inch (OOPs) so I spent some time elongating the two bolt holes. In the end the AX5 mount saw things my way and it and it rubber bushing plate are now mated to the tranny.

So onto the X-member. The stock member in my cj(1982) has Three tiers on it the highest being the side closest to the engine. The original T-5 bolted to the middle. My plate had an extra set of holes already drilled into it factory. I am assuming this is because of the other models of cj's available that year. I do not want to redrill and tap the frame if I can avoid it. The second set of factory holes gains me about maybe a half an inch rearward from the stock configuration. So I estimate that close to 2" of the main case of the TC will over hang the rear of the plate. I can maybe gain a half to 3/4s of an inch if I redrill new holes into the plate but anything past that and I run out of metal in the front. So that would put me at 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 inches. I don't think this will be an issue as 9 times out of 10 the CJ will be traveling forward. But I do think I am going to wait till clocking ring comes (Tuesday i think) and I get the TC installed before I commit to drilling the X-member, worst case I would just drill 1 hole on the pass and driver side frame instead of 6.

I wanted to start messing with the clutch today but the clouds are starting to look extremely threatening so I am going to put everything away before I get caught in the rain.:thumbsup:

Shot of the Training wheels(the Tranny jack) off

Shot of my super 'professional' and 'safe' drilling set up and the hole I ended up with.


Mount installed

Tried to get a shot of the holes originally drilled into the x-member, the rear ones where the ones mine originally were bolted to.

Shot of the Mount with the x-member mocked up to the frame using the other set of mount holes.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

I put my old Transmission access plate back on just to see how much I had to cut up. The tranny has to drop down a little when i mount it to the X-member so it may be early to celebrate, but I nearly peed my pants when I saw that the shifter assembly comes up in the same spot as the old T-5 I took a pic but left it in the CJ cause I was cleaning up when it started raining and forgot it. But I dont have to cut the floor Im just happy somehting just happened to line up with out any angle grinders, hammers, or tears!

Here is an image of the stock Transmission plate from the T-5 . I still am tickled it ended up not needing to be cut up.... at least for the Shifter the TC shifter may be a different story.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Pics of the x-member with the new set of hole drilled at the shop,ran about 25 bucks. And it wil move the cros member back close to 1.5 inches from it's original position and I am pretty confident there will be plenty on metal in the front now after looking at it.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

The AA clocking kit and bearing came in today. It was pretty easy getting into the TC the hex bolts holding the retainer on have no real torque to them and all i needed was a mini crowbar to seperate the assembly from the case. The inside of the TC was actually really clean, I was incredibly surprised there was no scarring or anything on the gears. Once I got all the C-clips off everything came apart. I couldnt get the bearing off though. Here is a quote from AA's instructions for the installation of their kit:

http://www.atlas-tc.com/pdf/50/50-8603.pdf
"By removing the snap ring on this assembly, these items will need to be taken apart. Once the items aredisassembled, you will need to set aside the stock aluminum retainer and the stock roller bearing."

I like how casual they make removing the bearing sound. I made a call to AA and they said "that needs to be pressed off" Well thanks if I had known that I could have planned for it and not missed closing time for the Machine shop near by. Going to go first thing in the morning and I hope to have the TC in tomorrow and then torque all the bell housing bolts and crossmember bolts and have the driveline in tomorrow.

THat will just leave the thing I have been avoiding this whole time and should have been working on while the AA kit was shipping... the Hydraulic clutch and pedal assembly. I looked today and just eyeballing it doesnt seem that the Cherokee assembly is going to fit nor will the pedals fit into the assembly. I was hoping to get the YJ setup from the guy that sold me th ax5 but he isnt answering the phone. So looks like I am going to have to figure out how to rig it to the original pedal. I had found a write up on a guy that used the AA hydraulic clutch conversion and will have to look at what he did for the MC.

AA Kit-

Input assembly removed

insides of the Dana 300

Gear Removed

Aluminum housing retaining ring removed

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Got the Input shaft bearing installed today. If you are inexperienced with this stuff like I am then don't make the same bonehead mistake I did, bring the new aluminum tail housing with you and not just the input shaft and the new bearing. You will need to have them press the new bearing onto the shaft and then press the bearing into the aluminum housing. Also a dumb move I made was I didnt remove the two studs that were in it originally as I thought they were supposed to be retained. These need to come out and it will be much easier if you do this before bolting the clocking ring to it. I ended up grabbing some bolts that I had pulled out of the floor because they seemed to serve no purpose than just existing and welding them on.(If there is a more ingenius way to remove threaded studs I would love to know for future reference)

The New aluminum input housing is much smaller than the old one. When the tranny was on the ground I had tried a test fit and the tail housing was the issue. So you may be able to just redrill/elongate the tranny tailhousing holes to match your Dana 300 clocking and avoid the clocking ring. That way you can resell the clocking ring as you seem to have to get the bearing/input housing and the clocking ring together. My tranny is already in the truck so just for the purpose of reducing headaches I am just going to go with it.

Sealed Bearing Installed

New Housing pressed on and Gear reinstalled and old housing for comparison

Installed on Dana 300 and a shot comparing how much they stick out


Clocking Ring installed

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Well the TC is installed and I torqued all the crossmember and Belhousing bolts in. When I put the Dana 300 on the jack I was amazed to see that it cleared
the floor board in the horizontal clocking. I was planning on going for a lower clocking but AA specifically said in the instructions that if you clocked it below the horizontal the shifter assy would hit the tranny case and need to be ground down to clear it. Since they failed to mention some important steps like, "you have to be able to press the bearing onto the input shaft" I assumed that if they said it it must be true.

The shifter assy looked like it would clear the tranny in the lower positions but it was alot more convienient to just stick it in horizontal and not tempt having to pull out the angle grinder. Once the holes were marked I dropped it down and screwed in the studs by hand and lifted it back up and it slide in with some wiggling and elbow grease. you can't reallyget in there with a socket to tighten the nuts so this is a bit time consuming with a crescent wrench.


I think I am going to go ahead and hook the front Drive shaft back up so I can drive it to a shaft shop(if I can find one around Galesburg,Il) once I get the Clutch figured out. It probably won't be super safe but as long as I'm not flexing it it should just get me there.

Tomorrow I am going to tackle the hyd clutch assy. I want to try to use the CJ clutch pedal because the guy with the AX5 never got back with me to mail me those YJ pedals. I have the original clutch pedal from the donor cherokee this AX15 came from and the pedal itself doesn't look like it will fit on the cj one so push come to shove I may cut the MC rod hook up off the cherokee pedal and weld it to the cj pedal.

THis pic shows the weep hole that the AA instructions refers to. This needs to be plugged. I went with blue RTV but I am sure there is a rubber gromet out there that will fit this.

Photos of the Dana 300 with the clocking ring attached to the the tranny. You can see from the top that in order for the TC shifter (even with bending) to make it through the floor some metal will have to go. Its thin sheet metal so thats no biggie

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

decent pic of the weephole i mentioned

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Ok so aside from the Drive shafts the running gear is installed. The hydraulic clutch was actually a breeze to install. I didnt even pull the clutch pedal off the assembly (this wasnt by choice, the c-clip tool i bought at Advance was a POS so I just drilled it in place) The main concern was how to make sure the pedal returned to the up position, the spring in the stock set up will pull the pedal straight to the floor if after being depressed to a certain point, if just pushed a little though it seemed to return to the up position. So I decided to focus on drilling the hole for the MC before worrying on how it was going to attach to the pedal.

Well I got a 1 1/2 hole saw and drilled through the fire wall just below the bottom right of the fuse panel. I almost had a brain fart and made the hole even with the bottom of the panel and the second before I went to drill the pilot hole it dawned on me that the upper bolt on the MC would be going into the fuse panel this way. So I relocated a bit lower. The 1 1/2 inch hole was perfect because it was slightly larger than I needed and allowed me to play with it in different position before committing to placing the bolts for it. It ended coming out so that the side of the Push rod was even with the left side of the pedal.

After eyeballing it I decided that I could drill a hole in the clutch pedal just put a bolt through it and just keep it simple. So I marked where the hole needed to go in the pedal and went to try to remove the clip that holds it in but couldn't get any of the heads on the clip remover tool things I bought for the purpose to fits it so I ended up getting on my back and twisting myself into really uncomfortable positions and drilled the hole in place, holding it half way depressed and coming from behind the brake pedal on the right side. It produced a hold that was not as purty or straight as I wanted but good enough for me.

After that it was just a matter of figuring out the right combo of nuts and spacers to hold the rod as straight as possible. And I found that I didn't even need to change out the original spring as the MC maxes out on the amount it can be depressed before the clutch pedal reaches the point where the spring pulls it to the floor.

The clutch didnt feel quite right at first but I think that is because I accidentlally knocked the slave cylinders plunger off the other day and let air into the line. I beleive this is supposed to be a self bleeding set up as it has a nipple on the MC cover that you can hear air hissing out of. If not I may eventually just buy another linkage setup new or from a junker.

Its kinda hard to tell since the shafts arent hooked up but I started it in 1st with the clutch in and the speedo read 0 then let the clutch out and it climbed up to 15mph. So there is no doubt the linkages are engaging the Throw Out. Hopefully this will be as succesful when the Drive Shafts are hooked up and there is actually a load on the tranny.

Just need to find a DriveShaft shop in or around Galesburg Il if anyone knows of one please refer me.
MC placement


Hooked to the pedal

 

[BajaEdition]

I really am having a good time watching this thread evolve.
You are doing a great job with both the adaption of the tranny and with the documentation of everything, including the walls that keep coming up and you have to find a way to climb over them. I applaud you for the stark honesty in which you are showing in listing everything good and bad.
I want to thank you for this, it will be a valuable thread for anyone doing any thread to read as it shows what you need to deal with and how you have to source answers.
thanks again for this thread.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

I really am having a good time watching this thread evolve.
You are doing a great job with both the adaption of the tranny and with the documentation of everything, including the walls that keep coming up and you have to find a way to climb over them. I applaud you for the stark honesty in which you are showing in listing everything good and bad.
I want to thank you for this, it will be a valuable thread for anyone doing any thread to read as it shows what you need to deal with and how you have to source answers.
thanks again for this thread.

THanks BAJA that makes me glad I posted this Info I wanted it to be helpful and wanted to answer all the questions I had going into the swap. It may be too late to celebrate because the CJ wont idle now and after I messed with it for a while it started trying to start in ACC on I cant think of how the Tranny would cause this issue but the truck ran engine wise when I parked it to pull the T-5

If you want Honesty:
You can save a whole lot of time by having the the right parts and and working area. There is no slab her to work on and the ground is too soft to jack the truck up so I have been doing this with the lift from 31 tires.

Also you have to buy the AA ax15 to Dana 300 sealed bearing and clocking kit. You may be able to get away with not using the clocking ring and resell the clocking ring but if you dont get the sealed bearing then oil will pass from tc to tranny and tranny to tc because the Dana 300 originally made a seal through the other means.

Those were the things that slowed me down the most. Oh and I put off doing the clutch linkages this whole time because I was confused how it worked and thought I was going to have to do all sorts of craziness to get it to work and it ended up being super simple and I should have taken care of it while I waited for the clocking ring.

 

[CJ]

I really am having a good time watching this thread evolve.
You are doing a great job with both the adaption of the tranny and with the documentation of everything, including the walls that keep coming up and you have to find a way to climb over them. I applaud you for the stark honesty in which you are showing in listing everything good and bad.
I want to thank you for this, it will be a valuable thread for anyone doing any thread to read as it shows what you need to deal with and how you have to source answers.
thanks again for this thread.

I echo Baja here, you have done one hell of a write up

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

So this is frustrating, yesterday I tried the front driveshaft. It looks like once j get a new one it will clear the cross member but looks like it is going to be a pig's but hair awAy from from the belhousing if not touching he housing. Also the ax15 is well over 2 or three inches longer. I clocked the tc at paralell to the ground because it surprisingly cleared the floor board but now it looks like that is bitting me in the <-BAD WORD-> because the angle is two high to give the ds and room to flex upward. Now I have to pull the tc of and remove all the studs and try clocking it lower or maybe take some metal off the BH. Anyone have any suggestions here?

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Ok I am not happy about the drive shaft Issue. I am going to pull down the tc tomorrow or wed And clock it two or three positions lower. If I have to gring the shifter assembly so be it.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

I couldn't resist the urge any longer and got ordered a twin Stick to go with the Dana. There is a shop on eBay sellin em for 90 something after shifting and comes with knobs and the boot. U figured since this project is being such a time consuming pain I might as well add more complication. I will probably never use it but hey at least I'll have it.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

I reclocked the TC today... It made such a huge difference being able to do this on a solid peice of concrete instead of the spongy ground at the property in Il. I found that AA is wrong in their instructions again. I clocked it at the lowest position, the position that their install instructions say that you will have to edit the shifter assembly to clear the tranny case. This was not an issue the assembly cleared the tranny just fine. It was like a hair off the case but Who cares.

I am not reinstalling the single shifter assembly for the Dana 300 as I splurged and got a twin stick off ebay and it will mount a tad different than original so if you are doing this and do not go that route you may want to make sure you install the retaining bolt for the shifter as you will not be able to stick it through the assembly without cutting a hole in the floor.

Un fortunately, although reclocking brought the yoke downward, I still do not have an awful lot of clearence on the bell below the BH. I think I am going to call AA and see what they say about that.

With out further ado pics of the TC at the new clocking

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

I called AA this afternoon and popped the question" have ya'll commonly had issues with bellhousing clearence on the front driveshaft." The answer I got was all the time. So I was told to buy their motor mount kit that offsets the engine... No thank you. Maybe if you are planning for some hardcore stuff this is a good solution but just want to fix this up to be a nice cj.

I am wondering if it would affect the integrity of the belhousing to shave some material off for drive shaft clearence. I'd imagne that if you were doing any hardcore off roading you would have a much bigger lift so the clearnce would not be an issue and for that matter you probably wouldn't be installing a five speed anyhow. I may try to get some new stock height springs as these seem to be sagging or maybe some 1.5 inch springs from Rusty's.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Well for all who are still interested I got my Twin stick today. The one I bought can be found here: Jeep Dana 300 Stainless twin-stick shifter with boot,CJ : eBay Motors (item 150437042163 end time May-04-10 12:00:18 PDT)

It was a pretty good deal and the craftsmanship seems pretty sturdy. Its a very simple set up so I am sure if you are creative you can make your own at home.

The first problem I ran into was that this was made specifically for a stock CJ Drive train which have a lot lower clocking than I was able to get from AA clocking kit so the rear yolk control lever (or whatever you want to call it) was jamming into the tranny shifter. After a closer inspection I decided I was going to go Crazy and just mount it opposite of the way the manufacturer intended. It seemed to fit so Problem solved.

This brought me directly to my second problem which was the the adapter that mounts the stick on the left side had a weld to retain a bolt that interfered with the shifter for the front drive shaft(it will be a little clearer in the pics. Basically as it was if you tried to move the right stick(front driveshaft) it would bring the left one along for the ride. The base of these are really thick metal and since the welded bolt seems incredibly important I decide to take metal off the bottom of the shifter instead of the weld. Once that was done everything fit together nicely and shifts without interference.

It was hard to measure where exactly the sticks were going to come out so Opted to just cut a nice ugly hole in the tub(so glad it isnt a glass tub) which ended up being about the same size as the hole in the Tranny acces plate. Of course instead of being a hole in the access plate now its a huge hole in the tub but I am ok with it, I am sure the next owner is going to curse my name tho lol. I cut a peice that I am just going to rivet over the old TC shifter hole and I need to get some ruber gasket material so I can make the weather lock to go under the shift boots as the old one fell apart.

I found that I could not get the bolt through the shifter housing because it was too long to get around the tub. If you know you are going twin stick then I suggest going ahead and cutting the left arm of the shift tower off while the tranny is on the ground because it was an ugly job trying to do it in that little space I had. once I cut it off I still found the bolt was impacting the side of the tub and therefore not going through all the way. So i further abused my jeep by grabbing a one inch hole saw, measureing and cutting a hole in the floor so that the bolt can be accessed from inside the tub. I have an extra drain plug that will fit right into this spot so I think wilkl be just fine from now on.

The last issue I had was that it looks like the shifters are taking up a lot of space where the passenger seat needs to slide back and forth and lift up. I need to have the shift levers bent a little, which isnt surprising and I wouldn't mind them a tad closer to the driver anyhow. Just need to find a decent shop for that in Mobile if anyone knows one?? Also while I am asking I still need to find a shaft shop if anyone has any suggestions.

I am happy with it over all its pretty cool. In retrospect because I had to flip it around it turned out to be a little more PITA than I had been expecting. But these jeeps always have a way to kick ya when you least expect it.

PICS:
Twin stick kit:

I love this, these are the instructions that came with it. Seven words and just a pic of what it should look like, "Make it So!" Notice that the pic shows the elbows on the shifters facing toward the tranny. I installed my setup with them facing the passenger to avoid hitting the tranny shifter. If you have the sticks bent before installation i think that you can intall them the correct way but this seemed easier for me.

Shot of well before cutting

The ugly hole I ended up with

I decided that I needed to put a support across the top of the hole to prevent the lip from bending, Notice my welding skills are far worse than my cutting skills.

This is what the right shifter looked like after My angle grinder got done with it.


Mocked up with the access plate.

Mocked up with the interior, I ordered a rattle can that is supposed to be colormatched to the brown copper mettalic my jeep is so I decided to try painting the shifters, I think they dont look too bad.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Got the driveshafts from the shop today, it drives!

I decided I am going to turn the twin sticks around the right way and just have a machinist bend them slightly so I can clear reverse and 5th. Instead of welding up that ugly hole I cut to clear the shifters I am going to make a access plate to allow access to the shifter base for later removal if need be.

I am almost done with this project!

I wonder how long this will stay this good looking silver color?!

here I tried to snap a shoft of the belhousing clearence. I will get a better pic of it and the rear shaft installed tomorrow

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Well I has a major set back today. I had a major fuel delivery issue halfway though this project and today when I thought I was ready to make my first road drive and was trying to tune the carb and timing for, the hydraulic linkage found it's way to the exhaust pipe. Melted right through it. So now I am grounded again till I can source the hose from the pick-n-pull or heaven forbid mopar:censored

I am pretty aggravated by this.

Also a local guy that is a huge cj fan and owns like six came buy to get some parts and told me that I made a huge mistake in my placement of the master cylinder. He claims I need to find a yj clutch pedal and then punch out the hole a tad higher (there is a pre stamped hole for 4banger cjs) and everything should link up. I may do this eventually as it does seem smarter but for now I got a lot more pressing issues that moving the mc upwards to lengthen the throw