Build Thread Goin Postal

[tarry99]

Jesus that sounds expensive for a POOR college student haha. The way it'll be now, shortening the shaft some and flattening the column angle, it'll be no where near 35 degrees. annnnnd forgot what else I was going to mention

That would be the correct way, with a collapsible shaft for safety...........

 

[gliryan]

Well I've been driving this thing around some. I got a new ujoint for my steering setup and installed it. It works great. To really benefit from my tilt I need to move the column up about 2 inches. For me its fine, since I'm pretty short. But taller people can't fit between the wheel and the shifter.

We went wheeling yesterday. The postal did pretty well. The steering still feels sloppy though, and every time I start crawling up a rock the wheels will turn that direction. Maybe its just the shackle reversal acting against the drag link. I'm going to have to check my axle gear ratio today, I really don't think that it is 5.38. Seems more like a highway gear setup because it doesn't crawl very well. I was close to having a roll over or two, but with the hanging help of people was able to keep it on all fours. The body is just so tall, its goofy. And on a climb I didn't make it, then before I could hit the brakes I was already back down and smashed my rear shackle into a rock, reversing it and bending the front of the leaf! After getting towed up the big rock it fixed itself and the leaf looks normal now, probably not as strong as it once was though.

EDIT: I tried to get the gear ratio. With both tires spinning, one wheel turn is about 2.5 driveshaft turns. With one wheel spinning, other on ground, it's a little over 5 drive shaft turns….so maybe the gearing is low and I'm a big whiner, or my Transmission makes it suck.




taller than a 5.5" lifted xj on 35"

 

[gliryan]

Working on my cage.

 

[gliryan]

got a new phone! Pics of the cage in process and done. I also sold the f head that is in the postal this morning. So this afternoon I went and picked up a semi crappy 93 Blazer to steal the motor out of. I'll be scrapping the rest, minus selling the Transmission and tcase. Thursday I hope to go get the T-18 /Dana 20 setup to put behind it. Should be a fun setup. I think my stock axles will blow up very quickly though, so unless I get axles under it I may not get to wheel it again this year





not sure how I really feel about the paint lol



just chopped the core support away to get the driveline out in one pull.

 

[tarry99]

got a new phone! Pics of the cage in process and done. I also sold the f head that is in the postal this morning.

WOW............ not long ago no one could convince you to part with that
4-banger...........Now your into a whole new setup with a V-8 an a T-18 4-speed.

That Blazer should have some decent axles underneath it.............

Is that roll cage tied into the chassis or just the body?

Good for you on the upgrades............

 

[gliryan]

got a new phone! Pics of the cage in process and done. I also sold the f head that is in the postal this morning.

WOW............ not long ago no one could convince you to part with that
4-banger...........Now your into a whole new setup with a V-8 an a T-18 4-speed.

That Blazer should have some decent axles underneath it.............

Is that roll cage tied into the chassis or just the body?

Good for you on the upgrades............

na, its just a vortec 4.3. Still struggling to keep a v8 out of there lol. I've got an 8.8 that I started prepping yesterday, thats how I broke my phone really . Now I just need a chev Dana 44 front to shorten and mate to my soon to be twin sticked Dana 20 .

 

[gliryan]

Got a T-18 today! Also removed the old offset Dana 44 rear axle and started prepping the 8.8 for instal. Should have that in tomorrow as well as maybe start working on pulling the motor, would be nice to get that outta here.

 

[gliryan]

So after weighing options I ended up trading a buddy axle for axle and that settled my predicament! I picked up the t18a with granny first and a Dana 20 as well as the "Iron Duke" bellhousing to make that Transmission /tcase bolt up to the 4.3. Randy dropped off a scout 2 Dana 44 front axle and picked up his new Dana 44 rear for his restoration project.

I sold my F head motor in about 14 hours. Pulled it this morning and called him up to let him know. Well he is also going to buy the Transmission and tcase! Yay for getting rid of stuff. I got the blazer motor out a few days ago and also pulled a couple other things off it. Hopefully next week I can get the stuff put together and in the postal.

Then I need to work on the front axle. Those scout Dana 44 's have 0 caster, as everybody knows, from the factory. Well I was doing some caster research and I found that the articles I read said having positive caster is preferred for lots of things. And I will get positive caster by pointing the pinion up a little. Plus I have a shackle reversal so that gives it even more. But every single thing I read about people working on stuff says that negative caster is what you want. So I'm not sure. I'm probably just going to bolt it up and see what I've got and see how it drives.

I also got the new rear axle in. Ford 8.8, 3.73's and an lsd. I just checked the Dana 44 and it seems to have very close to 4:1 ratio, but just under. I turned the yoke for a few checks and each time the hubs would be just under their fourth rotation. So that sucks, I assume that will not work with the 3.73's in back. I'll pull the cover tonight or tomorrow and look at the gears. It has welded spiders gears in it, so I would like to get rid of that carrier to get just an open setup anyways. However I don't want to buy 3.73's and install them in the Dana 44 because I plan to get somewhere in the 4.38 range, but on the other hand I don't want to buy and swap gears in two axles... Then for the 8.8 I just had to weld on new spring plates, which I already had, and then bolt it in. It seems like the pinion is pointed way up, but I welded the new perches at the same angle as the stock ones…so I'm slightly confused. It is pointed basically right at the current tcase. Hopefully the new driveline is in a similar spot.







Going to miss this little guy

 

[gliryan]

Well been monkeying around with this new motor setup. Got the Dana 20 stripped and pills pulled for the twin stick, waiting on the seal kit to put it back together. Got a clutch/flywheel today for the 4.3L but its the old style, so the flywheel center bore is too big. Now I'm trying to track down a clutch that will work for me, or I'm searching for a regular GM bellhousing and clutch. Slowing me down… I cleaned up the T-18 though and painted it with a little black paint. Looks nice, too bad its not close to going in still.

 

[gliryan]

Got some cool stuff done/in progress today. Got my 33's back on the back again. I picked up the adapters last night as well as a set of 8.8 4.56's, yeah I've got two sets now. Not what I wanted but I knew a friend needed a set as well and the guy a couple hours away from here with gears was really hard to get a hold of. I've been trying to get these for over a month, now I have them.

I also put some metal on the front diff cover. Not much but something to take a little bit of a bump. Lots better than the sheet metal that was there previously. Then I got excited and started grinding away at the knuckles. Got them pretty much ready to rotate to get some caster. I was not wanting to do this at all, but whatever. It'll make the jeep so much better to drive on the road. Now I just need to decide how much caster to put in it with my reverse shackle setup and all.

will be much more stable! And I want a little shorter shackles, that'll help as well. Probably build flares this winter.




so much grinding, I hate grinding.


and little 1/8" strapping

 

[gliryan]

Well I've got my knuckles turned on my front axle. After looking at the cast spring perch, the cj frame and the way it drops so much to the rear leaf mounting point, the arch of my springs, and the geometry of the shackle reversal I'm thinking about going back to the front shackle. It would give me better mounting for the front leaf to the axle due to the casted mount on the scout 2 Dana 44 , leaving me with a better pinion angle. As it sits the leaf has a 10 or so degree slope downward as it goes back, putting the pinion pointing down a lot without any degree blocks. It just seems like at this point a standard shackle setup would be best

 

[gliryan]

Been working on my garage the past few days. Got new wire ran for 220 and a new power box. There is a 220 plug for my new welder and one for my air compressor. Then I cleaned out some of the to make room for the compressor and to get rid of some more stuff that was just garbage.




The tore the front end off my jeep too. Axle is off, leafs and mounts. I cut up some 1/4" angle iron to start outboarding my leafs for the scout 2 Dana 44 . I hope tomorrow I'll have the front all back together. Also I'm not happy with my new Miller 211 welder yet. I miss my Lincoln 140c. Hopefully I can get some time with the blue machine tomorrow and build some trust with it.

 

[gliryan]

Last day of working on this until Monday, and I did alright. I'm relatively pleased with myself. Finally got the god forsaken Miller to work. The spindle for the spool was getting stuck a little so I put some grease on the surfaces and welded up the knuckles. I also got the leaf perches done and welded. The fronts are mearly tacked on as I want 4" shackles (about an inch shorter than current ones) and I'm not sure if I'm going to need to move the front around once the motor gets in there. I put about 10 degrees of castor in the knuckles before welding them up. This is with about 2 degrees of pinion pointing up. So I'm going to get 3 or 4 degree shims to increase pinion angle and reduce the castor. It should travel down the road nicely now though!









Thats all until next week. I'm a little upset with Novak. They have gotten my orders wrong two times in a row. So hopefully that will be straightened out tomorrow and I can get my motor bolted to the Transmission early next week. And be really close to getting this on the trail again this year….

 

[gliryan]

I feel a little like I'm talking to myself but I'll keep updating this as I rest in the evenings after tinkering. Not really happy with Novak still. I know it's not their fault I didn't get my package today but I think they could have given me a quicker shipping method after messing up my orders a few times. Oh well. I built the start of my motor mounts, finished my twin stick setup, bolted the Transmission and tcase together, picked up my flywheel and clutch as well as a drill press.

I wish I had the extra $AMC 150 for an actual twin stick kit, but this works fine. Trying to figure out what to do for knobs though.

 

[gliryan]

Today spent way to much time messing around to get the motor and Transmission bolted together. One of the Novak studs broke, so I had to run to the store to get a bolt. Then changed my mind and went back again and got two new 'real' studs… Worked fine. One of the threaded holes stripped in the bellhousing, had to run a smaller bolt in there….it sucked. Got that bolted together after a few hours.


then put it in and tried to fit it as good as possible.



Couldn't be perfect. I gave up trying to make it fit just right, I'm going to have to cut my tunnel a little bit so that the Transmission can get up a little higher. Otherwise it's alright. If I remember right the old motor stuck down from the frame quite a bit too. I was able to weld on the front engine mounts. I hope to get the crossmember either built tomorrow or modify my old one to work.

 

[gliryan]

Its getting there…. Just got some new tires last night. Worked out good for me in a couple ways, however I did not want something as big as I got. They are 38.5's…




The biggest jobs left to do on this are exhaust and steering setups.

 

[coldair]

What are you going to do with 38's? Looking good so far.

 

[sponge]

WOW! 38's are going to be nuts on this...better get ready for some axle, u-joints, and driveshaft rebuilds!

 

[gliryan]

What are you going to do with 38's? Looking good so far.

It's mainly a wheeling rig anyways, so that's what they are for. They also let me get good tires on my black CJ5 , putting my 33's on that instead of super sketchy 35" ground hawgs.

WOW! 38's are going to be nuts on this...better get ready for some axle, u-joints, and driveshaft rebuilds!

I just hope most of the stuff lasts until the end of next year. Not sure what kind of a job I'm going to be getting yet, so might only make it out a couple times anyways. But yeah, I should probably start pricing some stuff out lol.

 

[gliryan]

screwed around all day with this again. Moved it out of the garage, Transmission left a trail of oil. It's coming out at a good pace, enough for many drips to come out. I'm sure its coming right out the input shaft and then down the front of the Transmission and dripping off the bottom. That's going to be a seal issue, and Novak supplied that. I'll look at that a little more tomorrow, maybe it's coming through the cover, which would be amazing. Power steering pump leaks pretty good too. Need to replace all the orings in it it looks like. I'd swap it for one of my other ones, but it's in such a terrible spot I need to remove the radiator to do the job.

I'm not so sure I can have full droop with my rear axle and have the ujoint not bind up. I also need to get a new diff yoke for the rear so I can use the seemingly more standard ujoints, otherwise this yoke wants me to use the wider joint. I found someone say something about a ujoint that had the wider and narrower parts, 1310 to 1330 size, but I couldn't find them or a part number yet.

It's working like dog poo, but at least it looks cool.