Rebuilding Ford T18 for CJ5

[Turbogus]

Okay the CL Transmission is mine. I'll compare the gears on the mainshaft when I get it home and choose the best for the conversion.

 

[Hedgehog]

Try to keep your gear sets together. Remember they have been meshing or lapping each other in for a very long time. Mixing old gears can be problematic, not a disaster, if a gear is broken it needs to be replaced. The new Transmission looks to be in very decent shape.

Honestly, if it were me and for my '80 CJ5 it was, I'd spin it up and check for damage, slop and smoothness. If the bottom end passes a reasonable test I'd leave it alone. You'll be replacing the mainshaft anyways, a close inspection of the main gear clusters will be easy at that time.

 

[Turbogus]

This Transmission is a '68, while the one I've been working on is an '80, but 'BB' is a '78. I knew that of bearings and it just slipped my mind on gears, I knew better but this was a runner when he pulled it, he said and those really look way better than my 1980 T-18 .

 

[Hedgehog]

Somebody seriously abused the newer Transmission . No oil, bad clutch, something was seriously wrong there.

 

[Turbogus]

I guess the P.O. didn't know how to drive a non synchoed 1st and reverse Transmission . I got lots of practice in the Marines driving 2 1/2 and 5 ton trucks. Those "deuce and a half" trucks had a freaky shift pattern to boot.

 

[Turbogus]

I brought the case of my 1980 to work, going to use some engine degreaser on it and see if I can get that dang shaft out at AAMCO. They were kind enough to get me started on this by pulling the front and rear bearings for me for free. That is turning out to be less of a challenge than this dang shaft it is IN there. I'm doing this just in case the deal on that 1968 T-18 goes south.

 

[Turbogus]

The local AAMCO shop did me right again, they were able to get that dang shaft out by pushing it in ?!? Apparently on this T-18 the Reverse Idler Shaft is not tapered. They pulled it for free!
Headed to Portland tomorrow to take a look at a '68 T-18 that looks prettry clean. May be the answer as some of the gears in mine are compromised.

 

[Hedgehog]

Okay the CL Transmission is mine. I'll compare the gears on the mainshaft when I get it home and choose the best for the conversion.

Okay - Now I'm confused. You are going to Portland to look at the clean T-18 , but I thought you already had it. Or are you just going to pick it up?

I thought it might be a possibility that you were trying to remove the shaft in the wrong direction.

 

[Turbogus]

I had agreed to purchase it from the seller if it all checked out, and it did.

It turned out that the Reverse Idler Shaft in this case was not tapered. It made logical sense to me that the Tremec manual said to use an angled drift from the inside of the case, which would follow and the end of the shaft on the inside was concave. Phil at Aamco said it just tapped right in from the outside easily with a straight drift like the one I used to remove the countershaft. Kind of counterintuitive I would say.

 

[Turbogus]

https://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/pts/d/Transmission /6243650624.html[/URL]

I just wanted to give a BIG Thank You to Hedgehog.
That Transmission was way cleaner than mine (gear-wise). I purchased this yesterday and given the gears alone I was looking at around $300 clams. Not to mention the bent stick T-18 shifter cane that this one had included. Now just need to clean it up and get started on the conversion. The tail shaft on this one is very short compared to my 1980, it's a pity it isn't a direct bolt up to my Dana 20 , but with the money I saved on gears, it helps out.

 

[Hedgehog]

You are welcome.

The original search on Craigslist was just for the fun of it. I was surprised to see this one pop up so close to you.

 

[gert]

Sweet glad to hear


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Hedgehog]

This might be a good time, before you get the adaptor kit, to pick up a Dana 300 Transfer Case .

 

[Turbogus]

I've rarely seen anything on CL that I needed anywhere near me over the years. Not to say that driving up to Gresham and back in 3 hours on the clogged I5 was not fun. My Dana 20 seems to be working fine, would I need to swap for a Dana 300 , is the Dana 20 no longer compatible?

 

[Hedgehog]

The Dana 300 is generally considered to be a better Transfer Case . Many seem to prefer it over the Dana 20 . Especially those that want the very lowest crawl rate when adding a low gear kit. I'm not entirely sure how the Ford T-18 adapts to the Dana 20 . It's more than likely fairly straight forward, but I did adapt the Ford T-18 to a Dana 300 and had no problems with it. ....With that being said, the Dana 20 is a very strong and well thought of Transfer Case . It all really depends on your performance goals.

 

[Turbogus]

I'm not intending to build a full tilt boogie, move in next door to ya, and yer lawn is gonna die rig. For my purposes I think that 6.32 with the Dana 20 will be enough for me.

After all I have some budget left, but it's dedicated to the conversion kit, I'm far from an unlimted boogie build budget.

 

[Hedgehog]

I understand completely, I was thinking, if you were considering going all out this would be a good time to do it. Just to get the thought out of the way, tearing up your neighbors lawn would not be good for neighborhood relations.

 

[Turbogus]

"tearing up the neighbor's lawn"

Speaking of neighbors it reminds me back when I was newly married, living in Tangent, Ore. and more of a motorhead than I am now I had a sweet 4 bolt main 350 w/steel 10/10 crank was going to go with a 30/30 solid but got a stiff hydraulic cam instead. I was hoping to find another '66 Malibu to stick it in when the cam went flat in my '77 Chevy short wide low rider pickup. As a temporary measure I stuck this motor in as a replacement. The trouble was the exhaust didn't fit so when I was breaking in the engine it was with uncorked headers. Years later I heard the neighbor thought I had an airplane back there. I had to drive it 14 miles to town to a muffler shop to get the exhaust pipes all worked out, but man what a sweet sound on that trip from the country to town.

 

[Lumpy Grits]

Turbo-HH has a good point about the D/300 t'case.
I put a 4:1 kit in my D/300 many years ago, and wondered why Dana didn't do that as SOP.
LG

 

[Turbogus]

I can dig that, but I think I'll be satisfied just having the 6.32 with the Dana 20 for my needs. I can't really go too far afield wheeling since 2003, since I began working 7 days per week.