Builds Putting the rust demon at bay (1 Viewer)

[archie73]

So it’s been longer than I’d hoped(October til now), but I think this stage might be down to fine tuning. As a recap of this adventure- I had the dreaded popping Orion and an AA propeller crossmember. Neither of which was making me happy.
The crossmember was a pain in the arse when it came time to service the Tcase. Additionally, there’s the concerns of it weakening the case(coupled to a 5.3). So it was time to make something different and the Sm465 had these two pto plates. They are easily replicated in plate steel and that can be welded to a proper crossmember. Maybe that last part is a stretch as I made it from what I had laying around, but it’ll hold. I did reuse the AA rubber mounts at two frame ends.

There is probably room for improvement, but it’ll do until I feel like doing it again. The driver’s side needed to go above the exhaust and the passenger side had to go under the output and up to the frame mount.
At the same time I was hitting the popping Orion with two pronged fix. First was to increase the pressure on the hi/low selector ball/shaft. I did this by going back to the oem set screw. The AA brass screw was set to hold a predetermined pressure and I’m under the assumption that it wasn’t enough. I now have firm shifts between high/neutral/low.
As a precaution I also swapped out my modded oem shifter mechanism. It had to much slop and I feel it may have contributed to the popping problem. The twin sticks were back ordered and they looked easy enough to replicate. This may or not have proven correct, as I am shocked how long it took me to have a working design. I still need to tweak the 2/4wd selector, but I’m zeroing in on it.

All that brings me to the finale- the test drive. I couldn’t have asked for better weather. It might hit 50 today. I drove up a steep grade maybe 2 miles long. Transfer never popped costing in gear on the way back down. I was elated.

I was having so much fun I decided I’d pick the kid up from school with the cruiser. Slush and mud terrains are never a great combination, but we made it home safely. I even had time to do a cleanup in the garage. It was a good day…

 

[waiting for time]

Nice, well done.

 

[archie73]

Nice, well done.

Thanks, time will tell on how good it turns out. The 4wd stick is having trouble getting the right amount of travel to disengage, so it’ll need some tweaking. I’m hoping if I give the stick a little more bend, it’ll hit the sweet spot.
Also, I need something more slippery between the two sticks. When I try Pull on the 2/4wd stick it’ll pop the Hi/low stick into neutral. Initially I thought I was being clever and made a slip plate out of #2 plastic(tums bottle). This has turned out to be not slippery enough. Possibly, because of how tight I have the pivot shaft nut. If I loosen it, the shaft has to much play. I’m leaning toward an brace for the shaft. As it sits now, it’s a threaded rod into a threaded boss on the transmission.
Still I’m happy and headed to Moab in two weeks. Garage time between then and now will be limited though- Might be living with these issues for now. Oh and the transmission is leaking at the fill plug. Always and adventure with this toy, but I enjoy tinkering- even if I’m not good at it.

 

[archie73]

Made it to Moab in a leisurely 9 hours and four gas stations. Knowing that nothing but unloading was going to happen at the condo that night, I didn’t feel a need to push it. I was rewarded with 9mpg in the tundra.

Good news the transfer case is holding gear. Up climbs and down hills it stays in gear. First ride was Steel Bender. Bumpy rock with slabby climbs. Gave the transfer case a thorough testing. I am a big fan of the 4:1 cast iron behemoth that is the Orion- especially when it stays in gear.

I know there are a lot of purists on here, so maybe plug your ears for this next part- I love my LS Smooth consistent power at any angle. Runs at 190* all day. Did I mention power?

That leads me to the first failure of the day, something in the wiring for the electric fan went kaput. I glanced down on my temp gauge and it read 243*. Pull over start poring over the wiring with the over flow bottle gurgling away. Finally decide to hardwire the fan straight to the battery and never had issues again. So there’s something to fix at a future date.

We finally start getting to the slabs and climbs that make you think. I don’t always get it on the first shot, but I’m getting it with the locker and a touch of wheel speed.

BANG. “Uh, could you look underneath while I hold the brake?” “Yep the rear driveshaft is hanging down hear.”
I gently roll off the slab and crawl under to access the situation- separated rear drive shaft. I can pull it off and reassemble and we’ll be on our way. Get the tools out, crawl under and look at the driveshaft- it’s a pretzel. Well this changes things. Oh and one more thing to fix later.

After hemming and hawing, we decide to continue on for a bit and circle back for my 40 on the way out. It’s now fwd, but operable.
We continue in the LJ & SJ. The LJ is eating it up- I’m a bit jealous. Now the Wagoneer has a 360 and 35’s and I’ve been impressed at how well it’s doing. Until we hit some loose steps and from above we hear a whirring/grinding noise. No movement at all. After much fussing about, we realize this thing needs to be towed out- bum transfer case The LJ is the only one left to do the job. It took some rigging, but we made it out. Winches, tow straps and tree straps were used.

Later upon further inspection, I realize I also cracked my top plate on my transfer case. I was having trouble getting out of low range and went underneath to see what was up. Low and behold there was a slick of oil running down the transfer case. Additional thing to fix at some future date.

Fortunately, we brought our mountain bikes for this trip as well. Thursday we are going to ride/drive the White Rim, so not enough time for parts to be shipped. Oh well.

As to the breakage vs the LS: I’m still a fan. Would there be as much carnage with the F, probably not. Would this thing be a joy to drive at highway speeds with 35’s- not with the F. To each there own.

 

[archie73]

So now I’m on the look out for the Tcase cover and a Tcase saver. I reached out to @orangefj45 to see if he still makes it and has a spare cover. Classic cruiser said they have one to sell me, just waiting to see if I can bundle the shipping with Georg.

Next issue will be getting the driveshaft retubed. Sounds like stock was .060 wall and some people are going to .090. While I would like to have a stronger ds, I like the idea of it being the fusible link. What are peoples thoughts on bumping up to .090 wall tube?

 

[orangefj45]

Received your message. I’m out of town; in TX at the LSLC Roundup but fureardee your request to my staff at the shop. They’ll get back to you today. We have the parts you need, happy to help!

Georg @ Valley Hybrids @ Cruiser Brothers
Shop 209-475-8808
Sales@valleyhybrids.com

 

[archie73]

So Valley Hybrids set me up with a new top plate, Tcase saver and a good condition driveshaft. I’ve made much more expensive purchases in the past, so this seemed reasonable. The driveshaft is a hair to long, so I’ll get it modified locally.

This leaves me with my old driveshaft ends

My current thought is to make a spare that’ll work for both the front and the rear. There is a ~3” difference between the front and rear ‘shafts.that’s more than the spline section will handle. This has me leaning toward a long travel square tube driveshaft that can be used front or rear.
I’m aware that it won’t be balanced and not recommended for high speed. On the up side, I’ll only need to carry one spare( and keep my foot out of the throttle).
This leads me to tubing choice; I still want it to be the “fusible link” in the drivetrain. But having never done this I’m unsure of what tubing to use.

The mating surface on the fixed end is ~2.6” and, if I eliminate the slip yoke, the small end is 1.81”. This leads me back to tube size. What size square tube is strong enough, but still weak enough to properly fail?

 

[White Stripe]

I've never broken a front driveshaft nor seen a broken front driveshaft on the trail. I think you'll be better off making a spare rear. Do you have a fine spline pinion?

 

[orangefj45]

Thank you for the order, i appreciate you sending business our way!

I would build a spare rear drive shaft to bring on the trail.

Georg @ Valley Hybrids @ Cruiser Brothers

 

[archie73]

I've never broken a front driveshaft nor seen a broken front driveshaft on the trail. I think you'll be better off making a spare rear. Do you have a fine spline pinion?

When I got an ARB in the rear, I had a it put in a FJ80 carrier for that reason.

Thank you for the order, i appreciate you sending business our way!

I would build a spare rear drive shaft to bring on the trail.

Georg @ Valley Hybrids @ Cruiser Brothers

After I made that last post, I thought about how tight my driveshaft is to my oil pan. A square tube would potentially create more space issues. This led me to a quick investigation of a longer spline, but realistically that is more than I have to spend at the moment.
So I’ll drop off both shafts today and have them both made up for the rear. The stock tube measured out at ~.060. What do people replace that with? .090?

 

[archie73]

Well F@#k. I want to fire my mechanic!!!!! He’s costing me more money, again!!! But who’s gonna do the work then…

Pulled the transfer case today to fix the shift cover. Much easier with the AA propeller xmember gone, but still takes a minute. Once I get the case on the bench, I get a better look at the offending cover

Well good thing I bought a replacement from Valley Hybrids. Still mystified on how this happened….

They say a pic is worth a thousand words…

“So it took out the cover, it’s an easy fix. Wait a minute what’s that? F@#$K sticks”

So as much as I want to fire someone for this screw up, mine are the only fingerprints on the truck. So I screwed up again, good thing no one is paying me to do the work. I must have dropped a bolt in when I was fixing the popping out of gear issue( that does seem better). It looks like it pushed the corner of the cover out and then fragged the low range idler gear. Yeah!?!?!?
The other gears seem good and the assembly seems to spin with out any hesitation or binding. I don’t have a lot of miles on the gear set, think AA will set just idler gear set?

In unrelated news I broke the my f100 down last weekend. I slid the new suspension u set to get an idea of how it will sit. More distraction…

 

[B y r o n]

When you were talking to George, did he mention his case saver parts? If not you may what to contact him and ask about them.

 

[archie73]

When you were talking to George, did he mention his case saver parts? If not you may what to contact him and ask about them.

I already had the nose cone saver from him. Unfortunately, the shift plate saver doesn’t work with the Orion. Their feeling is the the cast iron case doesn’t need it anyway.

 

[archie73]

So it’s back on the road. Had the driveshaft retubed. Since the same moron will be driving it, I bought a spare driveshaft from Valley Hybrids. Had that resized while I was at it. Transfer case is back in place. Shifting nice and rolling around just fine.
I also had lost switch power to the fan relay while in Moab. At the time, I had mcgivered it to work. Had some time to look into it and it’s going again. Not sure what happened really, but it’s back on. I’ll keep an eye on it.

 

[archie73]

Made it out of Mother’s Day and managed some time in the garage this morning. Nothing monumental, but needed none the less.
For the first time in ~20 hrs the evaporative system is hooked back up to the gas tank. I’ve never had much issue with out it since I’m full time topless. When I was pulling the driveshaft in Moab, I noticed a gas drip underneath. When I got home I pulled the passenger seat and checked the lines and they seemed good. A few of the in tank pump mounting hardware were a little less than tight. When I noticed the leak I had a full tank and it was a warming day. Im guessing it was pressurizing in the heat and had nowhere to go.
So the three lines are hooked back up and the unit is floating behind the passenger seat until I come up with the bracket. The oem shield for the evap system is never going to fit with the rollcage. Oh and I put the passenger seat back in- sometimes it’s little wins.

Next step was repack the trunk. Managed to to stash the spare drive shaft under the tow strap and coolan.

Last step was install the steps. Like I said sometimes they are small wins

Only other thing to mention is we’ve been having an unusually grey and wet spring- which we desperately need. However, there have not been much in the way of nice days to drive this thing, so I decided snow or not I was going to drive it. Made it half a mile before the snow dumped for second and covered the windshield. Scraped it off and soldiered on, then it let up and was a lovely drive…

 

[archie73]

Tech:

1. Fixed the wiring for the drivers seat. Now wife can almost reach the pedals again. Seat heaters would be nice- I need to hook those up some day…
2. Oil leak from the (freshly installed) transfer case seems to have slowed. Maybe it’ll stop????
3. Still have battery issues, gonna get to that after I find out why the daily is missing on cyl 2…

Fun times:
Took the monkeys out for a little trail ride. Had some fun with snow and winches.

Snow was to deep for the Jeep to pull me backwards, but the 8274 had no problem pulling to dry ground forwards. By then I had a nice track to come back on. Good times we’re had by all.

Had more fun with the winch at home getting the shell in the shop.

Got this guy started working on the next project.

 

[archie73]

Small update. Weather finally turned to topless weather- it’d been a abnormally cold&wet spring! So I’ve been driving it as much as possible and loving it.
Ever since I did the LS swap, I’ve had no temperature gauge in the cluster. With the ecu and a Bluetooth OBD tool I’ve had it on my phone and that works well enough. The problem is my wife isn’t going to take the time to link it to her phone. This leaves her with no indication of the if it’s about to overheat. I had installed the stock sender in the passenger side head with the help of some plumbing adapters….

but it never registered any reading. I had tried test electrical connection and even had ordered a different oem temp sensor, but nothing seemed make a difference. Fast forward to last week and I was stress testing (aka playing with it) the engine up the pass and I noticed the needle budged a little.When I got to work, I grabbed an IR temp reader and sure enough for the sensor and adapter were reading 50*below the block. After thinking about it I decided to wrap the adapter and sender in aluminum foil to act as some sort of insulation. And it worked , sort of.
It’s slow to read and still low on the dash gauge. I now realize my sender is to isolated to get a good reading. Problem is the water jacket is way too shallow for my oem sender. I think I’ll try a better form of insulation…

 

[archie73]

Another “ I haven’t done anything, except drive it” post-

I feel a need to post, but life is busy and I haven’t had much time to work on it. Fortunately, it’s to the point where my wife and I are arguing about who gets to drive it. It’s a good place to be.
Father’s Day-went for a bike ride, logged some time in the garage and a quick wheeling session. Oh and a couple home cooked meals to boot. On the wheeling trip- made it to the pond right as the lightning started. Exciting!!! Dry on the way up/sloppy on the way down.

 

[EWheeler]

Fortunately, it’s to the point where my wife and I are arguing about who gets to drive it.

Life goals!

Future conversation: “Babe, we’ve been fighting over the FJ too much lately. I think its time to add another to the stable.”

 

[White Stripe]

Can you post some pics of how close your motor is to the firewall? Do you have room to move it any further back?