IMHO the accumulator housing in the right rear of the tranny (left in the pic) is the biggest interference culprit. There's plenty of 'meat' on the housing and you could still mill a little of the O/S edge to gain a few more degrees of angle on the side of the pan.
Well I think I'm going to drop the oil pan and see if I can modify it. Hopefully I don't loose to much of that nice, clean oil...
First thing I'll do is measure how much clearence I need. I think the worst case scenario is if both front wheels where stuffed and the axle hitting the bump stops (pretty sure this would never happen, but better to be safe if I can). Then I'll check what sticks down in the pan from the valve body and make sure I clear everything. I'll loose al little oil capacity but with the oil cooler out front it should even out.
Well pulled the oil pan today and it looks like I'm with a 2 piece drive shaft. As you can see from the pic there is zero room to notch the oil pan. The valve body comes down very close to the side of the oil pan and there's only about a 1/4" inch between the bottom of the valve and the bottom of the oil pan.
To get a 2 piece drive shaft in there I'm going to have to go down from the t-case far enough that when I come back up I clear everything. I measured that full compression the axle will move up 3" before hitting the bump stops. I'm going to see if I can get a smaller diameter drive shaft to make things fitting better. Might have to go double cardan (sp) when I come to the axle...
Mookie, I'll have to go over to Pirate and see what kind of info they have.
The local shop that made the original drive shafts for me have a good selection of stuff, so I'll see what they can do for me. Now if only they where open today (provincial stat holiday)...
mookie, glad you liked the build. It's been a long one but should be on the road by the summer...
I'm off to the drive shaft shop on my lunch break to see what they can do. I called them earlier in the week and they said they've got everything I need for a 2 piece. They just said they had never done one for the front before.
Just to update the thread with what I ended up with. Mace, thanks for the warning but all they had where rubber isolated bearing, so I'll run with this for now and see how it holds up. The carrier bearing is supported off the trans cross member and a bracket of the frame (existing hole). Because of the diameter of the carrier bearing it does touch the the trans oil pan. I'm hoping that bracket will keep it from moving any further up. The front section of the shaft will be level when in normal driving height. I will have to limit the up travel a bit more then stock to make sure there's no contact with the engine oil pan. Have a look and see if there's anything I missed.
