Builds Project Resurrection v1.1

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Your numbers are very close to what I did. You have a little more lower triangulation and a little less upper then I have but our numbers are alomost the same. Looking forward to see what comes next.
 
40Habits said:
Your numbers are very close to what I did. You have a little more lower triangulation and a little less upper then I have but our numbers are alomost the same. Looking forward to see what comes next.
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Do you have some pictures you'd care to share? Is there anything you would make changes to with regards to the numbers?
 
I have pictures under my avatar in my garage. Just click the link. No, I would not change my numbers. My only recommendation would be stick with the numbers. So many guys say they play with the calculator and then just build what fits but moving brackets an inch will affect things greatly.
 
40Habits said:
I have pictures under my avatar in my garage. Just click the link. No, I would not change my numbers. My only recommendation would be stick with the numbers. So many guys say they play with the calculator and then just build what fits but moving brackets an inch will affect things greatly.
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Thanks!! I fully intend to stick with what the calculator says, unless I like something else better.
 
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It turns out Santa drives a diesel delivery truck. Everything is courtesy of Barnes' black Friday sale. The truss is for a Ford 9” and after some trimming around the base to open up the radius it will nice snug fit around the center chunk. I’m guessing there will be about ½” clearance for installing/pulling the diff and rear cover. Perfect. Nice and low.

http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o462/hman913/FJ40/1129121800.jpg

Hopefully RuffStuff will be having their year-end IRS clearing out sale so I can afford to pick up rod ends sooner than later.
 
And more good stuff showed up in the last few days. It's going to be a fun spring/summer.

Ruff Stuff 1.25" and 7/8" heims, with some 1/2" weld washers for the transmission crossmember frame brackets.


Lomax 4:1 gears for the Dana300


Now I'm waiting for Novak to replenish their stock of 10sp input shafts for the Dana300. Should be mid to late-January.
 
Got the steering box mounted yesterday, and with that I was able to figure where and how to mount the winch. Given the width of the M8000 and the presence of the Saginaw box, I'm going to give the truck a bit of an over-bite. The winch plate will straddle the front bumper and hopefully not diminish the approach angle any more than necessary.

The parking brake kit for the Dana300 was ordered this past Friday from Parts Mike, and need to add the rebuild kit to that order (hopefully before it ships tomorrow) since Advance Adapters flaked out. They had one kit in stock, but naturally was incomplete.

Tonight I started on the transfer case...

$60 Dana 300


At some point water infiltrated the case as the bottom pan and interior walls look(ed) like this...


The gears and shafts stayed lubed with oil so no rust was able to develop and I will hopefully be able to recoup a few dollars on the original parts.


As far as I got tonight was removing the input shaft and retainer. Should be able to get the rest pretty close to torn apart tomorrow or Tuesday. Feels good to working again.
 
Finally an empty case.


The 20T press paid for itself after it's first use. I, nor the local parts store, had a jaw puller large enough to pull the rear output housing. The press made short work of that. The only other trouble during the tear-down was removing the tapered roller bearing behind the rear housing. Again no puller large enough, and not enough room to use a bearing separator. So I cut it off with a dremel and destroyed a spacer that's not included in any rebuild kit, but thankfully it's part of the HD output that's in the spare bedroom.

All that's left to do is throw some paint on it and file/grind a notch into the bottom lip to fit the larger idler gear. Reassembly of the case starts next week.
 
The transfer case is done! I only had a few :homer: moments, and only one of them had my questioning why I did this and didn't pony up for an Atlas. That was due to my not double checking the numbers on the bearing against those in the directions. Apparently 0.015" makes enough of a difference that even a press can't overcome. Also destroyed a roller bearing when I realized I had the front output shift collar on backwards. Thankfully Autozone had a replacement in stock.

The 4:1 gears are big. The notch I made previously for the idler gear wasn't large enough, and using a hand file is a small pain in the ass when the input/output assembly is an inch away. Eventually everything fit and the vaseline did its job keeping the needle bearings neatly packed in the inner bore of the idler gear. When I get the twin stick put together, the only drive I won't have is FWD high. For some reason I'm looking forward to having FWD low.





The front will use a mini-truck driveshaft, and hopefully I can find one that doesn't require being cut down or lengthened.



Pretty awesome parking brake kit from Parts Mike. The rear driveshaft will be 1350 at the case and Toy flange at the diff end.



I will button up the bottom cover tomorrow night. Then it's on to getting the adapter mounted to the transmission, and figuring out that crossmember.
 
Progress has been on the slower side because the last 2 weekends I've spent helping a buddy 3-link the front of his 4Runner. Seeing it done almost made me want a mini/4Runner. Almost. But in the end Cruisers are always cooler.

New frame plate, welded up and ready to go. Bending the plate did claim a HF c-clamp, so maybe I'll finally invest in some non-Chinese s*** clamps.






It's not necessarily pretty, but it'll work. I started mocking up the transmission crossmember and somehow it's actually working out how the numbers said it would. Mildly exciting.

In other news... the good people at Ruff Stuff came through again on some pretty rad frame plates, and for whatever reason a pair of axle side shock brackets were tossed in. Freebies are a magical thing.

 
Some more progress has been made over the past few days. With some flat plate and link tabs from Ruff Stuff, I put together the frame mounts for the transmission crossmember.



And glued on...



The brackets are positioned to where I will hopefully end up with the drivetrain at 3-4 degrees (when the rubber trans mount is compressed), which I guess is preferred.
 
Probably 3 weeks ago now I built the main structure of the crossmember... 2x2" sq., .188" wall tube, with 2.5x2.5", .25" wall angle for the mount support. Up until the frame brackets were burned in, I was going on hopes and dreams that the crossmember would work/fit. With all good, I did some reinforcement for the mount support, and checked one more item off the to-do list.

Mock up...






And done...






I now just need to wire wheel the frame, prime and paint up to where the factory horse collar used to live, then install the crossmember for good. Making small steps, but at least they're in the right direction.
 
On a somewhat related note... I tore down the original front axle as a buddy was buying it, minus the diff which I'm keeping. When I bought the truck the PO said there was no 4wd and assumed it was the lockouts needing a rebuild. Well question answered... the driver's side birf grenaded.






The inner shaft took out the axle seal, and hopefully didn't chew up any of the axle tube seal surface. The diff at least is in great shape and ready to drop into the rear housing once I procure a locker. Good thing Aussie Locker is 10 minutes up the road.

Now I can get back to finishing boxing the frame.
 
Wow - Nice lookin' work!

Can't wait to see the frame completed.

Bummer on the birf - easy enough fix though.
 
ColoCruiserJeff said:
Wow - Nice lookin' work!

Can't wait to see the frame completed.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind words Jeff.


Had to redo the transmission crossmember after realizing I never took into account that clocking the t-case flat was not possible. That debacle somehow ate up a week's worth of shop time, but the drivetrain will still sit entirely above the frame rails. Can't complain about that.




Free time has been hard to come by lately, but the frame is cleaned up for plating and rust repair for the rear frame crossmember is completed... cut the fawker off. Just need to pick up some more 2"x4" to eventually fill it back in.




I should be on track to finally get started on the 4 link this coming weekend, and hopefully have time to drop the Aussie into the rear 3rd this week sometime.

In other news, my wife and I picked up our (err... her) new tow pig last week.

 
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