Project Special Reserve

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

I just about put the hood through the windshield when I lost my grip on it.

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

So, the picture/condensed version.

I wanted to go with polyurethane mounts because the guys running these things report they destroy their mounts all the time. Energy Suspension does not make an XJ tranny mount, and the other ones available are horribly expensive and really hard. So I used a TJ mount, which won't matter. Nothing is going where it normally would.

TJ mount:


I found that when I test fit everything and figured out where it should go that if I installed the trans crossmember backwards it all worked out perfectly with the TJ mount.

Image to demonstrate the difference in the tranny crossmember:


Test fit after moving a ton of shit so it would fit:


Oil pan hit the steering and track bar. So I just removed them for now. It will be a huge problem:


Another angle to show where the pitman arm is, and you can just imagine where the steering knuckle is on the other side... Yeah, straight through the oil pan is how it would have to go. Hacking the oil pan and lifting it is likely the best option. I looked at flipping the steering box around (astro box) or moving it forwards, but it really would just make for other goofy issues.


The firewall needed some hammer work. This is still rough, I will smooth it later. This is so I can run the stock oil filter, which is massive and awesome. Lots of guys buy a relocation kit for a shitty filter, and it doesn't make sense.


After letting the weight off it the whole oil pan is actually sitting on the steering. This image didn't make it into the movie by accident, but let's just say the steering/oil pan problem is real and massive.

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Another tight spot was the firewall lip and valve cover. It got hacked.


I made some weld bushings on the lathe:




Leveling it out. There was some assumptions on what level is so I measured from a lot of points before deciding on this.


Mounts in the raw:


Honestly wasn't stoked on my welding... It'll hold.

Black paint matters:

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Totally accidental picture of it in there and weight on it... I don't know why I didn't take a proper one?




So that's it kinda caught up for now. Lots of fuckaround things to install. Trying to figure out accessory drives, the front axle, suspension, oil pan, etc next.

[pointsnorth]

just draggin this up from the bottom. updates required

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

...

The dust is thick on it. That's about the only change.

[Provience]

...

The dust is thick on it. That's about the only change.

well...damn

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

I'm going to blame it on COVID.

I spent the year doing other things.

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

I think I'm going to leave it 2wd and put a set of 31s on it for now. Just so I can get it driving for the last few decent months of summer. Maybe that will motivate me to get more done on it.

[pointsnorth]

Sometimes that’s all that is needed is some wheel time to motivate a person.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Also...

Transfer case, what do? I need one because I'm using a 4wd transmission, regardless if I don't swap the front beam axle out right now. Actually the motivation for leaving the beam axle is that I can notch it for the oil pan, which may seem stupid, but it will allow me to get the engine running without modding the engine further, which will then determine if the engine is in good health (it seemed to be) and then incremental modifications can be made to it so I'm not chasing a dozen issues from changing so many things at once.

The options I have are:

-XJ/MJ NP231. I think I have one that's not trashed at least. Long term it would need a SYE ($$$) and they're a pretty meh option. Has a speedometer drive that will jive with the cluster in the truck though.
-XJ/MJ NP242. They have nifty full time mode, which is neat. Otherwise they don't seem to hold up as well as the 231. Not sure I'd ever break it though. Also would eventually need a SYE. Speedo works on this too.
-JK NP241 (MP241) (and not the 4:1 version). I have one and it will bolt to the transmission. Way stronger than any of the above two options, and it's a very low KM unit, comes with fixed yokes from the factory but they're goofy JK yokes. I have one conversion yoke to bolt a standard 1310 double cardan joint up, so I could use that in the rear to make it work for the time being. The big downside is they have no provisions for a mechanical speedometer drive. This isn't great, because I don't have any clusters that use an electric drive, and the XJ/MJ cluster is too small to easily fit enough Autometer/aftermarket gauges in to accomplish what is needed (speedo, tach, fuel, oil, temp, volts), but for the time being a guy can just use a phone cradle and GPS output and figure that out later. Only other downside is it's just a 2.72:1 unit, not that I'm sure it matters, I don't plan to do anything crazy with this.
-Dodge NP241. I have at least one, although they're probably all the DHD versions with the PTO, but they're a 23 spline input that works. The upside to this over the JK version is that it has a mechanical speedo drive provision, which also takes a drop in hall effect or variable reluctance sensor if you want to go to an electric speedo. This gives lots of options down the road, although the exact same can be said for the 231 or 242 options.

More absurd option:
-NWF Ecobox. I have one new in box I bought because reasons. It has the output shaft to go to a Ford NP205, which I also have one of. I don't know if I have a suitable combination of planetaries and input gear to go in it. The 241DHD gears won't work, but I have a GM 241 here also and a spare 241DLD 23 spline input, the question would be if that will work (gear cut). Also I'd be ruining a spare GM 241, which I'm not sure if I actually am upset by that or not (they're what, $100 on a bad day?).

So if you do that then:
-Just run the Ford NP205. It will have to be torn down as the case needs to have the mount "hump" cut off it and welded up. But it has fixed yokes and appears to be in decent shape. I know how to make the shifters and everything work, but it is fairly time consuming. Likely I would need to cut the floor pan too, although the MJ does have more room there than the XJ. The Ford mechanical speedo drive is the wrong style, but it can be adapted to cable. Long term I do not want to run a cable drive, I've had multiple failures with them as the aftermarket replacement cables seem to be trash. I believe there is a drop in converter to go to electric drive, but not sure. Again a guy could just say F' it for now and run a phone with GPS speedo. A guy also would be well advised to put a mount on the tcase as it's too much weight hanging off the tail of the tranny, so there's some complication there too.
-Buy a new output from NWF to go to 23 spline, then use any of the other above cases behind it... Downside is that it's a little unclear as to how well this will or won't work (it seems NWF thinks you need random spacers and seal extensions, I'm thinking you won't if you machine the input gear on the rear case correctly). This is a lighter combination, and would give you some of the other benefits.


I'm leaning towards dumping the JK tcase in and screwing a phone mount to the dash. Just because it seems easy and I know it's in good mechanical order.

[Scoobienorth]

I would just do the jk case. They are strong, common and not that heavy weight wise. The yoke is easy enough to switch over

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Yeah, I'm just going to throw the JK case in for now. I have the right yoke, and enough driveshafts around I should be able to build something.

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

So after 7 months of not touching this thing (I think) I finally did something. I put the wheels/tires I bought in August on it. The ones I bought so I could "just get it driving" before summer ended.



So, what's super amusing about this is that the wheels I bought are off a Jeep Liberty, and were ID'd as being a suitable year (2012 I think) to fit the XJ/MJ axles. They aren't. The hub bore was too small, so they're from a 2014 probably. Of course I'd already had the tires mounted, and didn't feel like taking them back off, or paying to do that, so properly machining the hub bore out was not really in the cards. So I just took them oversized with a die grinder. This simple act of just bolting some new wheels and tires on wound up taking 3 hours because of that.

[arse_sidewards]

Did you use the old "jack stands and low range" lathe?