Engine and Tranny Mounted!

As in the last post, I now have the engine and tranny mated together and ready for installation. I am waiting on an advanced adaptors Transfer case adaptor and a transfer case rebuild kit to mount the transfer case to the transmission. I decided to go ahead and mount the transmission and engine, as it shouldn't be difficult to mount the transfer case after the fact. I saved the liquid filled mounts from the Frito Lay van to use, so I fabricated up some mounts for these.

These are made out of 6x6x1/4 wall square tubing and welded to the frame. I decided to use the front mount engine brackets left over from the P30, which is why the passenger side mount is higher (The engine was tilted 10 degrees in the P30) I threw some rust-oleum on them and finagled the engine in. I mounted the engine 5.5" behind the radiator support to save room for a Ford Taurus electric fan. Here are some pictures of the engine installed, with the rear of the transmission supported where I think it will be by the engine hoist.
The front springs sagged down a good bit, so I may need to add an add-a-leaf for the extra weight. We'll have to wait and see on that.

That's all for now!

Tim

Tub Primed and some New toys...

I decided that I wanted to put a coat of primer on the tub, but not complete the body work until I had the engine, tranny, and transfer case installed. The reason for this is that I didn't want to take a risk of beating up shiny new paint, but I didn't want my shiny new panels to rust. So, I cleaned up the body really well with 80 grit sandpaper, then wiped it down with Dupont Prep-Solv. Then, I shot the tub with one coat of Dupont Nason 2k High Build primer. It didn't go on as smooth as I had hoped, but I learned a lot during the process, and can definitely tell that my HVLP spraying skills improved from the beginning to the end of this coat.This method will require much more masking when I finish up the painting, but that's ok. Now that the tub is protected against future rust, I can move onto the more exciting things.

The next big hurdle in the project is the Clutch/Transmission/Transfer case install. I have been putting together parts for this for a few weeks now for this next phase. Here's a quick layout of my new toys:

From top left, clockwise: New OEM replacement Clutch for a 1996 Dodge 2500 Turbo Diesel, Clutch disk from the same on top of a used, resurfaced flywheel, NV4500 Transmission from http://www.smartpartsauto.com/, Mopar Clutch Arm, Pile of Grade 8 Bolts to stick all of this together, and Cummins Flywheel bolts. The transmission was a wonderful Engagement Gift from Lydia :) First, I assembled the Bellhousing, clutch fork, and throwout bearing.

Next, the flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, and cover are installed to the engine:

Now to mate the two together....

Getting the tranny output shaft to line up with the splines in the clutch turned out to be a real challenge. I'm sure that with a tranny jack it would have been much easier, but at least I don't have to do that again for at least a few years.... Stay tuned for the next episode... putting this beast into the truck!

Body Stripping and High Steer

For the last month I have been patching, welding, and stripping the paint off of the tub. Most of the stripping was done with a wire wheel because there were 4 coats of paint on the truck, making sanding very time consuming. Here is a picture of the tub with the paint stripped off:

Next, I removed the tub one last time to paint the bottom with two coats of Zero Rust. Here's the bottom of the tub ready to go back on the frame. I'm going to do the wheel wells once the tub is on the frame. Next, I re-installed the body onto the frame for the last time. To make the truck easier to move around the shop, I decided to go ahead and install the steering. For this truck, I am using Trail-Gear's high steering setup. The Steering arms and tie-rod bolted right on. Since I am using saginaw power steering, I had to do some custom fabrication on the drag link. I made a insert for one end of the drag link to accomodate a 1-ton chevy TRE. Initially, I mocked the steering up to have the drag link bolt to the bottom of the pitman arm. The paralell drag link and tie rod look pretty good. However, upon a full left turn, the drag link hits the leaf spring.

I'm sure that the springs will settle a good bit after I put the engine weight on them, making this worse. I decided to ream the pitman arm out to allow the TRE to mount above the arm. Here is how I am going to run the steering. I am missing one Jam Nut for the Pitman arm TRE, and this should be in tomorrow.

This should give ample clearance between the springs and the drag link, even under flex. It'll also flatten out a little under the engine load.

That's all for now. Next up is to prime and paint the tub, as well as begin putting together the powertrain....