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71K5 - BP71K5's Just for fun build

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Thanks. This portion is actually the part I'm least confident in as I can tell there will be some fussing around with linkage. The tranny install itself seems to have been covered by a few other people who did all the testing so I'm pretty confident that part will go well. We'll see!
 
I got the doubler mostly assembled. The PTO cover is still off while I make sure the magnet is sufficiently JB Welded to the case. I also swapped in a 32spline front output shaft which will provide more yolk options. The shift rails also look like they work well allowing me to separately shift the front and rear outputs. I'm not sure I'll ever use front wheel drive low, but at least I can say it's there. :)

I also got the tranny bolted in place temporarily. You can see just how close it fits under the tranny tunnel --- with NO cutting! :woot: It's about 3/4" below the tunnel lip. It seems like enough, but could use some other opinions on that. I plan to get the transfer cases up there and make sure they clear ok to before doing anything drastic.

Next is figuring out cross members to keep it all up there. My new exhaust will also need rerouting. Oh well, I knew about that one and wasn't that happy with it in the first place.

nv4500 005.jpg

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nv4500 009.jpg
 
X-case is bolted in to test fit

After I got the tranny up there, I decided I should get the transfer cases bolted in up there too to see how everything fits. I had to totally cut my exhaust out to get it up there. The mufflers are pretty new so I'll have a tranny shop keep those are reroute everything once it's done. Luckily the muffler shop is only five miles away since the drive will be pretty loud.

doubler 001.jpg
 
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Once it was bolted up, I found the parking brake cable is actually keeping me from moving it up an inch or so. Didn't expect that! Anyone have any ideas on fixing this one? It looks like I will have to figure out something else to keep my parking brake.

doubler 003.jpg
 
I also found a couple spot at the rear end of the tranny tunnel support that will probably need to be cut. I'm a little dissapointed, but it should be pretty minimal.

In addition to the cutting, I probably need to bend the sheetmetal floor up a bit to clearance around the very top of doubler adaptor which is pretty tall. My plan for that is to jack under the transfer case until it hits the floor and lifts the body a bit. Then use a stiff rubber hammer to bend the floor down around it. This will keep the strength of the metal in that area compared to cutting it out and welding a patch.

doubler 005.jpg

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Here's some general ground clearance shots. You can see how it's leaning back at least an inch, hence the "clearancing" that's needed.

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doubler 006.jpg

doubler 009.jpg
 
Did you address the couple of bolt holes that are open the the inside of the range box? If you did not you will have to pull the t-cases out and fix that or you will have gear oil ALL over the place when it leaks out of those holes.
 
Almost all of them. I used set screws with threadlocker to seal them. I left two open near the idler gear shaft so I can make a plate that bolts onto box to keep the shaft from coming out like you advised.

The transfer cases will have to come out anyway since I didn't put a seal between it and the tranny. My plan is to figure out what I need for cross members now and pull it down and seal that up. I was assuming that I'd need to test fit it a few times to figure out what needs to be cut out to fit it in there. I think I got it where I want it and did some cutting. I'll have some pictures pretty soon.

By the way, your buddy did a nice job on the drill pattern. It fits perfect! Thanks again.
 
Here's the drivetrain in it's final resting place. I did a little cutting near the back of the tranny cover which shouldn't be very visible once it's bolted on. I was able to push the transfer case up over 2" compared to last night where it hung down pretty low.

The large bump right above the 203 is where I lifted up the drivetrain to contact the floor and hammered the surrounding area to stretch the metal around the high point of the doubler. It took about 5 sessions of hammering then lifting a little more, then hammering again. I'll lower it down 1/2" for clearance and it should be good.

All the weird metal peeling foil stuff is the old heat padding that was under the floor mat.

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That is one serious looking drivetrain! Good to see you getting it tucked up there. Have you figured out what you will do about the parking brake cable? I assume you disconnected it so you could move on with fitment.
 
Have you figured out what you will do about the parking brake cable? I assume you disconnected it so you could move on with fitment.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's disconnected at the moment. I haven't yet figured out a good way to hook it back up, but have some ideas. The old system kinda takes up a lot of space. My first thought is to get rid of the common tension cable that ties the two calipers together and replacing it with some kind of bracket that does the same thing in a smaller package. I'll be sure to post up the idea when I get to that part.

In the mean time, the crossmember is not as easy as I thought. Actually, the crossmember is easy if I don't care about ground clearance. The issue is that by doing lots of extra fab work, I could probably gain about 1.5" of additional clearance over the stock crossmember, but it's lot's of work or lots of $$. My wallet is hurting after all this other stuff. Anyone have an opinion on how much a good fabbed crossmember would cost?
 
I say go to the JY & pick up a hand brake & cable from 2 of the same model car, (2 cavaliers, 2 geos whatever). Then you can bolt them to the floor, (run one cable to the left rear, one to the right rear), side-by-side & have cutting brakes as well as e-brakes. that's what I'll probably do one of these days. I have to get it steerable first.

Later,
Buddy
 
bp71k5 said:
Yes, it's disconnected at the moment. I haven't yet figured out a good way to hook it back up, but have some ideas. The old system kinda takes up a lot of space. My first thought is to get rid of the common tension cable that ties the two calipers together and replacing it with some kind of bracket that does the same thing in a smaller package. I'll be sure to post up the idea when I get to that part.

In the mean time, the crossmember is not as easy as I thought. Actually, the crossmember is easy if I don't care about ground clearance. The issue is that by doing lots of extra fab work, I could probably gain about 1.5" of additional clearance over the stock crossmember, but it's lot's of work or lots of $$. My wallet is hurting after all this other stuff. Anyone have an opinion on how much a good fabbed crossmember would cost?
Click to expand...

Dunno if it helps, but here is my crossmember...

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Underbelly clearance...crappy pic, I know :rolleyes:

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If it does help check out my photo album...all the X-member shots from start to finish begin on page three.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v220/tRustyK5/?start=48

Rene
 
Yea, I saw most of those in your build thread. Pretty cool.

Any idea how much of a difference the fabbed crossmember made in your clearance? I've got the stock one bolted up and supporting the drivetrain now, but it's not any better than stock.

I went and bought some beefy metal tube to try some ideas out. We'll see if they are any better than what I've got on there.
 
I'd say I gained an inch or so of clearance making this crossmember. The problem is that the cases aren't ever going to get smaller, so there is a limit to how much tighter to the underside of the cases that you can get. I chose to sacrifice a bit of floor sheetmetal and just pushed the whole assembly up to where I was 'happy'. Happy being a relative term as the farther you push it up the more severe the rear driveline angle gets.

It's already a very long combination of parts in a pretty short wheelbase truck. I was hoping to avoid a CV rear shaft and just run some 1410's. That didn't work out on the rear. The front worked out fine that way as that shaft is longer, and the T-case output for the front is a couple of inches lower.

Rene
 
Yea, I'm going to try and gain an inch, but we'll see how that works out.

I had already got a rear cv shaft and was not looking forward to ditching it, but after looking at the front drive shaft length, it looks like the rear is a perfect fit since it's longer. That will save me some cash.

Thanks for the advice, I'm really trying to get this thing out of the garage in the next few weeks. Working on the x-case shifters now and will post pics of how that comes out.
 
single sticking the doubler idea

I found a few options on my idea to single stick the doubler instead of having triple sticks. This hurst shifter looks like it's used for dragracing and uses similar link rods as the doubler. I'm thinking to find one of these and modify it to be able to work the three x-case shift levers.

Anyone used one of these shifters before and know how they work? My big question is whether each shift link moves independantly from the others when you move the lever through the shift pattern.

http://www.hurst-shifters.com/catalogpdf/2-Manual-Shifters/DragRaceshftr.pdf
 
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