engine and tranny drop

[Paxx]

Ok I've been jealous ever since I found out you dropped your drivetrain 3". How difficult is it to do? Is it a ton of fabrication or just something simple? Any problems with your oilpan clearance? I really want to do this when I install the 500 and the doubler.

 

[miniwally]

Needed to fabricate new motor mounts and new tranny mounts. That was about it. Only the motor is dropped more like 1 to 2 inches not three. Since the front suspension was being totally redone we were able to do the motor drop without to much problem.

 

[Paxx]

sweet thats what I wanted to hear. I'm all over this mod when I get the chance.

 

[miniwally]

I don't know what kind of clearance issues you might run into with the axle. Just do some suspension cycling and verify that everything clears.

I know that in my buggy the motor is somewhere around 4" or so lower than a stock truck with a lift. Dropping the motor helps lower the COG bigtime.

Good Luck.

 

[Stephen]

OK, here's the scoop.
When we set wally up with the flat doubler and coilover from before we did TTC, we kept the factory downward tilt on the drivetrain to keep the rear driveshaft angles a little better and it was an easy point to hit since the transfer cases were level with the bottom of the frame rail. The ride height for the vehicle was set at 15" measured from the top of the axle tube to the frame rail (set in the front and the rear was just leveled). This 15" ride height is about a 6" lift. The shocks were set up about even with 8" of droop and bump.
Over the years I've been lowering it a little here and there but at the expense of bump travel since it can only go up so far till it hit the crossmember under the motor with the top of the high pinion housing.

This time we cut the crossmember out to drop the ride height and still keep 8" of bump travel and in the process it was easy to drop the motor down so we lowered the mounts relative to the frame by 1". We didn't change the t-case mount at all so it just changed the angle on the drivetrain. So now, the ride height is 12", it has a full 8" of bump travel and the motor is an inch lower than stock in the frame. It seems to work pretty good.