Transfer Case Progress and More

 Well, the motorcycle lift trick worked quite effectively. It took a few attempts to find the angle that was just right for all the bolts to line up, but with persistence, I was able to find something that worked. Once I got a couple of bolts in the holes, then it was a matter of raising and lowering the transfer case and the transmission to level out the bolts in the holes. Getting the input shaft splines to line up wasn't that huge of a deal as I was able to rotate the front tire with my foot to get them to line up. Getting the nuts on the bolts wasn't nearly as horrific as trying to get them off, since I had some experiences of which wrenches might fit in the tight spaces. I reinstalled the drive shafts, then drained and filled the fluid and I was back in business!

While I was down there, I decided to do a fluid change on the transmission. Dropping the pan was easy since the exhaust crossover was already lowered, the skids and crossmembers were out of the way. I bought a gasket/filter kit from Napa auto, which fit perfectly. Over the next few days, I've added 6 quarts of ATF+4 fluid. Finally, the fluid level is right!

Over the course of this entire endeavor, I've noticed that the rubber boot on the front drive shaft has been chewed up a little, which is indication that with the 2.5" lift, the drive shaft doesn't have enough clearance during severe articulation. Funny thing- I happen to have a Rugged Ridge exhaust spacer extension kit that I bought 5 years ago, when I bought the suspension upgrade. At the time, I wasn't convinced that the lift was enough to warrant the spacers, so I tossed them in my box full of Jeep odds and ends. Well, without too much looking, I was able to find them again. Installing them was quite the bitch though. I watched that stupid Teraflex installation video (since all the spacer kits are basically the same) and Dennis makes it look like it's a 5-minute job. Not so!! So many problems that he didn't address. For instance the flange bolt/clamp where the two pipes slide into each other is more or less welded into place, so you need to grind it off. Or the fact that the two pieces just don't slide together! They gave him a modified easy to install Jeep to demo on. I'm not the only one who experience these difficulties either.

I did the initial installation with much difficulty- realizing that the clamp bolt was not about to unscrew out and trying to force the Y-collector pipe into the cat pipe, which wasn't about to work. I took an angle grinder to the clamp and that took about an hour. Then I ratchet strapped the Y-collector to the rear axle and still it wouldn't slide in more than 3mm. I just bolted it all together to get the Jeep running. When I started it up, I immediately knew that something was wrong. There were major exhaust leaks! After spending some time on the internet cruising the forums, I could see that there were physical impediments hindering the two pipes from sliding together. Eventually I found an afternoon where I could redo the project. I rented a chain cutter from my local O'Reilly and I went to work separating the two pipes. I got the Y-collector/crosspipe free and attempted to cut just over an inch off the end, but the chain cutter kept wandering, so just got out the reciprocating saw to finish the job. From there, things got a lot easier. This time around, I sealed up each side of each spacer with high temp gasket sealant. Now everything fits as it should and no more exhaust leaks!

There are two other projects that have been on my to do list for a couple of years  1) relocating the evap canister to a place where it won't get hit by rocks and  2) extending the breather hoses from the differentials and transfer case to a higher level in case I do any deep water fording. I crawled under the Jeep this morning to access the evap canister situation and noticed that the skid plate doesn't have any rock rash on it and I've taken King through some very difficult trails!! After some deliberating, I think that it's going to be just fine in it's factory location. Some people do the relocation because their rear drive shafts make contact with the box or skid plate. I found no signs of contact on my rig.

So maybe tomorrow I'll start on raising the breathers. I think with a few odd parts from my local hardware store, I should be able to take care of it pretty easily. Once that project is done, I'll put the rest of the skid plates on the underside of the Jeep. I'm not sure how the skids are going to play with the lowered crossover exhaust pipe, but we're going to find out awful soon!!

Refocusing Update

It's been an eon since I last wrote to this blog. It's been nearly 5 months since I lost my precious dog and I still think about her all the time. In time, we'll eventually get another dog, as we really miss having that puppy energy and happiness in our lives, but for now, we're going to make the best of the situation and do a little traveling. Not having to worry about caring for the dog, while we're away will be a nice change. 

On the work front, Covid burnout is real. We are easily at least 2 techs and one tech aide short on a daily basis. While we are short-handed, our workload hasn't slowed down. From time to time, management will put out requisitions to try to fill the vacancies, but few and/or unqualified candidates apply. So matters never change. I've finally become sick of hurting myself at work. We routinely get 250-450 pound patients weekly and until recently, the techs would not have help to rely on. But since I made a stink about quitting my job due to not wanting to permanently injure myself before retirement, my new supervisor has been very good at finding us additional hands to help out. Thank you, Liz!! Still the same, come this Fall, I'll either have found an easier, non-laborious clerical position to move into to finish my vesting term or I will outright quit. I am selling one of my houses, so that should help ease me into retirement early.

The Miata- after deliberating for a few weeks, I decided to give her up and sell her. My plans were to do some autocross this Spring. But since I went ahead and swapped out the OEM tranny for a 5-speed, that would automatically bump me up to the Super-Street Modified class, running against the big boys. To even be slightly competitive, I would have to dump another $5K into the car with stand alone ECU, injectors, tires and wheels, heavier springs, etc. It's time I cut bait and concentrate on the other projects in the garage. It's taken me a few months to peel off the go-fast parts and get the car mainly back to stock- I'm still leaving the suspension, roll bar and intercooler in there, as well as miscellaneous items like stainless steel lines and upgraded stereo. The Miata is nearly ready to go to market. I just need to tweak a couple of things, then wash/wax and take pics.

The Harley- I recently did an oil/filter change and maintenanced the air filter. I installed Rocker Lockers, but I don't really think they made that much of a difference. AND I repainted the front fairing. It was that quickie bumpy job from when I first got it, but I did a real paint job this time- it turned out nice and smooth and rich. There is one spot where I wet-sanded through a little too aggressively, but I'm not worried about it. I also installed a cell phone holder, so I can see who's calling me, when riding. The bike is running great! It's pretty well set!

The Jeep- I'm continuing to put time into the Jeep, King. I still have a couple of trails left on my Hit List here in Northern California that I would like to conquer- Dusy Ershim and the Slick Rock Trail. I found on the Diablo 4-Wheelers Club calendar that they're planning on doing a Slick Rock run in July, so I went to one of their monthly club meetings. A very nice bunch of people. Friendly and accepting. Afterwards we hung out in the parking lot around my Jeep and chewed the fat. I met one of the members named Steve, who said he owns a cabin at the top of the Slick Rock Trail and offered to take me on the run in a small group! Heck yeah!!

Lately I've been working on overdue upgrades. I finally bought and installed a new gas tank skid plate after banging the old one back into shape. (That way my fuel gauge will read more accurately and I can get more gas capacity.) I went with Rough Country. It was a great price, but the kit didn't quite fit. I had to Dremel some of the holes a little wider. It was actually kind of a bitch, as I had to remove one of the tires to get access to the holes!! Whatevers.

I bit the bullet and bought a new tie rod. For a year, I've been thinking about an aluminum tie rod, but in the end, it's all about fitment. Many of the tie rods out there won't fit with the dimensions of my AEV Borah wheels. So I bought a Metalcloak kit. Fitment is great. Thank goodness I bought the lifetime wheel alignment package from Wheel Works, so I had them realign my wheels, since the front driver tire seemed to be making scrubbing noises. Something was definitely off. It was so bad driving down the freeway that the traction control light kept blinking on and off! The new alignment fixed that. I haven't really drove it much since, so I'll have to do an update later.

Ever since the Fordyce trip, I've been toying with the idea of changing out the transfer case to a Rubicon 4:1 TC. For a while, I wasn't even sure it could be done, but with a little research, it's not that hard to do as long as you get the correct part. I kept an eye on the market and prices. Finally there was a great deal on FB Marketplace with some guy in Sunnyvale. A new TC will cost $2500. A good used one will go for $1200-1500. This guy had his listed for $750, but he wasn't 100% sure it would work, so he offered it to me at $600, which I thought was very fair. Supposedly it popped out of 4-Low twice while steep descents. But when in gear, it worked great! He tried to purposely duplicate the problem, but could never get it to do it again. He had money, so he bought another used TC and paid someone to swap it out. But he first bought a used 2.72:1 TC, so he was trying to sell that one as well. When I went to pick up the case, he had the Sport TC ready to take. I checked the part number and found that he was going to give me the wrong case. Maybe an innocent mistake, but it could've been a costly one for me had I drove off with it. I figure that his problem was probably that his linkage was bad. There's not much that can go wrong with the internals. But worst case scenario is that I'll have to rebuild the case in my garage and a kit is only about $250.

Right now, I'm in the middle of doing the TC swap. On the forums, some say it should take 2.5 hours. They're completely full of shit. Maybe if you've done it a couple of times before, I can see it might be done in about 3 hours. In my case, I'm fumbling around with what to get out of the way just to get access to the mounting nuts! It took me 2 hours just to get the transmission crossmember off, since I had to unbolt most of the gas tank skid plate again! Then getting the mounting nuts off was a total struggle, trying to figure out what would actually fit in that tight space. It took me a while to figure out how to get the TC unmounted and lowered without damaging the old case. I finally got the original case off and was able to check that the input shaft spline count was the same. Phew! I did get the right part! My next step is to get the Rubi TC up and mounted. I'm thinking that I might be able to use the motorcycle lift to pump it up to the correct height, then I can slide it in. I'm hoping that the lift will fit under the Jeep- since it has 2 platforms, that will stabilize the TC and make it easier to mount. Fingers crossed!!

That's it for now! More to come....