Goin 4 Broke, brought to you by Metalwerx Design and Fab

[BUCKEYE PERFORMANCE INC.]

Looks good! Are those upper link mounts vertical? Doesn't it limit the degree of mobility?

Not even close to limiting anything and it's the joint seems to wear a little longer turned vertical for some reason.

BUCKEYE PERFORMANCE INC.
828-779-2242

 

[71chevytruckguy]

Now that we had a rolling chassis, it was time to hang the body. The body on my old rig looked more like a crumpled up beer can than a jeep so a new body was in order. Of course, I had to stay with a YJ. @sbrittain was awesome enough to donate a tub he had sitting beside his garage, but after looking it over once we got back to Metalwerx, we decided the firewall area was too rusted to use. I jumped on craigslist and found a body just north of Danville, VA, and called the lady that owned it. She said it had some rust in the rear fender area, but was good everywhere else. Once got there to pick it up, I quickly came to the conclusion she was blind or not the brightest light bulb in the hardware store. There was rust in the rear fender well, and everywhere else in the bottom 6" of the body. I made her an offer about 25% of her asking price and we loaded it up. Once I got back to Metalwerx with it, it was completely stripped down and a "small" part of the rusted floor was cut out.

 

[71chevytruckguy]

Before we sat the body on the chassis, I wanted to make sure we had clearance for the rear coilovers. Yes, I did say coilovers! Told yall I was making a few updates to the susension. Fox 2.0 by 16" travel coilovers with 7/8" shafts and resiviors on all four corners! There's also Fox 2.0" by 3.0" travel air bumps in the front and Profender, I think bought them used from @Paul , 2.0" by 2.0" travel air bumps in the rear. Big thanks to @mcutler for walking me threw my coilover and air bump selection! We decided to notch the rear frame after mocking up a coilover @ol'Jeeps had sitting on the shelf.

 

[71chevytruckguy]

Now that we had the chassis ready to go, it was time to hang the body. The C pillar bars and A pillar to front frame bars were removed, the body was hooked to the gantry crane and lowed over the cage. Wish took some pics of that process, there were some stechty moments but all turned out well. Once we had the body where we wanted it, body mounts were made and the front bars were reinstalled threw the firewall. We put a slight forward rake in the body to allow me to see over the front end better. One of my biggest complains on my old rig was having to look way ahead on the trail to see where the obsatcles were.

 

[71chevytruckguy]

Now that we had the body on, it was getting time to put the drivetrain in. In the prevoius rig, I ran a TH350 trans with a NP203/205 doubler. While I never had any internal problems with a TH350, I couldn't keep the case together. The decsion was made to go with a TH400, they're a lot beefier in the rear part of the case and have 6 bolts holding the transfer case to the transmission. Unlike a TH350 that has 4.

A lot of thought was put into what to do for a transfer case, but at the end of the day, the decsion was made to keep to the NP203/205 doubler setup mainly because it was the most cost effective solution, damn strong setup, and the gear selection worked well for my style of driving. 4 to 1 for crawling, 2 to 1 for trail crusing and hill killing. I decided living with the extremely heavy wieght and long length were worth it. Also, the doubler was one of the few things I had never broke and that says something with me driving! The only issuses I had out of it was the front output would jump out of gear while i was engine braking going downhill. Based on research, I found it was either the shift fork or the enagement slider. Both were ordered to be replaced before I tore into it. Once I pulled the front output bearing retainer off, it was obvious what the problem was. The snap ring on the front output bearing had deformed. Luckily, that snap ring happened to be the same size as a Muncie M22 front input bearing snap ring, which I had several of from my drag racing days. I went ahead and installed the new shift fork and slider just to be on the safe side.

One other issuse of going from a TH350 to TH400 was the change in transmission out put shaft spline count. 27 for a TH350 vs 32 for a Th400. That wasn't a problem as I had a 203 range box with a 32 spline input I had been saved for just this occasion.

Now I just had to find a TH400 transmission. After doing some research on Off Road Designs webiste, there are 3 ways to get a NP203 bolted to a TH400. The shortest is to use a TH400 that had a NP203 behind it from the factory used from 77 to 79. That's a darn hard transmission to find and I had zero luck after a month or two of searching. The next shortest was to use a Th400 that had a NP208 or NP241 behind it. Going this route ment that the adpater bolt pattern had to redrilled on the NP203 from the GM Figure 8 to the more common round 6 bolt pattern. You lose one bolt when going to the 6 bolt pattern but ORD's website said I wasn't an issuse so that's the route I went.

Now that I knew what version of the Th400 I needed, I had to find one. I searched craiglist for a while and couldn't find what I was looking for. One day while on break at work, I checked Pull A Parts webiste and it said they had just gotten in a 89 2500 truck so I decided to go check in the morning once I got off work. Sure enough, it was a 4x4 with a TH400 and a NP241! I grabbed my tools and when back the following morning and pullled the transmission, along with the NP241 for @Anthony . That was heavy wheel barrow to get out the door. Think I gave just over $100 for transmission so I was pretty happy about that!

 

[71chevytruckguy]

Since I had the transmission, I decided I wanted to install a reverse manual valve body with engine braking. To do that, you have to tear down the internals to change some springs and seals on the direct drum. I had planned for my transmission guy to do that for me, and replace any parts that needed it while he was in there. Well my transmission guy decided to disappear on me so fiugred I'd just teach myself how to rebuild an automatic, was one of the few things in the automotive world I hadn't learned or attempted yet. After several hours of YouTube how to's and reading on the drag racing forums I decided I was ready to dig in.

There were only a few things that needed to be upgraded in a TH400 according to my search. The main thing was to upgrade the direct drum sprag and race from the factory 8 element roller clutch style to the 4l80E 32 element srag style, and upgrade the sprag retainer snap ring to a spirolock. The easiest way I found to do this was to us a complete direct drum assembly from a 4L80E. Also, the valvebody requires changing the front pump and rear support sealing rings from cast iron rings to teflon rings to help with wear from the increased line pressures. I also went with a spirolock to hold in the intermediate clutches.

Once I got it torn down, the clutches looked pretty good considering the age of the truck, but the intermediate and forward clutches had some wear. Since I was in it this far, I decided a full rebuild was in order. I ordered a full perforance reubild kit with green Alto frictions and new steels. Assembly seemed to go pretty smooth. Only real issue I had was getting the clutch pack clearance right on the upgraded direct drum from a 4L80E. I re-used the steels that came with the 4L80E direct drum I had instead of the new ones that came in the kit. The direct drum steels in a 4l80e are slightly thicker than a Th400. I made a lip seal installer tool from a cool whip container and used a pair of C clamps for spring compessors. All in all, I think it turned out pretty good for the first auto transmission I've ever build, but only time will tell.

This gets us into late January during the build.

 

[mcutler]

...One of my biggest complains on my old rig was having to look way ahead on the trail to see where the obsatcles were.

Wake up junior...is there any other direction your supposed to look?

That sentence should say..."one of my biggest PROBLEMS, is I don't look far enough ahead to see where the obstacles are..."
Lmfao

@Paul, @ol'Jeeps, back me up here...[emoji481]


All jokes aside, Jeep is coming along nicely. Scott, Curtis, Rodney, and anyone else who has touched it are making nice progress.

Matt

 

[89xjnc]

Looking good! Definitely needs a cj front end on it

 

[ol'Jeeps]

..."one of my biggest PROBLEMS, is I don't look far enough ahead to see where the obstacles are..."
Lmfao...[emoji481]...Matt

Good shit right there. Doesnt matter how good the forward vision is when you have your eyes closed!!

Check list...

1. start engine
2. check harnesses
3. bring rpms up against the rev limiter
4. close eyes
5. pull trigger

 

[drkelly]

Any updates on this rig? I was really digging the direction of this build.

 

[ol'Jeeps]

This rig will be at the Flats race this weekend. It has been done since Dixie Run last fall. He has done a little wheeling with it since then. This will be the first race!

Here are some pics from his maiden voyage at Dixie Run last fall...

 

[upnover]

best wishes Chris, give it hell my friend!

 

[drkelly]

That thing turned out awesome!!!