Shade Tree J10 Build

DannyH

DannyH

smokey burnouts
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Location
Stanfield, NC
Specs:
81 Jeep J10
78 full-width Dana 44 front axle, locked, SOA, spartan locker, 8 lug 2" spacers
78 fw Dana 60 rear axle, Stock LSD, drum brakes, 2" spacer
AMC 258, 4 speed, np208
Humvee Wheels, 37 OZ miltary tires
Spring over, stock leafs



3 years ago, this Jtruck build started. This is my fathers build, but he doesn't post much on the boards.

Below is a picture from not long after we brought it home. The build began with replacing the floorboards, front grille. It came with a warn 8274 that was in great working order and 31 inch tires.

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I can't find any pictures of the axle swap, but if I find any I will post them up. The front was simple. The spring perch width of the 78 f250 Dana 44 was the same width as the J10 spring perch width. 3/4 ton Ford dana 44s have flat top knuckles from factory. The passenger flat top knuckle was milled for high steer at a local 4wd shop. Other than that, the swap was pretty straight forward.

The rear leaf springs were in-boarded so the mounts match the width of the perches on the Dana 60. The pinion angle was already correct and this gave us the correct amount of lift to match the spring over in the front. After installing the Dana 60, we realized with the stock spring there was a TON of axle wrap. To fix this we installed the traction bar kit from Ruff Stuff. Finally, we installed Procomp shocks on all four corners.

Here are some pics of the rig currently and the axle setup.

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Since this J10 arrived, it has had a rear main seal leak. It has been on 3 or 4 wheeling trips locally to URE. Other than that, it was used to putt around town. Over time the leak grew worse (also looks as if it has a front main seal leak) and the engine recently stopped running. We decided that it was time for an engine swap. Did I mention the transmission was also on its last leg? That is going too.

Back in September I picked up the Chevy 350 and turbo 350 from @witchdoctor. Since then, life has been in the way, so the swap has been laid off and laid off. Until now.

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This weekend began the trek of swapping this motor by removing the front clip and unwiring to the 258. We are going to try to keep as much of the original wiring as possible, but necessary adjustments to the harness will be made.

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The outline of the build is:
Install the 350 and trans
Build a cross-member
Use Novak adapter to run np208 behind the TH350
Quadrajet carburetor
Bed mounted fuel cell
Hooker headers
and a whole lot of other misc things

Only a few areas left that need addressing, such as: what shifter to use, and whether or not the drive shafts will need to be re-tubed/ rebuilt. The stock front driveshaft on these Jtrucks are pretty cheesy. After swapping the axles we cycled the suspension and the driveshafts were not over extended with flex. For fuel delivery we will start with the quadrajet carb, but the plan is to move on to a fuel injection system (FItech) after the motor is settled in and tested.

I am on spring break from school in the next couple weeks, so hopefully we will get a majority of the swap done in that week. The parts pile has began building up as we get closer, the adapter is here, alt and power steering mounts are on order, engine cradle is on order. Hopefully this swap will be somewhat straight forward.
 
This weekends project is to pull the transfer case and install the new input we received from Novak. The directions for the input swap are more specific to the Dana 300 than the 208, but installing it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Hopefully this can be knocked out in a day or so.

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Once this is done I’ll assemble the drive train for test figment.

I don’t think that I’ll be able to reuse the original transfer case crossmember. I plan to create a tubular crossmember with a t case skid incorporated. The 208 is an aluminum housing case, so I’d like to avoid dragging it over rocks.

I feel overly wordy with this thread. Hopefully, I’ll have more pictures and less words soon.


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I LOVE these things, I had an 83 for a few years before unloading the project last fall.

I'll be following this thread with interest. And hopefully I won't get sucked back down the FSJ money pit hole again...
 
I like this kind of project. Watchin along with interest.
 
Atla said:
I LOVE these things, I had an 83 for a few years before unloading the project last fall.

I'll be following this thread with interest. And hopefully I won't get sucked back down the FSJ money pit hole again...
Click to expand...

Thanks!
They’re all money pits! Just have to get your priorities straight.

Wheeling > Everything else


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mncdriver said:
I like this kind of project. Watchin along with interest.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
Updates are about to start flying as of this weekend. Hopefully....


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Today’s work was removing the transfer case. It didn’t take long, but sadly we couldn’t use the full Saturday to work on the Jeep.


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It could definitely use a good cleaning.

A lot of parts have come in, so that will be updated shortly. One more week and we should be slamming this motor in!


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Last edited:
I love J10s. My next door neighbor has one, and someday it will be mine because his was bought for dump runs and "to learn more about cars". I told him he can learn all about it when I do something cool with it once I own it.


That Novak piece is really nice, that's a high quality part right there.


I take that back, I went to talk to the neighbor today and the J10 wasn't there so he might have got rid of it. Dammit. Didn't ask about, should have.
 
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Fabrik8 said:
I love J10s. My next door neighbor has one, and someday it will be mine because his was bought for dump runs and "to learn more about cars". I told him he can learn all about it when I do something cool with it once I own it.


That Novak piece is really nice, that's a high quality part right there.
Click to expand...

They are great trucks and fun to drive. I'm excited to just cruse around in this thing once it is done.

The Novak adapters are very well made. SADLY, we ordered the wrong adapter for the 208 case... The aluminum mating housing is correct but the shaft is not. The shaft pictured is for a dana 300. The issue is that to run the 208 you must change the output shaft in the transmission. I'm not sure I am up for that.

I could get a dana 300, but I would have to run it flopped.
 
DannyH said:
The issue is that to run the 208 you must change the output shaft in the transmission. I'm not sure I am up for that.
Click to expand...

Ain't nothing to it. I'd just get a GM transmission rebuild book for a back-up, and go to town. The TH350 is shockingly easy to build/rebuild. You could have that tailshaft swapped out within a couple hours.

The only thing you really need to pay attention to (especially if you're putting it back together with the same parts that came out of it) is the orientation of the clutches and steels when they came out. That, and keeping things clean. Other than that, it's seriously a piece of cake.
 
DannyH said:
They are great trucks and fun to drive. I'm excited to just cruse around in this thing once it is done.

The Novak adapters are very well made. SADLY, we ordered the wrong adapter for the 208 case... The aluminum mating housing is correct but the shaft is not. The shaft pictured is for a dana 300. The issue is that to run the 208 you must change the output shaft in the transmission. I'm not sure I am up for that.

I could get a dana 300, but I would have to run it flopped.
Click to expand...

What is the transmission output? GM put np208 behind the 700r I know. It shares the same output housing as the th350. If your output is 27spline, you should be able to get a chevy 208 and swap parts between your 208.
 
Called Novak today and they said the input would work for the 208. I’m not 100% sure about this, but the only way to find out is to pull the case apart..


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DannyH said:
Called Novak today and they said the input would work for the 208. I’m not 100% sure about this, but the only way to find out is to pull the case apart..


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Click to expand...

So, The case has been tore down and it is obvious that the shaft we ordered is not going to work, despite what I was told. Personally I believe that our only option is to replace the tail shaft of the trans.

paradisePWoffrd said:
What is the transmission output? GM put np208 behind the 700r I know. It shares the same output housing as the th350. If your output is 27spline, you should be able to get a Chevy 208 and swap parts between your 208.
Click to expand...

I thought this would work too for a moment, but I believe that the input is the same length on Chevy case as on jeep one. With the adapter housing that I have or any adapter housing currently made I think that the Chevy input on the 208 is still too short for the turbo 350...
 
Love the J Trucks. Sad you are putting a Chevy in it instead of a Mopar.... :rockon: GL with the build!
 
ghost said:
Love the J Trucks. Sad you are putting a Chevy in it instead of a Mopar.... :rockon: GL with the build!
Click to expand...

And ford axles! Don’t forget that!

Thanks!


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Last edited:
ghost said:
Love the J Trucks. Sad you are putting a Chevy in it instead of a Mopar.... :rockon: GL with the build!
Click to expand...
Fsj's never had mopar engines but they did have gm engines. You can get a buick ranier with a 5.3ls so it will be ok to replace a buick 350 with a buick 5.3.
 
RHSCTJ said:
Fsj's never had mopar engines but they did have gm engines. You can get a buick ranier with a 5.3ls so it will be ok to replace a buick 350 with a buick 5.3.
Click to expand...

AMC also used that crappy GM 2.8 in the Comanches... I owned one. It was sloooooow.


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paradisePWoffrd said:
TH350 to NP208 Question?

these guys might have something that will work: Infinitely clockable GM T-case adapter kits replaces stock full spline engagement! - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum

maybe this one?: TH350 to Dana 300/Black Box (Round 6 )
Click to expand...

Post #8 in the top link that @paradisePWoffrd put here has what I used. I got a cheap adapter to run my D300 behind my TH350. I called up Advanced Adapters and asked them for a 27 spline input for the D300, then got a NP208/TH350 adapter off eBay. I found a 2" spacer on eBay as well, and bolted all that together with a TH350 that has the short 2wd output shaft. I can take a pic from under the CJ to show if you would like (and if I have time tomorrow). IIRC, I had to cut about 1/2" off of the shaft so it wasn't bottoming out.
 
Novak called back after speaking with their mechanics, it turns out that you do need an odd length output in the transmission to run the 208. This is what I suspected...
 
This is a really neat build going on. Any particular reason for not using a 241?
Anyways, No worries on the lengthy updates. Write away! This is a great audience for it. All 24 pages of my build could be printed into a book or two lol. I already planned on it.
Keep up the good work.
 
XJsavage said:
This is a really neat build going on. Any particular reason for not using a 241?
Anyways, No worries on the lengthy updates. Write away! This is a great audience for it. All 24 pages of my build could be printed into a book or two lol. I already planned on it.
Keep up the good work.
Click to expand...

Thanks! You have an awesome style of write ups, and I have enjoyed following your most recent build.

We have the NP208 so that is the reason for running it. I think after the conversion we will be able to run the 23 spline 241 if we decide to.




Update: the correct output shaft for the transmission is on the way! I guess I am going to give replacing the shaft a go!
Hopefully I don’t screw up a perfectly good TH350.

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