AJ's '72 Cruiser Crawler Build

[AJs72K5]

Originally Posted by Yukon Jack

I'm diggin' the diff covers - stout!

They're super stout. The 14FF cover weighs a ton.

Originally Posted by Jtrux

They came in early 90's suburbans and blazers with a passengers drop.

241's came in both a driver's drop and a passenger drop. For a GM solid front axle, you need a passenger drop. GM went to a driver's drop when they switched to IFS.

[jaros44sr]

Originally Posted by Jtrux

They came in early 90's suburbans and blazers with a passengers drop.

Originally Posted by AJs72K5

They're super stout. The 14FF cover weighs a ton.



241's came in both a driver's drop and a passenger drop. For a GM solid front axle, you need a passenger drop. GM went to a driver's drop when they switched to IFS.

For some reason I had it in my head that you need a drivers side drop to go with the 700R, but it looks like you can go either way. Nice build and thanks for the info

[AJs72K5]

UPDATE 9/15/08 - I spent a couple of hours the shop wrapping up the SYE conversion on the 241. I gotta admit, it wasn't that bad. JB Conversions did a great job on their instructions. The only question I ran into was which direction to install the blue speedo gear...I didn't pay attention when I took it off. The hardest part of the install was removing and installing the snap rings. There are 4 to remove in the tear down and 3 to install on the build. For anyone looking to do this conversion in the future, invest in a good set of snap ring pliers. The snap rings look like the one shown below. They don't have the holes in the tips that I'm used to seeing.



All in all it was a good evening. Here's the finished SYE 241:



Tomorrow night: remove the TH350/205 combo and put it up for sale.

[Critter]

..

[BLUE THUNDER]

does the th350 still work?

[AJs72K5]

Originally Posted by BLUE THUNDER

does the th350 still work?

Nope. Don't know the extent of the damage yet. No gears forward or reverse. For all intensive purposes, it's a core.

[AJs72K5]

UPDATE 9/16/08: We (I had help tonight) got the TH350/NP205 combo out of the truck. It was a battle just about every step of the way. The dual exhaust made it difficult to pull the tranny crossmember out. We ended up disconnecting the collectors and a couple of exhaust hangers to get some room...the collectors are resting on the floor at this point. Once we got the crossmember down, tranny got hung up on the headers...this may have partly been because we pulled the 350/205 out as a complete unit. I wish I had a taken a pic of the carnage underneath the truck, but I didn't. The only pic of the night was the purple 350/205 sitting on a tranny jack in the corner.



Tomorrow night: start the 700r4 install!

[Yukon Jack]

I'm eager to see the new tranny in place!

[AJs72K5]

UPDATE 9/17/08: The tranny is bolted in! We mocked up the crossmember and it is moved back about 1.5". The tall style 700r4/208 or 700r4/241 adapter is definately the way to go. It's a direct bolt in with the 1st gen crossmember. We still need to do all the small stuff with the tranny...hook up the cable shifter, TV cable, torque converter lockout, and the tranny cooler. We also need to bolt in the 241.

Here's a pic of the installed 700r4 showing the adapter and crossmember.



Tomorrow night: bolt in the 241 and attempt to get some of the wiring and cable related stuff done on the 700r4.

[AJs72K5]

UPDATE 9/18/08: The transfer case and the crossmember are in! All of the heavy lifting is now done.

700r4/SYE241


There are a number of outstanding items I still need to take care of to button up the install:

Things to acquire:

• Flange style with CV front driveshaft from an 89ish burb, truck, or blazer
• Speedo gear and mount off of same truck for the 241
• Shift linkage bracket for the 241 off the same truck
• Shift linkage rod for the 241 off the same truck

Things to do/build:

• Machine ~1/4" off of the rear 1350 yoke
• Shorten the rear drive shaft
• Build a shifter bracket that is at least half as cool as Greg72's. I want to adapt the factory 205 shifter to the 241. I like the idea of building something that will mount to the tail of the tranny. I may try to figure out a cable shift option
• Install the torque converter lockout
• Install the TV cable. The cable Monster sent me was long enough, however the shield was about 4" too short. I just opened up a ticket with them about this. It looks like I can reuse the TH350 kickdown cable bracket
• Install trans cooler
• Install the rear crossmember
• Fab a new skid plate...the transfer case is resting on the factory one.
• Reinstall and adjust the B&M floor mounted cable shifter
• Fill all the fluids
• Bleed the brakes

This stuff will have to wait a week or so. I need a night off tomorrow as I have more than used up my kitchen passes with the wife this week. Also, this weekend is the opening weekend of dove season in South Texas. It woulda been kicka$$ to have the truck ready and drive it out there...maybe next year.

[Jtrux]

Looks good AJ, I was starting to wonder how you got all these free nights off, guess it's catching up to you now.

[Big J]

Its lookin' good. Check this guy out for your driveshaft needs. I've bought from him before and he makes nice stuff. http://www.4xshaft.com/index.html

[AJs72K5]

UPDATE 10/7/08: Been working like crazy over the weekend and the last several evenings trying to get the truck driveable. There's a Show-N-Shine at the local 4WP this weekend. After getting the tranny and tcase into the rig it's been trying to wrap up all the little stuff associated with doing one of these builds. Here's where the story's at:

I had some new hydraulic hoses made and plumbed the new tranny cooler. I used some angle iron for a little extra strength and notched out the ends to serve as tabs. Came out pretty good, I think.


Next was wiring up the lockup for the torque converter. I went with a switch type, so's the control freak in me could decide when it would lock up. Mounted it on the shifter tower for now. Unless you know it's there, you don't really know it's there.


Put on the new Ruffstuff D44 diff cover. It's a great pic of my steering stabilizer, but a lousy pic of the cover


Order up some driveshaft bling-bling from Thrash Driveshaft (a local shop). I had a new front CV shaft made...it's got a Spicer CV for a bit more travel and durability. And decided to go CV on the rear. They took my old rear shaft, which was still in good shape, cut the end off and put a Spicer CV head on it. With the BBC454/700r4/SYE241, my rear shaft (34")actually came out 2" shorter than my front shaft (36"). One thing to note...since the spline count is the same for both the front and rear output shafts, you can put any flange from the front output on a 208 or 241 on the rear output. You'll still need to machine off 1/4", which is what I'll be doing to run the new CV rear.


Other miscellaneous stuff included bleeding out the brakes, retorque-ing my shackle bolts to 45ft/lbs (we originally put them on super tight with an impact....mostly cuz I didn't know any better), put the exhast back together, and put the tires on. This is the closest the truck has been to "put together" in several months.


The new shafts still have to be put in. But, I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve for the 241. One is dependant on a part I ordered from Kert...we'll see if it comes in tomorrow . I'm also working thru a slick cable shift idea in my head...we'll see how that pans out. For now, I'll have to crawl under the truck to shift it. Oh well....

[AJs72K5]

UPDATE 10/11/08: The 241 hangs fairly low in it's factory factory location, so I wanted to gain some clearance back. So, I ordered up a 241 clocking ring from Kert @ DIY4X.



I didn't want to clock the 241 completely flat since I still wanted to run my exhaust above the tcase. So I went with the first hole past stock. Here's where the case sat stock:



The install was super easy. Took me an hour total to take the case down, prep the surfaces, bolt up the ring, and rehang the case. Ended up with nice clearance. The bottom of the case is even with the bottom of the crossmember.



Went to install my front shaft and ran into problems. When the case is clocked up, the front output rotates further into the passenger side. After about an hour of grinding and beating on my collector flange, I managed to get the shaft in, with less than 1/16" of clearance.





I decided that just wasn't going to work well, so I ended up taking out the clocking ring.



BUT, when that was done, so was the truck. I finally got to drive it. The 700r4 shifts smoooooooth, and the overdrive is nice on the highway.

The whole reason for the compressed build was to get the truck ready for the 4WP October sale and Show n Shine event today. The truck took 1st place for Best Mods (paint, suspension, engine). Here's the poser trophy shot:



For everyone who's been asking about me flexing the truck some and getting it into the rocks...here ya go:



The Ruffstuff diff covers were awesome. Especially since I hung up the front diff on the last rock coming out.

I have a couple of small bugs to work out. I need to rotate my rear axle up to correct the pinion angle for the CV shaft...it's got some driveline vibes, and one of the outer axle seals on the front D44 decided to start leaking. But with the magnitude of the tranny build, I'm happy with how small the bugs are and how everything turned out.

[BLUE THUNDER]

Nice wheeling. I was def motivated to get mine closer to running after seeing your Blazer and Steve's '67 swb 4x4. The tranny and t-case both come out today dammit!!!!!!!

[Chevyman63]

Nice work AJ...the Blazer looks great.

[vtblazer]

Careful...
Once you do it in the rocks ya never go back.


Glad you got it done for the show, impressive.

[Yukon Jack]

Congrats on the trophy!

[AJs72K5]

UPDATE 02/01/09: Been a while since I did an update. Just been driving it this fall and doing "tweaks" here and there. Nothing noteworthy. Some of my b-day stuff showed up from UPS and had some time to put it on yesterday.

Wire looms, poly tranny mount, shifter labels (so I can tell when I'm in 1st gear), and prop valve (more on that later)


When I jacked up the tranny, the tcase hit the floor of the body. Barely enough room to wedge them in.


Been doing a little cleaning up of the engine compartment here and there. The looms were a nice touch, and functional. They get my plug wires off of the headers.



Didn't have time to do the prop valve. But here's what's going on. Even with the Inline tube (4 wheel disc) prop valve, the rear tires are locking up before the fronts. Not sure how good of an investment that was. Anyways, that's next weekend's project...

[Chevyman63]

Looking good AJ.

[BLUE THUNDER]

Lookin good dude. How much were the trans mounts and where'd you get them? When I put the new tranny in I noticed mine were pretty crapped out. Anyways, I'm getting really close to getting Ol' Yeller on the road. I drove it down the block the other day. I was pretty stoked. That's when I found out the brake booster had seen better days. I'm gonna take it to have the exhaust done next weekend and try to fix the small electrical problem it has. Anyways, glad to see your Blazer is coming along so well. Later dude.

[AJs72K5]

Originally Posted by BLUE THUNDER

Lookin good dude. How much were the trans mounts and where'd you get them?

Summit racing. About $55.

[vtblazer]

Looks like it's about ready for a long trip...Tenn perhaps.

Really nice blazer your building!

[lks dcvn]

Nice work AJ! Coming along very well.

[jaros44sr]

Nice flat black VC's and air cleaner, got a closeup of the DS cowl, back of head. How much clearance is there?

Post up about prop. valve, curious to see how it works out

Nice improvements so far...