jta
Well-Known Member
I was hoping to keep it light that's why I was trying to stay with 1 case. Plus going with the tracker case would just simply everything and I'll have one if I get a donor rig. Are you running 5.29 axles?
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Help Support Hardline Crawlers :
Never ending Samurai build...
- Thread starter clemsonjeep
- Start date
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Yeah I've got 5.29's.
Shadow Crawlers
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2019
- Messages
- 2
Did you end up going with heavier coils after your 2.0 swap?
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
No sir...same setup.
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Making a few changes on the ol girl...after all it's called the never ending samurai build...
Sent off a tracker tcase and had it modified to be a doubler with an adapter to a 6 bolt round tcase. I'll be using a stock Dana 300, but of course with a twin stick setup and better believe I'm not running no stinkin Spicer joints!
In any case I've gotten them cleaned and painted and started by removing the Samurai tcase. The little case has been good to me with only one gear failure in over 10 years.
Sent off a tracker tcase and had it modified to be a doubler with an adapter to a 6 bolt round tcase. I'll be using a stock Dana 300, but of course with a twin stick setup and better believe I'm not running no stinkin Spicer joints!
In any case I've gotten them cleaned and painted and started by removing the Samurai tcase. The little case has been good to me with only one gear failure in over 10 years.
whiskeymakin
Well-Known Member
Who did you send it off to for the doubler work?
Dirkadirka875
Member
Where in the hell are the stars?
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Look up Keith Rice on Facebook.
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Damnit I hate painting...never had patience, and painting doesn't change that. It goes something like this...spray...look at can for recoat time...says 15mins...think it's ready yet...5 mins later I'm spraying it again...2 minutes later I'm touching it to see if it's dry enough to bolt together.
Needless to say I don't have the patience to do stars...however I could probably raid my kids sticker stash and find some...
hahahaha I'm the same way !
Looking good ! I think you're gonna love the 300 with doubler.
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Trust me...I hate the idea of yanking the stock case out...she's been good to me. I'm making the change because I just can't leave anything alone and James makes me jealous with all the front digs he does...LMAO
Side note...I do plan on entering some WEROCK events...
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Finally got the tcases installed and tore up the backyard this weekend with front digs...
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Getting back on track here and updating the thread to where I am now would be a REALLY long post so I'm going to break this up over a few posts as I get around to it.
Getting the doubler and Dana 300 in wasn't too much of a headache, but I did have to cut a lot more of the floor out. Not sure I'll attempt to put the floor back together either. If I did, the cover would have to be removable in order to access bolts on the doubler at the transmission.
Just kept cutting til it fit...
Biggest area of concern up front was how the shifters were going to interact with the passenger seat.
Getting the doubler and Dana 300 in wasn't too much of a headache, but I did have to cut a lot more of the floor out. Not sure I'll attempt to put the floor back together either. If I did, the cover would have to be removable in order to access bolts on the doubler at the transmission.
Just kept cutting til it fit...
Biggest area of concern up front was how the shifters were going to interact with the passenger seat.
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clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
In this process I also decided to sell my Corbeau Baja SS seats I'd been running for over 10 years but had had good look with and were still plenty comfortable. I'd been wanting a set of PRP's in custom colors and all, but never could make myself spend the coin on them or wait the 4-10 weeks to get them made and shipped. So I ended up ordering a set of the Corbeau Baja Ultra seats in all vinyl since I'd had such good luck with the SS's. I know my rig is small and was getting even smaller inside with the new cases so I went with the standard width based on the idea that the SS's fit me just fine. What I hadn't considered was that my seats had been broken in over the course of 10 years. The Ultra's I'd just received left my fat ass sitting on top of them...not in them. So I sold them off too and ordered a set of the Ultra Wide version. These things are like sitting in my recliner...but better...after all they're in my rig...not in the house.
I proceeded to plan how I was going to shoehorn these much larger seats into place. Luckily the Corbeau seats all use the same mounting pattern so I carefully chopped up my old mounting setup and reused sections of it to mount the new seats. Rather than building off of the cage like I'd done before I opted to just bring some tube up from the frame rail and through the floor to a tube running width wise that the seats would mount to. This worked out well and hopefully will be good in the long run too.
I proceeded to plan how I was going to shoehorn these much larger seats into place. Luckily the Corbeau seats all use the same mounting pattern so I carefully chopped up my old mounting setup and reused sections of it to mount the new seats. Rather than building off of the cage like I'd done before I opted to just bring some tube up from the frame rail and through the floor to a tube running width wise that the seats would mount to. This worked out well and hopefully will be good in the long run too.
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
Next on the agenda was building a skid plate. I'd never had a skid plate before since the Samurai tcase was mounted in the Zuks Off Road Snatch cradle and was tucked up pretty high. With the new cases the Dana 300 hangs below the frame rails a little less than 1.5 inches so I decided to build a skid plate to protect it. Before, the stock case was divorced so if it got bashed around it didn't have much effect on the transmission or anything ahead of it, but now I've got two cases hanging off a transmission...so landing on the Dana 300 wasn't something I wanted to try out.
I found some heavy wall 1.5" rectangle tubing at the metal supply and picked it up. Then I agonized over what I was going to use for the skid material. Of course everyone says use AR400/500 or skin it with aluminum and then put some UHMW on it. This is a Samurai based buggy...let's remember that. I'd picked up two large pieces of scrap steel a few years back. One was 1/8" thick and one was 3/16" thick and I'd been using them for different projects as they came up. Luckily I had just enough of the 3/16" to cut the shape I needed to skin the frame I built for the skid and only had to fill in a small section. So 3/16" steel is what it'll be!
This thing took much longer to build than I ever anticipated since I kept coming up with something else I wanted to modify. I bent up the front and rear lips and braced them which is what took over half the total time involved.
I found some heavy wall 1.5" rectangle tubing at the metal supply and picked it up. Then I agonized over what I was going to use for the skid material. Of course everyone says use AR400/500 or skin it with aluminum and then put some UHMW on it. This is a Samurai based buggy...let's remember that. I'd picked up two large pieces of scrap steel a few years back. One was 1/8" thick and one was 3/16" thick and I'd been using them for different projects as they came up. Luckily I had just enough of the 3/16" to cut the shape I needed to skin the frame I built for the skid and only had to fill in a small section. So 3/16" steel is what it'll be!
This thing took much longer to build than I ever anticipated since I kept coming up with something else I wanted to modify. I bent up the front and rear lips and braced them which is what took over half the total time involved.
scooter60
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2013
- Messages
- 414
Looks good Ryan!
Lil ugly
Well-Known Member
Looks good, Any thoughts on adding a few drain holes? seems like that areas between the center is going to fill up with about 50lbs of material in long run.
clemsonjeep
Well-Known Member
I've been scratching my head over that. I think the hole(s) would need to be big enough to let larger material out or things would just clog up anyway. So that makes me not want any holes to maintain what strength the 3/16" has and to prevent getting hung up on the hole(s).
Open to suggestions though...
Lil ugly
Well-Known Member
The best suggestion would be to dimple die holes before you welded it up. of course not much help now. I would think some holes 3/4 inch or so with some stiffeners around them would be good. Just angle the stiffeners at 30 to 45 degree angles to channel water to the holes, dont weld them to rear cross piece so that water can move back and forth along it and you should get most of it. The 3/16 could probably use some stiffeners regardless.
