Never ending Samurai build...

[Forbanger]

Hope I'm not repeating a question. But how are the gears gonna be compared to the 3sp?

 

[clemsonjeep]

Hope I'm not repeating a question. But how are the gears gonna be compared to the 3sp?

3spd (3L30/TH180)

1=2.40:1, 2=1.47:1, D=1.0:1 and R=2.0:1

4spd (03-72LE)

1=2.83:1, 2=1.49:1, 3=1.0:1, D=0.73:1 and R=2.7:1

 

[clemsonjeep]

Started out early today with every intention of getting the install finished up and only leaving the shifter to hook up. That didn't happen.

I'd pressed the trans adapter out of the 3spd the other day to reuse on the 4spd. Come to find out the diameter of the seal opening was smaller so I spent some time on the mini lathe working that out. Got it right and pressed it in place. Then I notice it's not seating all the way so I press it back out and do some more measuring. Turns out the shoulder was narrower too so back on the lathe. Finally got that right and moved on to the intermediate shaft.

I'd already measured for length and just needed to shorten one up...back to the mini lathe I went. I'm no drivetrain shop so I take my sweet time trying to get it as true as I can. Ended up swapping around ujoints and fighting needle bearing falling out... arrrgggghhh. Once I got it where I liked it I tacked it together and went for a test fit. Sumbitch...the splined section is shorter on the trans so the female slip doesn't slide in as far as it did with the 3spd. It makes perfect sense now after thinking but at the time I was pissed. So next time I be cutting down the slip so it goes far enough in so I can verify my intermediate shaft is right before final welding.

 

[clemsonjeep]

Well here it is in black and white...Go figure.

 

[easleycrawler]

Oh the joys and headaches of building a Offroad rig.

 

[clemsonjeep]

Making small strides...

Picked up a trans pan from a Toyota Previa at the pullapart so i could rob the dipstick from it and swap it to my pan to move it to the driver side. Hoped to use the whole pan but turns out the Tracker has a deeper pan. Then I used a combination of upper dipstick tubes to put together one that worked for me.

Got the Winters shifter hooked up. Since my driveshaft is so close to the pan I couldn't use the parts Winters sends. I had to flip the shifter arm on the trans upright and the cable to come out the front of the shifter. The cable goes down through the original shifter hole down the driver side of the trans, loops back to the rear then around to the passenger side. In this configuration the shifter is pushing the cable from P thru 1st rather than pulling as it would in the standard configuration.

The next concern is how close the driveshaft gets to the line fitting at the rear corner of the trans. I'll be hitting pullapart again tomorrow since I'd noticed some Jeeps or Toyotas used banjo style fittings which would suck this up closer to the case.

Part of the 4spd swap was to have the slip yoke for the intermediate shaft machined so it would fully engage the output shaft. I dropped it off at a local machine shop this week and 2 days later I picked this up...

 

[clemsonjeep]

The other part I started working on today was the trans mount. Since space gets so tied up by everything that's going on in that area...exhaust, front driveshaft, fuel lines, brake lines, etc. I've decided to go this route. It'll be a piece of 1.5" round tube coming off the hoop that goes around my tcase shifters down towards the trans. There it will have a poly bushing at the end of it. I've already made the piece that bolts to the top 4 bolts on the back of the trans so tomorrow I'll start with adding 2 tabs to that to accept the poly bushing.

Anybody have a reason this won't work the way I'm looking at it?

 

[sleepsontoilet]

I've gone from the top before, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

 

[clemsonjeep]

I've gone from the top before, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

So many jokes to be made here...lol

Thanks!

 

[clemsonjeep]

Well I went with the trans mount idea above, but progress has been slow only getting 2 hours an evening here and there. Tonight I got the trans mount wrapped up with the exception of adding a piece of flat stock bent over the hoop and down the sides of the tube going towards the trans for some extra beef. I also finished up the intermediate shaft and got it painted so it'll be ready after this weekends vacation.

I've got some more goodies on the way to change the turbo cv carb setup just a little bit...more to come!

 

[clemsonjeep]

Getting closer...Got the cooling lines hooked up tonight. I'd initially grabbed a few lines from yotas at pullapart but they use flare fittings and this trans used banjo fittings. Rather than making things work I chose to go with what I know works. These smaller lines are 5/16 so that limits how I could install a temp sensor so I had to go back with how I had it before. It's in a 1/4" tee and inline with the rubber line with a ground wire going to it.

The last time at pullapart I also picked a few cams from carbs and throttle bodies and brought home the one I liked most. Figured while I was doing all this I'd hook up the TV cable the "right" way since it actually controls the line pressure on this trans.

I got lucky the Harley CV carb had an extra piece on it that I could salvage the center from to allow me to adapt the cam I found to it. Just gotta make a mount for the cable and it should be good to go.

 

[clemsonjeep]

Planning to have this thing driving tomorrow. Today was nice...no crawling around on the ground to get things done. I'd been struggling with what I wanted to do for the shifter mount. I'd originally wanted to incorporate a cup holder into the rear of it, but things got a little cramped so I changed gears (pun intended) and decided to set it up to mount my AFR and boost gauges there. It's been painted and I'll get it mounted in the rig first thing tomorrow.

Before deciding the cup holder wasn't gonna work out...

Finished product prior to paint...

Still left to do:

Finish shifter mount
Wire shifter
Run wires to gauges
Trans pan gasket
Fill with fluid
Finish mounting TV cable
Install starter
Double check everything...fire it up!

Eventually I'ill have to patch the trans tunnel, but I'll be putting that off since welding Japanese soup cans together is not my idea of fun. :****:

 

[clemsonjeep]

I got several things wrapped up last night including mounting the shifter, gauges, finishing mounting the TV cable, and the starter. Tonight I'll get the driveshafts back in, pan gasket replaced, fill fluids, air up front shocks, and with any luck see if it will move.

 

[clemsonjeep]

Took some time yesterday and today to start installing the FROR keyed arms I'd ordered before I figured out my studs were just extremely loose. These arms are just plain sexy and they really make you wonder why someone didn't think of this setup way back when. I'd also ordered the FROR Tacoma brake mounting kit. Since I was already running the slip on rotors all I had to pick up was a pair of calipers from a 98+ 4Runner.

The only pain in the ass about this whole process is that FROR produces their arms with 1" holes where the trunnion installs and since I'm running the TG trunnion eliminator I needed to come up with a bushing to reduce the 1" hole to a 3/4" hole. For what it's worth I did ask Brian at FROR if he couldn't just make a set of arms with the right size hole...evidently that would've been too much work. So after a couple hours with the mini lathe I finally came up with some. Only issue was I don't have a great way to make an internal bore that is a press fit for the 3/4". At least not without it taking FOREVER so I just drilled them to 3/4" and made the bushings tall so that I could weld the trunnion to them so they wouldn't spin inside the bushing. The bushing is a press fit into the arms so I'm good there.

Previous setup...

 

[ftoy516]

i have FROR Brake kit on mine, and i LOVE it.....it was a huge inprovement.

my buggy will just about stand on the front end if needed.

i think you will like them.

 

[clemsonjeep]

After making the 2nd of the bushings for the arm last night I knew I could make another that was better than the first one I'd made. Anyone that's worked on a HF mini lathe knows turning steel can be a tiring process. In any case the 3rd try was a charm and it fit great.

 

[clemsonjeep]

Took it out for the first trip on the new 4spd transmission. All I can say is...why didn't I do this the first time around??? It shifts when I tell it to...and the gearing is perfect. 1st gear is a little lower than the 3spd so I found myself using 2nd gear quite a bit and even found myself in 3rd under full throttle on a hill or 2. The shift from 2nd to 3rd will damn near take your head off too.

Moving on to the next change...taking a page from jared's (on zuwharrie) build way back when. I noticed he'd changed over to using a velocity stack on the CV carb with a "hat" that attached to the carb via a v-band clamp. There's two things there that I like...velocity stack and the v-band. I picked up the velocity stack from Bison Motorsports and the 3.5" v-band with mild steel rings on eBay. I already had some 3.5" exhaust tubing from when I swapped out the exhaust from my F-250.

From what Jared's thread over on zuwharrie said he was able to get away from the pitot tube setup and run the stock bowl vent on the face of the carb. I'm hoping this will smooth out transition from no boost to boost a little more...we'll see.

 

[zukiscott]

I like that CV carb mount setup...been thinkin about redoing mine with something like that...its just an old first run my-side setup with the bent threaded rods...also like the velocity stack addition.

 

[Jon Piper]

 

[clemsonjeep]

I like that CV carb mount setup...been thinkin about redoing mine with something like that...its just an old first run my-side setup with the bent threaded rods...also like the velocity stack addition.

It's worked out really well so far. The concept of the velocity stack makes a lot of sense...hoping it plays out as well as it did for jared on his rig.