Haha ya I am pretty jealous of his engine he is building up. I'll take lots of pics this weekend when I start installing everything. Hopefully everything goes smoothly.

 

So I made some decent progress today. First of all I installed the new longer studs in my Dana 300.










Then after realizing that the klune input gear stuck out a good inch more than the one on my 231 I decided I was either going to have cut the end off of the klune input gear shaft or posibly swap in the shorter input gear from my 231. I wasn't sure if it would actually swap in due to the klune being a custom unit. However I took a shot at it and took apart the klune and removed the planetary gears. I had an extra 231 planetary assembly I pulled out of a tj 231 case I had sitting around so decided to test out things. I traded in the input gears to see if the teeth mesh correct and they do. It turns out the klune uses the same exact planetary gears as the 231 accept it has 6 planetary gears instead of 3. It even had the same cast number printed on the planetary unit. Sweet! That means I can simply swap in my 231 short shaft input gear for the long one on the klune.





Next I removed the d300 4wd indicator sensor due to it getting in the way of the nw fab shifter and I replaced it with the plug provided by the nw fab shifter kit.





After that I started installing my twin stick shifter. I took apart my center console and removed the stock trans case shifter. I had to bolt in a metal plate to cover over the hole that was there and seal it. I cut out part of the plastic center console where the old shifter used to be to make the shifter fit just right. I also took a grinder to the nw fab shifter base so that it could sit a half inch lower. All in all I got the shifters to look very sharp.














Still got a good amount of work to do and the shifters aren't actually hooked up to anything yet. Let me know what you guys think.

 

Looking good!

 

Thanks man. Its coming along slowly but surely.

I had a slight issue that took me a little bit of time to figure out a solution for. After mocking up the transfercase and klune, it became apparent that there was no way to get the klune shifter to point upwards (so that I could shift it in the cab) with the transfercase flipped. Although the klune allows me to clock the transfercase or flip it to almost any position I want, the shifter location is fixed in relation to the transfercase.



If I had a cable shifted klune this would be not problem, but mine is a direct shift, so I need the shifter to point upwards. So I thought about buying a cable shifter or fabing up some new type of shifter for the klune, but I would prefer the direct shifted option. After thinking through my options I decided that the easiest, cheapest, and best overall solution would be to simply buy a 7/8" flip ring for the dana 300.



This will allow me to clock the dana 300 independently of the klune shifter. It will simply go in place of the current spacer I am using between the dana 300 and the klune, so my driveline will still be the same length.

 

I got a bunch of random things done off my jeep to do list today. I was feeling motivated to get this thing trail worthy again.

-First I installed the shift fork thimble covers on my dana 300:



Here is one installed:



-Then I painted the case with some black paint and clearcoat I had laying around. Oooo shiny:





-Next, I re-installed my gas skid plate. I took it off awhile ago when I replaced my fuel pump and was going to replace the nut strips rather than fish the nuts into the frame. I couldn't convince myself the nut strips were worth ~$50 though so I decided to just install the skid again today by using masking tape to hold the nuts onto a long wrench and then fish them into the frame rails.

Here is the skid re-installed finally:



-Then I installed the 2 TRE boots I bought like 2 months ago and havn't had the time to install. My old ones ripped off. It ended up being a huge pain getting one of the castle nuts back on due to stripping the top part of the TRE thread. I had to cut off about 1/4" off the tip with a hack saw and get a new nut.





New boot:



-Next I took a big hammer to the pinch seam in the wheel well in order to bend it flat to keep it from putting any more siping lines in my new tires.

Really hard to tell what you are looking at, but here is a before picture:



And some after pictures with it all smashed down:





-Next as you can see after I installed my skid plate again, there was very little clearance between the exhaust pipe and the skid plate. So, any time I was stopped, the exhaust vibrated against the skid plate. So I used a u-clamp and some exhaust holder thing to hold the tailpipe away from the skid plate. Kinda jury rigged, but works like a charm.





-I also put an exhaust fix it strap/clamp on a small hole I had on my the exhaust.

-I also rotated my tires, replaced the rear wiper blade, changed the oil, greased all the grease fittings, and re-adjusted my quick disconnects since one was too short after I slightly bent the mount.

Pretty productive day I'd say. I am still waiting on the flip ring for my dana 300 to arrive in the mail so that I can finally swap in my klune V and dana 300. Let me know what you guys think.

 

so whens the roll cage coming for this? haha

 

Ya eventually, right now my concentration is just getting this thing to have 4 wheel drive again. I have had my front drive shaft out for over a month waiting on swapping out transfer cases.

A cage is also one of those things I'm extremely picky about. I have only seen a few cages that look the way I want to do mine. I don't have the time or tools any time soon to make my own and I don't trust any local shop to make one exactly how I want it to look. So I'm just going to have to wait a few months till I'm done with this military training course I'm taking that takes all my time and hopefully then ill be able to figure out a cage.

 

yeah thats something you dont want to rush

 

Ya for sure man, you putting one on your jeep? Are there any good trails out by you? My brother lives close to you in Westwood. I might have to bring the jeep out there next time I visit him if there are.

 

oh yea of course, im going to build it all myself. A couple days ago i finished my rear bumper so now i need my rockers replaced with some 2x4 slider that im going to make and a front bumper...Im going to support the roll cage on the bumpers and sliders...but we will see


this is the bumper i just finished


i made some D ring mounts i need to weld on

i also ended up boring the hole so the D ring fits in
also there are so many places with an hour around me to rock crawl and its amazing, also ill be heading to texas this summer to go wild pig hunting....i might be bringing my XJ and another one depending on how many people to so many we can meet up

 

Here are updates on my transfer case and crawl box install. I have made some decent progress over the last few days, but it's been taking longer than I would like because I am doing it in the parking lot of my apartments and it has been raining the last few days. I normally do stuff in the shop, but this is a multiday project.

I pulled my 231 on Monday. I just man handled it out of there.



Here it is next to my spare 231 and my Dana 300.



I spent tuesday evening after work figuring out which angle the transfer case had to be clocked at. I used a cardboard mock up of the transfer case size to try and set the studs up at the correct locations to clock the transfer case at an angle where it would not be hitting against the transmission tunnel but also not hang down low. I then bolted everything together to test fit everything.

At that point I came to realize the Dana 300 is like twice the weight of the 231 and there was no way I was going to lift that up into place like I could with the 231 without a tranny jack- trust me I tried. So I went to harbor freight and bought a tranny jack. Best $70 I ever spent.



The problem was it rained all week and didn't let up until today. So today I finally got the transfercase and klune mocked up and test fitted it into the tunnel. With my guestimating and a whole lot of luck I ended up clocking the transfercase at the perfect angle on the first try. I didn't have to bang on or cut out the tranny tunnel- it fit perfectly. The way I clocked it, it sits almost high enough to do a flat belly skid, but not too high to where I would have to cut a hole in the floor.









As you can see it had just enough clearance.



So that was the exciting part of the day. I still had to take the case back out and take it back apart to do a bunch of other stuff to it before it would actually be ready for use.

I had to disassemble the klune from the transfer case so that I could put RTV gasket maker in between each of the mating surfaces.



First was the .25" mount ring that went on, then this clocking ring I bought off a pirate4x4 vendor.



Before permanently bolting on the Klune though I had to do a few more things to it.

I had to cut a small spacer that came with the klune to keep the intermediary shaft from floating between the klune and the t/c input more than 0.2".





Then I had to split open the klune to move shifter over to the correct location. There are three possible locations. This took forever due to forgetting how I disassembled the shifter a few days ago and never taking a picture.





I then cleaned up the mating surfaces and resealed the klune with rtv.

Then I added the sight tube for the klune and put the covers over the two alternative shifter holes.



After doing all this, I was finally able to bolt the klune to the d300 transfercase.

I then filled up the d300 with the correct gear oil. Synthetics are bad for these so here is what I used for future reference.



And that's as far as I got. I worked all day on this from 9am to 6pm without a break...man I'm beat. I should have some time Tuesday to get everything permanently bolted in. Then I can measure to have my driveshafts shortened/lengthened, and start installing the shifters. This is a huge project.

 

Sweet man I know that bumper definately had to take a lot of work. Just working on this transfercase makes me appreciate all the major projects people take on to do themselves. I will be out here in texas till July so hit me up if you end up in Texas there are a ton of sweet offroad parks out here.

 

I had a gift certificate I won at a militaryjeepers event for Iron Rock offroad that expires tomorrow. Stainless brake lines and a Chrys 8.25 truss are the only thing I they sell that I really need, so I figured I would get the brake lines since they take a little less work to install. I had some used 24" rubber brake lines I have been meaning to put on, but these are 27" and stainless so I would rather use these. Add those to the "need to install list" haha.

 

Nice man! I love my stainless lines, And my IRO rear truss lol

The t/case's are looking nice! makes me want this setup more and more lol

 

Good to hear, I wasn't sure if it would be worth it for the stainless lines, but I figure if I was going to spend the time to install those used rubber ones I have laying around, then I might as well do it right and put stainless lines in instead. That truss they have seems like a good deal too for $100 you can't beat that. Maybe I will get one eventually.