done yet lol

 

I ran out of welding wire!

I was on a freaking roll too. Oh well time for bed i guess.

A little teaser though, it was sitting on its own weight for about and hour in the front. Probably should have gotten pictures but I didnt.

5" of up travel, Panhard bar is a probably too short but it will have to do for now, probably change it later.

I am waiting on shock tabs in the mail.

Need to shorten the front driveshaft :(

 

make your own dude. making your own tabs saves a lot of money and once you get into the practice of it, it goes super easy and quick...

make your own of that too. just knock the weld off between the yoke and the tube and cut appropriately. weld back on, but not in big sections so you dont distort...

 

I have made several of my own brackets but its just time consuming to make some, by the time you add in grinding wheel wear and gas from the torch it all equals out.

ON the driveshaft... idk its only going to be like 40 bucks to shorten it.

 

word, i forgot how cheap it is to retube driveshafts...

about the brackets, plasma cutter and drill press. brackets are FUN to make, IMO. sky's the limit on them...

 

yeah i dont have a plasma cutter, but i do have access to a water jet, that is the best IMO for bracket making. so precise and it even makes the holes for ya! But i need to learn how to run it so i am not waiting on someone else to make them

 

LMAO

 

i wouldnt call it the best, waterjets have deflection, laser cutting is the best for shizzle.

yeah its stupid easy. I could even set it up for you on mastercam if you told me how you wanted your brackets. When I did my waterjet class it took me maybe a day or so to learn to run it, the rest of the "learning" was cleaning it and repairing it.

 

Hey since your using that manual case with the other style output yoke could you take off the adapter on the d-shaft and it be the right length?

Just thought I'd throw that out there. I'm sure your probably already thought of it though.

 

Do you need to shorten the front drive shaft because of the change from LP to HP on the D44? Cause I figure you're keeping your wheel base basically the same..

 

I would figure its in the length of the diffs and he talks as if its not going to be so high this time...

 

as far as i know his d30 is/was HP.

i know he moved the upper coil mounts, so he might have changed the wheel base.

 

The Dana 30 has a smaller center section than the Dana 44 does. So the Dana 44 yoke is farther back than the Dana 30 yoke; it is only like an inch or so.

 

deflection huh? guess i never noticed, probably depends on the waterjet.

Oh yeah I have thought about, it might work but I really dont know what I am going to do with that whole thing. Didnt you wire up your tcase to make the lights on the dash work?

Both are HP, but like Maurice and Gil said its the length of the pumpkin, id say its probably 2" longer.

yep, and i tried to make it lower but it just was not working, so its a bit taller for now.

Wheelbase should be the same, I guess I never checked it though. LOL

Yep between 1-2 inches id say.

 

Yeah I sure did, with a little help from Bob. Here is the pm he sent me when I asked for help figuring out where I needed my wires to go.


And here is the part # for the t-case harness, I believe Ford charged me $28 for it: 3u2z-14s411-VBA

 

What year Tcase did you use? Or does it not matter? This manual Tcase has several connectors on it, where my current electric case only has 1

 

Eh scratch that, you got yours from Bob I see. Your is much newer, I doubt the lights are going to work.

 

no they all have it, but it depends on cutting speed versus thickness/material. torches and plasmas do it to...

 

Beard I don't think the year of the case matters as long as its a 1354. If I remember correctly Mark's case was a 1354 out of a '92 explorer and it had the same light switch as mine which came out of an '03 level II.

I'm not sure how the electric cases trigger the lights though since I've never dealt with an electric case, but I assume they don't have the same switch as the manual cases. I figure it would be easier to just run the 2 new wires. When I wired mine up it took all of half an hour to do it(not including pulling the cluster of course).

What kind of connectors are on your case Beard? That year of case should have the speed sensor next to the rear output of the case and the 4x4 switch should be on the front next to the shift lever. I'm not aware of any other electrical parts on the manual cases.


I'll try to grab you a picture of the 4x4 switch on my case so you can compare it to yours.

 

Here's some pics of what mine looks like with the harness unplugged of course. Sorry for the bad quality of the pics but its kind of a tight spot to be getting the camera into.

BTW I think the switch is the same but if its not you can go to the local dealer and look through their book of connectors. Thats how I found what harness I needed for the t-case.


Edit: I went back and looked at the pic you posted of your case but its hard to tell if the switch is the same because it looks like the end cap of the harness is still on it.

 

I think this is it right here. I will have to check my electric case but I thought it only had one plug in it.

 

i am not sure if the electric cases have that plug.

 

Yes Beard that is the switch for the lights. I can't tell if its the same though because from the pic it looks like the connector piece from the wire harness is still connected.

I'm pretty sure the electric case doesn't have that switch. I believe it triggers the 4x4 lights using the mess of wires coming out of the shift motor. Since the electric case doesn't have that switch you'd need to get the harness to hook up the 4x4 lights, unless of course you can salvage the plug thats still on your manual case.

 

Yeah that plug is trashed, I have an 03 wiring diagram book at home, I will see if maybe i can just tap the correct wires that are already there to make it work. I always forget I have that book

Thanks for clarifying all that