The 4.0 Swap was chump change compared to this - Look inside...

[blazinzuk]

Goes back to my PM about making shock insulated mounting brackets to prevent the doubler case from cracking out. Guys like Rookie (who fotunately didn't bust his Atlas) not trying to be funny Rick, & others who had the very good common sense to ease into new changes to their trucks drive train, get away with it. Many just tightener up and go till it blows. You sir felt, heard, sensed...whatever & started wondering and checked it out. With the weight and torque multiplication of a doubler out there the problem will be exponentially greater than it is now...so even if you "fix it for now" when you "double" what is good enough for now, won't be for then. Still got a link you can go to to see what happens when a D&D machine transfer doubler conversion kit blows (from what appears to be poor mounting design)... and it's not pretty!

So wondering, what are the weak spots of these cases, where are they breaking. How are they breaking.

The how and where( on the case) will tell you plenty of how to mount the t-case

Pictures help. Stories help.

The strongest t-case mounting system won't help if your motor mounts and trans mount ( if there) are not in good shape.

Just wanna make sure young Jon here doesn't bust up a case.

 

[rookieshooter]

So wondering, what are the weak spots of these cases, where are they breaking. How are they breaking.

The how and where( on the case) will tell you plenty of how to mount the t-case

Pictures help. Stories help.

The strongest t-case mounting system won't help if your motor mounts and trans mount ( if there) are not in good shape.

Just wanna make sure young Jon here doesn't bust up a case.

I have no other experience then my Atlas 2.
I contacted the builders/designers Advanced Adapters concerning the problem of the amount of torque twisting.
I mentioned that on the pirate 4x4 there was this guy (Vista) who is well regarded in everything 4x4 and he built a doubler and was making a torque controlling device that connected to his doubler. Advance told me, What ever I do,do not connect anything to the case. The guys doubler grenaded on him. Do not know the exact cause? Now I will say this, an Atlas is an all aluminum billet case, where his was steel.
What I've read, which is not first hand knowledge, one weak point is the two piece sector shaft that needs to be made by joining two shafts together.
This part is all about Metallurgy at it's best. Enough said. Other then I chained the engine to both sides of my frame.
And a good thing to, just a few days ago I had to pull a chevy 3/4 ton truck up a dirt hill after he broke a dana 44 outer axle. With my axles all locked and Atlas in low, should have seen all the dirt flying from all 4 wheels. But had I not have had some restraints built in, who knows what would have happened cause that engine never even hinted of a strain. I just wished I had a video of it doing the "Boot Scootin Boogie".
Still thinking of adding some cushioning devices utilizing those hard poly after market bushings that could be place up against both side of engine or bellhousing or tranny.
The poly bushing would be hard connected to some steel support and then lay next to the drivetrain not hard bolted Bet it would work like a champ.

But don't worry, I have all confidence that young Mr Jon will utterly destroy the case. Reason, not the case itself, but his throwing caution to the wind, Hell bent for Leather, unadulterated driving style.
But all sector shafts don't let go but some do. Just depends on a lot of variables.
For example, you guys with less then a 4" bore motor with a power stroke of every 120 degrees of crankshaft rotation probably won't have much to worry about veses a 4" bore that fires every 90 deg. of cranshaft rotation...just saying :

 

[broncobra22]

All good points and concerns. http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70021&page=16
refer to both page 16 photos and also page 17 shows his "fix" and what he was doing = where he was when he broke it.l Guy doesn't really get into the whys and hows of anything...I've read the entire thread but he takes some pics along the way. He's got some power and def puts it into harms way as does his little wife!
Case is broken at the t. couple...he uses a belly pan so it's hard to tell how the tranny is supported, but on pg. 17 he does show how he "fixed" the transfer case by supporting it. Best I can tell was he busted it and repaired it in March/April of 2011 and wheeled it at least until Sept. of 2011 with no post of case failure up till that point. He hasn't posted to the thread since then, but he is active military so...?
Lot of things could have occured & some in conjunction...I lean to multiple causes not the least of which this is not a case which was designed to hold big torque & multiplication, improper or weakened tranny support, poor bolt up of the trans to the transfer cases (simple as too much or too little torque on one bolt), added & improperly supported weight & leverage of the longer doubler case. As some might have thought it could even have been a mis alignment of the transfer case and the doubler case. Perhaps just metal fatigue (doubt it). Cast cases don't like flexing, they are tough when challenged in a linear fashion, not so much when twisted.
As for the doubler to transfer case coupling shaft failing...well it would have been Really noticed. Rookies right about the engine but it's hard to beleive that a guy would forget to properly install limit straps on a rock crawler or a straight hill climber. I really like this guys truggy and the work hes put into it and am not knocking any of it and he really throws it around...just wish he would have posted more details and let all know if he had the problem solved to the best of his knowledge. To the best of my knowledge it worled until his posts stopped.
I am not a TRS member so if any of youse guys are ask around.

 

[janderson4010]

my original plan was to have an upgraded cmember in the original spot and build one that connects to the doubler plate, im thinnking now of extending that to to hook to both the doubler plate and that balancing weight on the back of the case. those will be hard mounted to the cases but with poly bushings on the ends of the cmember itself, the cmember in the original position will be on the back of the trans with stock style mount made of polyurethane and the ends of the cmember bolted to the frame itself. anyone see any problem with that? hell I may just hand the damn thing over to Eric and let him go buckwild with it.

 

[broncobra22]

Support

Support of the case is necessary, but should offer a slight flex & not of a metal bolted to metal nature, this also goes to what your buddy said about having good engine and transmission support.

I think your plan for the support members is a good place to start & once everything is installed field test with some restraint until you are reasonably sure all is well. Good design is often planned around adjustibility in case of catastrophic failure!

Attaching plate shouldn't be drilled until the couple shaft is available to align the two housings together or things will start out in a bind, especially under load. This would be very bad. Case alignment has to be dead on perfect for this thing to work. Don't take any of this as reason to give up, I know it can and has worked before and yours can too. Not an Atlas but like one guy said leaks a little but crawls like crazy!

 

[janderson4010]

Attaching plate shouldn't be drilled until the couple shaft is available to align the two housings together

yeah just waiting on that shaft... lol.

yeah im deathly afraid of messing up the alignment of the shaft when I attach the cases to the plate, im waiting to get the shaft back so I can "assemble" them without drilling any holes, to get the fit right so that the shaft isn't taking any side load. I can see with the current setup that the trans mount was cracked so badly that it couldn't take any of the twisting force caused by the torque of the drivetrain, ill install the new one and see what difference it makes.

as for the engine I don't live on the east coast so I don't have to have a fire breathing dragon under the hood, you can never be underpowered just undergeared. seems the east coast vs west coast guys have different philosophies when it comes to what kind of engine you need under the hood. that could also be just rock crawlers, some of the rednecks around here think they need a big block, half ton running gear and 44" tires for some reason, not to sure they think that through properly. The 4.0 is great motivation for my bII, its got quite a bit of power for a pretty light vehicle, and gets pretty good mileage too. I wouldn't mind a 302 in my rig, but I think the engine stuff is behind me unless I rebuild a 4.0 with a mild cam etc in the future. It is pretty cool that Rick C. has a better engine in broncobra than my old man has in his 68 mustang, and thats saying something, that stang is pretty hot.

 

[blazinzuk]

So what you fellas are saying is that those cases are inherently weak?

I think a major stop towards preventing failure would be to helicoil all the holes. Big problem with aluminum cases of any kind.

Yah rotation control will be on our minds when we build the mounts always would have been.


Not to hard to put a cushion bushing on one side of the case to prevent it from torquing over.

I can see a problem developing from using stock ( soft) motor mounts and hard ( poly bushing) mounts on the t case. Just may have to build motor mounts for young Jon.

Jon is right though. I run a dead bone stock TBI 350, His 4.0 is rated higher than my motor in HP. Out here you can be undergeared but rarely underpowered.

We have big technical boulder crawling, we don't have slick muddy hills with rocks. We have slow going huge rocks, that can break off and move alot.

Gotta love the 203/205 doubler though I have seen those cases halfway coming apart and still rockin down the trail.

Oh I do wish I had an Atlas though could lose a couple hundred more pounds off my big pig.

 

[broncobra22]

Stacked deck

Yes I'm positive that the design engineers did not anticipate what has evolved into extreme off road wheeling of all types and especially what you guys are doing out west...still blows my mind and it's been around for many years....cool stuff. If Ford had looked on down the road they would still be building a beefy 4th. or 5th. gen. solid axle,V8 powered, fold down windshield, removable top/door, atlas boxed & bullet proofed version of the Early bronco...envision a Ford corporate small Bronc Raptor all coilovered and linked front and rear with every aftermarket style winch, caged & doodaddied to hell at $85,000. per and only the rich kids driving 'em and only to the mall and home!

That's why we poor boys get all the fun building, wheeling , busting up & fixin' up our version of what should have been but isn't. Sometimes we really screw up part of our build. At times it's what we can just barely afford to build without causing a divorce. Ford really doesn't care what we want past the point of what will we buy & pay for...all other manufacturers are just as much concerned with the bottom line concept and design accordingly.

Stacking boxes in the home garage etc. never occured to any of these companies...they don't even want us to change our own oil, but some still can do a "stax" using whatever cases are available that will fit...kinda'. Certainly the 1350/1354 stax isn't as strong as the above post mentioned 203/205 combo or an Atlas, but the little Borg Warners will run till till they blow or not. Plus you could build a dozen of them & still have money left over from what you might spend on an Atlas. Oh yeah your preaching to the choir about horsepower and gearing...if I were in rocks & money wasn't a factor (yeah right) I know I would have put a huge chunk of my money into an Atlas and not in my motor.

Using same mounting material (poly) is certainly the best way to go and h. coils are also a good aluminum cast case suggestion.

Oh yeah I really like Broncos & Fords of all types, but I've built and enjoyed many more Chevys than all other brands combined, lol!

 

[janderson4010]

I painted my junk, I can't paint the back until I boatside and cut out the rear fender but I think its going to look good in white

then I went over and bent some tube on horton, Eric is trying to make it not look like such a peice of junk haha.

 

[rookieshooter]

We have big technical boulder crawling, we don't have slick muddy hills with rocks. We have slow going huge rocks, that can break off and move alot.

That's a good point. When Advance built my case, they suggested not too low of gears because of all the mud we have here. He said for the trails that I plan on doing that there will be times that I'll want to really spin the tires, especially to clean the cleats. And they were so right, I don't think there was one day this summer that they ever dried out.

That is some nice tube work.

The white looks good, but some mud pin stripping on will really make it stand out.

 

[janderson4010]

im fighting with the steering on my rig, I bought a tapered insert for the pitman arm to make it the same taper as what the jeeps are running, but now I don't have enough thread engagment on the tre for the nut, guess I need to do a little grinding.

 

[rookieshooter]

im fighting with the steering on my rig, I bought a tapered insert for the pitman arm to make it the same taper as what the jeeps are running, but now I don't have enough thread engagment on the tre for the nut, guess I need to do a little grinding.

I don't know if this would work, but I went with the more stronger and more articulating Chevy blazer TREs on the steering ends and drag links.
On the Pitman arm to get the right angle I even retapered the hole to a larger Chevy, I think it was chevy ha ha. But to get the right angle with the track bar I had to reverse the taper so the TRE went in from the top.

Somewhere in some of the ancient posts I documented it all. But I guess this might be hard for ya without making your own links.
Might want to think along those lines?
If I remember I got some of the harder to get TREs from Parts Mike.

 

[janderson4010]

yeah the plan is to use the ruffstuff steering kit with the chevy tre's when I do the d44, for now im just trying to get solid safe steering with the stock Jeep stuff, I just don't want to put any money into the d30 if I can help it.

 

[janderson4010]

got my wife to put my panhard back in and fix my steering for me, its always fun to sit back and make the old lady work. haha jk she is useless with a wrench, she was tapping the panhard bolt in while I wiggled the axle around

but the good news is I got everything back together and ready for a test drive, I just need to grease the new tre and can't find my grease gun. here is the steering all put back together.

 

[rookieshooter]

What hammer? Oh it took me awhile to see the hammer.

Are those scrub marks from what I think they're from? Seems it just took the first layer of paint off.

I swear that pitman arm looks broken, or just an illusion or did I miss something.

 

[janderson4010]

naw the pitman is in good shape, maybe your were seeing the cotter pin or at the tre I did weld that tapered insert in

this one shows the steering tackle turned to full driver

and this one to full passenger

im not sure where the marks on the panhard came from, I can only guess it hits at full droop one way or another. And yes that wimpy little tie rod is bent all to hell, thats going to be changed when cash flow circumstances permit. the grand cherokee tie rod set is a full steel bar the same size as the drag link I currently have and its got a bigger tre shaft diameter as well. Here is a link to the page I found giving parts numbers for the upgrade;
http://www.jeephorizons.com/tech/tjtierod/

 

[janderson4010]

the bII went on a diet, I got bored and since ill need to have all the panels out to cut off the roof and boatside it, I think i got a little over 100 lbs total out of it,

 

[janderson4010]

I got some new toys today,

 

[rookieshooter]

the bII went on a diet, I got bored and since ill need to have all the panels out to cut off the roof and boatside it, I think i got a little over 100 lbs total out of it,

Awesome, just plain awesome
There's just something about unadorned steel and it's so easy now running all the new wiring.
Good time to figure out the interior cage.

When I ripped out the rear carpet in mine I found rust at the extreme end toward bumper requiring some major surgery?

This is starting to look like a real trail/crawler now.
If that bii could talk she be saying "Ride me hard big boy, put me away wet and make me write bad checks.

 

[rookieshooter]

I got some new toys today,

Whats the clip for, Ruger? Caliber 9mm or 22?

Also is your Dad pissed at you again for forgetting to get the extra Doe tag like last year?