UGH, not another BW4406 thread....Doing the homework

This is yet another thread about swapping in the BW4006 transfercase into a second gen Mountaineer 5.0 AWD. Nothing too exciting/different about that, right? Agreed.

My AWD transfercase has been dead for a long time now, and I have been running it without the front diff and driveshaft. The truck has never moved, no matter where it was parked, telling me that the VC is indeed dead. This past weekend, my truck told me that the time has come to do the swap because the transfercase rear output shaft developed a serious vibration at speeds over 30 MPH.

Surprisingly, my local "auto recycler" is pricing the parts in my favor to swap over to the BW4406 verses replacing the AWD transfercase. I can get the 4406, front and rear driveshafts all for about $200. He wants $165 for just the AWD transfercase. Makes the decision a no-brainer. (its a pick-and-pay, the TC is still in the truck with shifter)

No plans for a body or suspension lift. This is my DD and will have to continue in that capacity for the next 6-12 months or so. I have no plans to "wheel" this truck beyond the occasional dirt road.


I have read, re-read and read some more about this swap and have a few things that are not crystal clear so....
Just a few questions:

Has anyone had any luck eliminating/minimizing the issue of the transmission mounts premature death?

I have also read about some that have done this swap and had slight vibrations that were traced to the front driveshaft. They fixed the vibration by incorporating a double cardan shaft. I just want to be 100% clear about what I need to do this.
1) Double Cardan front driveshaft from a first gen (can a 95 be used?)
2) Precision 627 Universal Joint Yoke (could I use my existing yoke? it looks the same?)
3) Three Precision 280 "1310" Greasable U-Joints
Have I missed anything?


Thanks in advance to anyone that can shed some light on my questions.

 

[nssj2]

As far as the transmission mount, Im not familiar with any way to solve it, besides get a good brand name mount. Simple fact is that the 4406 is much heavier, and therefore contributes to an early mount failure.

About the front dshaft, the f150 one will work fine as long as you don't have a suspension lift. For instance, the superlift kit drops the front dana 35 about 4 inches, increasing the angle on the ujoints beyond what they were designed for, and causes the yolks to hit during rotation. If you did want the double cardan dshaft, you can either make one from a jeep, or find one from a 95 explorer. Mountaineergreen did a write up all about that on here, because he had the superlift and had a vibration issue.

 

[my pos mounty]

Thank you NSSJ2, exactly the info I needed.

 

[my pos mounty]

Mods:Feel free to move this thread wherever you wish. I am going to basically document my personal trials and tribulations on my swap here. It will be by far the biggest mod I will ever do to this truck. This is not going to be another "How to" but just my personal experiance with it and how it all falls together. (or apart?)


I went to my local "Pick-N-Pay" today and found a 97 Ford 150 4X4, I went looking for the linkage/shifter/boots. Of course the thing was laying right on the ground and it took me a good hour to get it up high enough to crawl under it. I scored the beauty boot and the weather-proofing boot and the shifter from the top side. I crawl under it and it looks like the linkage is different than anything I have seen on this forum so far. Jack it up higher and I crawl under and try to find a tag (yeah, me without so much as a flashlight). Its tagged as a 4406 and it is behind a 5 speed manual tranny. I think the linkage would work since it is a 4406, but it is 5 years older than the Tcase I am getting. I second guessed myself right out of the junkyard. (I think removing one Tcase is enough and would rather pay a little extra for someone else to remove the 4406, especially for what I am paying for the case, it just isnt worth my time)
Paid 10 bucks for the 2 boots, the shifter and a F150 tow hook I took off another truck nearby. Walked over to the "order and pay" side to order everything because nothing beyond what I already had could be found on the "U-Pull-It" side. When I ask for the transfercase he says he needs the numbers from my old Tcase. I tell him "I don't have them and don't care which manual shifting BW4406 you have, I will take it". He says ok, then I ask for the rear shaft from a 2000 Expedition 4X4 with the 5.4 and standard suspension, and the front from a 2002 F150 with the 4.6 V8. He looks at me funny and asks me what I am doing. I tell him I am modifying my Mountaineer to be a true 4X4. He grins from ear to ear and says "I love that kinda stuff, tell you what, I'll cut you a deal on the parts I have on the shelf ready to go" and knocks $20 off the front driveshaft and $20 off the transfercase.
The transfercase (2001 with 101,000 miles & 1 year warranty) was a whopping $100, now 80...front driveshaft was $40, now 20....rear driveshaft is $75. So everything I need for $175 out the door.
Going to "reseal" the Transfercase and the front differential I picked up last weeked and of course replace all the U-joints on the driveshafts, buy a new trans mount and a trans mount for the 150 just to check out the differences.
Parts will all be ready tomorrow afternoon at the JY and I am going to head back and grab that linkage. Kinda kicking myself in the rear for second guessing it now. If it works, it was another great score, if not, the cost wont kill me.

 

[my pos mounty]

All Parts Are In The Garage

Parts were ready at 10:30, arrived at noon to pick them up. Went back into the "pick-n-pay" side, scored the remaining piece of the shifting linkage. Total spent at the JY:$195 ($175 for Tcase and both driveshafts, 10 bucks yesterday and today for miscellaneous junk and shifter with linkage.)
Hit the auto parts store for the u-joints, seals. Ended up with that plus 6 cans of brakeclean, 3 quarts synthetic diff fluid, RTV, 3/8 universal socket and a new floor jack. Spent more $$ here than the Junkyard and still forgot trans fluid for the tcase.
Went to my friends garage (he will tell you its my garage, I do more work in it than he does). Pulled out that front diff I scored for a 30 pack, clean all the dried mud off, open it up and clean it out, yank/replace seals, opened the fill plug, cleaned mating surfaces, RTV seal the cover back into place. 1 Part down and ready to go.
Next up was the rear Driveshaft, mark position of front flange, removed the joint and thats when I notice that they gave me the wrong ones. If this is the biggest problem I encounter, I will be elated.
On to the front shaft, it was easy as pie. Spray painted it for kicks. Part 2 ready to go.
Next came tcase, cleaned up the exterior and the transmission mating surface. Part 3 ready.
Wife wanted to pack it in for the night, and without tearing into the truck, there isn't anything else to do to prepare. Wife spent an hour and a half washing/drying/waxing the Street Glide and tells me that the weather tomorrow will be too nice for us to be stuck under the truck and wants us to spend it on the bike. Whats not to love about that?
If it rains Sunday we will be tearing into it hard. If we don't finish, we will ride home on the bike, rain or not.

 

[my pos mounty]

The week that was

Couldn't do squat on this until late Monday afternoon.
Got the front seats and carpet out, Drained and dropped the AWD case, lowered the gastank, tweaked the bracket. Cut the heat shield on the inner secondary cat and removed/trimmed/replaced the plastic shield on the gastank, smacked the floor pan for more clearance.
After further cleaning/inspection, it turns out that the transfercase had a hairline fracture along the front face of it. Right where it would be if it was to take a hit in the previous truck. I asked opinions in this thread. Got up on Tuesday and looked very carefully at it and decided to bring it back. Junkyard agreed that the longest of the lines was a hairline fracture they must have missed. Swapped it with another case, and allowed me to go look at the only 4R70W tranny they had taken out of a 4X4 manual shift, of course the linkage was not on it but they would have let me have it for nothing because of the inconvenience. Oh well, just my luck.

About the rear driveshaft: Got the right u-joint, this shaft must be out of a F250 or F350 because the u-joint I needed was never used in the Expedition. Went to work on this shaft, slip joint U-joint replacement goes ok, the rear was an entirely different story. The flange got warped where the caps would go thru. Took the one off the Mounty shaft, brought the whole thing back to the autoparts store and ordered a conversion joint. "We will call you tomorrow when it comes in" UGH. Had to call it a night due to other obligations.

Wednesday, a real productive day. I picked up that U-joint.

Thursday, couldn't get out of the house until noon, get to the garage at 1:30 (errands) and I have the determination to finish this off today.
Hung the "new to me" front differential, removed the knuckles and replaced the CV's (took knuckles off because it was fast since they were off not all that long ago).
Climbed under the truck tried to use a floorjack to raise the 4406, nope not going to work. Tried the motorcycle jack trick, it might have worked if I had the patience. This is where I had had enough, dragged it over to me, rolled it on top of me and benchpressed it up.
Thats when I realized it would be alot easier if the transmission crossmember was removed. I took that off, supported the tail of the tranny with the MC jack.
Benchpressed the Tcase right on. Tossed the bolts in and tightened it up. Putting that crossmember back in was not as easy as you would think. The weight of the Tcase throws all the bolt holes off just a little bit. I had to jack up just the drivers side to get it all to line up.
Had to "chase" the threads on the front output on the Tcase and the front diff input to get all the garbage out. Glad I bought those tap-and-die sets.
Everything else went together great, no issues.
Job is done, except for the manual shifting linkages.
Ordered the linkage rod and the piece that bolts to the transmission from Tousley Ford and got a confirm e-mail quickly. Parts will be at my door on Tuesday (Monday if it was not a holiday).
By the way, I checked with a few local dealers for those parts. I got them from Tousley because the local guy wanted more for just the mechanical piece on the tranny than the total bill of both parts plus next day air shipping from Tousley. Holy crap, damn good prices from them!!!

Drove it home. It has a very slight vibration at highway speed. Possible front driveshaft issue because the slip joint is within 1/4 inch of being bottomed out. I will pull it off and check it out without it in.