milocj
08-28-2004, 06:49 PM
I bought a CJ7 with a trashed frame but a good 304 and and almost new NV4500 conversion. I've got the whole thing swapped into my CJ and was starting to finsih up all of the detail work when I realized that the way the previous owner had this thing mounted put the rear of the engine and trans up way too high. It worked in the old frame because somewhere along the way the front body mount had been chopped away to clear the fenderwell headers, probably because it didn't have the correct engine mounts bolted to the frame (they were butchered too).
Right now I've got the 1 1/4 inch drop down spacers between the frame and the skidplate that were on the old Jeep, I've removed the rubber bushings that are part of the Advance Adapters (?) tranny mount, and the headers just barely clear my frame and the Duraspark box on the left fender. The old CJ had the spark box mounted on the firewall. I think the t-case is still almost an inch higher than it was before the swap.
My question is how did you folks who have done this swap mount your NV4500 to the skidplate? Right now I'm considering cutting a rectangle out of the bottom under the rectangular tube mount and trying to lower and reweld that rear section enough to get the t-case back where it was originally. It looks like this may work if I drop the mounting surface even with the hump that is already there for the Dana 300 clearance. I've got torches and a stick welder, but I don't have anything that can bend tubing so I doubt that I could make a new skidplate from scratch (and I'm not sure I want to spend $350 for and Advanced Frame Works custom crossmember.
Thanks.
Right now I've got the 1 1/4 inch drop down spacers between the frame and the skidplate that were on the old Jeep, I've removed the rubber bushings that are part of the Advance Adapters (?) tranny mount, and the headers just barely clear my frame and the Duraspark box on the left fender. The old CJ had the spark box mounted on the firewall. I think the t-case is still almost an inch higher than it was before the swap.
My question is how did you folks who have done this swap mount your NV4500 to the skidplate? Right now I'm considering cutting a rectangle out of the bottom under the rectangular tube mount and trying to lower and reweld that rear section enough to get the t-case back where it was originally. It looks like this may work if I drop the mounting surface even with the hump that is already there for the Dana 300 clearance. I've got torches and a stick welder, but I don't have anything that can bend tubing so I doubt that I could make a new skidplate from scratch (and I'm not sure I want to spend $350 for and Advanced Frame Works custom crossmember.
Thanks.