Today I installed the tranny in Thumper. When I went to bolt the rear crossmember inplace I discovered a new wrinkle. I confirmed it by then bolting the transfer case onto the back of the tranny...we have an interferance problem.

These trucks originally had divorced transfer cases. The BW t-case we're using which is married to the tranny hits the floorbords of the cab when I try to jack it up into position. We need to either notch the main cab floor support and probably hammer the floorboards up out of the way a bit for clearance, or install about a 2-3 inch body lift. I hate body lifts but it might be the easier way to go. On the other hand, it looks like the floorboard clearancing would all be under the seat so it might not be too messy...

At this point I'm thinking that I may not be able to bring Thumper down to Mike's this weekend after all. For one thing, I still have a lot of work to do on it up here, but it's finally in a place where I can work on it again. I'll just have to talk to my boss and see how long he'll let me keep it where it is, probably not for very long. But a couple of weeks can make a big difference. And there are a couple of other factors at this point...

 

Hmnn...I wonder...

We still need to raise the ***-end up on the truck, then look at what we have for pinion angle, most likely we'll need to lower the tranny down to keep the driveline angles to a minimum...i/e we don't really want 30 degree angles...so, could be we might just drop the tranny X-member lower...eliminating the need for a body lift or floorpan/etc, mods?

 

I did actually think of that. I got the tranny jacked up as far as I could and then looked at the driveline angles, just eyeballing them...it still has to come up some from what I can see, for one thing the engine/tranny is sitting at too much of a rake and it's causing a a bad angle on the front driveline.

I'll get some pics today...

 

Doh!...forgot about the front one.