Jealous of the 1350, I'll be going there or 1410 on my next driveshaft.

Have everything ready to go to pull the trans and TC however after taking a look I think I will just drop the exhaust to get it out of the way.. anyway quit for the night it was getting cold out there.

Old stuff coming out.. nothing exciting...











ahhh so much better...



Picked up some retractable 3 point Hummer seatbelts... going to make this thing a bit more street friendly and remove the two elbow hoops behind the seats and replace it with a removable bar in case I want to put the harnesses back in one day..



anyway hope to have everything out tomorrow!

Well wrestled the np435 and Dana20 out of the bronco this afternoon, ended up taking more floor out as I just could not get that NP435 to slide back far enough. I guess I was going to have to do it anyway for the zf...













Tomorrow I will pull the clutch and flywheel and install the spacer and then do a ZF test fit to make sure this thing will fit!

A flange at the input of the ZF? That seems odd. Maybe it's a big block thing?

BTW, when it's time to look at the Atlas, I ended having to add a 3/4" spacer to keep the output shaft from bottoming out on the input collar of the Atlas.

I had that flange / spacer made to push the flywheel back toward the transmission and allow better clutch / spline engagement. The big block zf's input shaft is a bit longer so you have to add a spacer or do something else. Look earlier in the thread I explain :)

i will take some pics along the way as nobody whos done this conversion has actually taken any pictures of the process...

I heard you have to add a spacer to the zf... i will cross the bridge when it comes.

Pulled the clutch and flywheel. Mocked up the spacer looks like it will work great.









Clutch looks good but can't use it and I think I ordered the wrong size so will have to wait a few more days to put the clutch in.

Slowly but surely....

got the flywheel chamfered today to match the spacer so they sit flush and after work I installed the flywheel and spacer with the special flywheel bolts I picked up...

still pretty clean back here...



metal plate thingy installed :) had to grind a little off by the frame, probably have to do the same to the bellhousing on the zf.. we will see....



spacer on the crank...



and the flywheel torqued and installed



thats about as far as I got tonight, tomorrow I need to unscrew the stud from the exhaust manifold and then probably try to stab the zf in there to see what happens and take the grinder to the bits I need to relieve on the bellhousing.

Great progress! You ready to muscle that in there?? It should be fun!

Did you pb blaster that screw on you header?

so not too much done today, more running around picking up a few things i needed.

Found a clutch centering tool thought it would be good to have as I was having quite a bit trouble centering the zf, but turns out it was probably not the case.

Pulled everything apart again, measured the run out and was no more than .055 so it looks good.

I wrestled with the zf for a while and realized the throwout bearing center housing was hitting the fingers on the centerforce clutch.

Tomorrow I will take the clutch off once again and grind the fingers down 1/8th of an inch and try again. You can see where the fingers are hitting in the pics.

Are you going to reuse the old cross member or are you going to make a new one?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That explains what I thought I was seeing last night.

It's in and the shifter clears everything. Have lots of little stuff to do still on the trans but overall it's in.

This site needs a like button. Curious to hear your thoughts when its up and running.

I am sure you were making vroom vroom noises from the seat and bangin' gears after you got it in. I know you'll love it!

Finally got some me time today and worked on the swap a bit more. Justin was kind enough to lend me his time and press to get the spud shaft and bearing into the adapter housing. Took me a few tries to get the adapter ring lined up but went together really nicely. Then tried to install the twin sticks however the JB fab sticks will not work with this setup, going to drop Jon a line and see what we can work out as I might have to make something custom or go with cable shifters... next up is the cross member. Talked to Justin about it for a while sound like a decent piece of DOM and a Poly bushing might be in my future...

anyway here are some pics.. Dana 20 ready for the spud housing


Adapter ring


Adapter ring installed on the Dana20 and some white lithium grease for good measure.


I know its really hard to see however the big block zf is quite a but shorter than its small block counter part. These two extensions are right in the way of the shifter mount on the housing ring. Both of those extensions have bolts in them that easily come out so not sure what they are for? Might be able to fab something up mounted to them but not sure as its pretty vertical to the shift rails... this is looking up from the bottom of the trans



This is pretty much straight up from the shift forks on the D20



they come out...



I know this is really hard to see but the silver thing is the adapter in between the zf and dana20..


Took some driveline measurements

Rear driveshaft will need to be 30.75" (Originally about 35")
Front driveshaft will need to be 26.25" (Originally about 24")

Who knows how i measured before but its not too far off ;)

Great work Chris! My Zf also has those threaded bungs. I tied my Atlas shifter to it for stability and it helped a lot. I don't have a picture and it might not help anyway.

But I am pleased with how my cross member came out. It's flush with the bottom of the frame:


A lot of them hang down too much and since this is your wheeling rig, I would think you'd want to avoid anchors.

I have been told i can chop those bosses off and grind it down as they are for a TC mount... so that i will

Looks like a safe bet. Those threads are way too coarse for any kind of fluid fitting.

New drive lines being built ?

No hold outs. Will get back to it this week. I'm figuring out the cross member and d20 twin sticks still.

So just a quick update, I pulled the Dana20 rear yoke and tried to install the Flange but looks like I will need a new seal to go around the Flange as the old one is just slightly too small to do a proper job of sealing... I will have to shop around to see if I can find a new one or order one online.

Measured the rear driveline - 32" so will be ordering my new 1350 driveshaft tomorrow from FrontRange..

I might try to clock the Dana 20 up a couple of holes on the spacer so the front yoke is higher and it should make it slightly easier to build a crossmember.. I might need some extra eyes on the problem if I can thaw out.. brrrrrrr

I still haven't cut the mounts off the zf.. i will be doing that tomorrow

And I guess the last thing to report is I will be headed over to steel yard tomorrow or friday to pick up some plate and something to build the crossbar with, thinking of using DOM but not sure I can get any that is already cut - guess i will find out!

If you strike out on cut DOM I may have some extra.

When you clock the D20 be extra vigilant on interference issues, not only will the front driveshaft exit the space higher but when the driver side front is stuffed the whole line will change.