Muzikp's Sometimes Driveable Build

I'm not seeing a rebuild kit for the transfer case adapter

Maybe I shouldn't take the adapter apart. Although, the two bearings in the adapter have a dry feel to them when I spin the shaft, all the other bearings feel perfect. The Tcase adapter bearings don't feel bad by any stretch, just not as good as the others.

 

Ah ha! The rebuild kit came with the bearings for the transfer case adapter. I wasn't expecting that... way to go Novak.

 

Glad to hear that you didn’t injure your solarplexes!

 

Yeh, I was worried about that so I wore a brace

 

File this under "now we know"

If you lightly press this end of the shaft, the shaft comes out of the adapter easily (just don't drop it out the bottom)



Then you can take out this big aluminum bearing holder and press the bearing out of the holder and replace it.



Underneath my bearing holder was an unacceptable amount of funk and debauchery.



I replaced the bearing inside the bearing holder and it's all back together now. Pretty easy really.

 

Having conquered that I cleaned the entire inside of the transmission and all the gears and shafts. I wanted to get the lower shaft bearings in the transmission replaced and get the lower shaft back in.

I started by pressing out the bearing cap on the engine side of the case.





Pressed the new one in. I laid a flat piece of steel across the new one and pressed that. Pretty sure if you tried to press this bearing in by pushing on the cap (like my picture shows) it would push right through.



I learned from the parts diagram that came with the rebuild kit that my transmission was missing the oil slinger on the lower shaft. Luckily the rebuild kit came with a new one.



Not much to show for this part, put the shaft in, put the oil slinger on and press the new bearing onto the shaft which slides right into the case. There is a snap ring you can see on the outside of the bearing which prevents the bearing from going too far into the case. You literally can't screw it up if you have the snap ring in place before you press it together.

 

I've got the rear main shift in with fresh gaskets and all the bits and bobs in the correct place.





All I need to do now is press the bearing onto the front shaft and bolt it in. I even have all the needle bearings in place.





Honestly... rebuilding an SM420 is very easy. The hardest part is dealing with the weight of it.

 

James, install the AA's tapered bearing kit in the X-fer. Worth every penny. I did it to mine already along with Novaks deep X-fer pan. Going to install larger yokes so as to run a little larger U-joints as well.

 

That's probably a good idea but I just want this on the road. That will have to come later.

 

Boom!!!





Now to get it off the bench. I feel like I just recovered from getting it up there

 

I've given up those heroics in my middle age. I used the engine hoist to get the T-18 on and off the bench.

 

I like the engine hoist idea for lifting this thing but my engine hoist is still at Harbor Freight .

Instead I used my son to help me get it down, which wasn't great since he recently broke his collarbone at the motocross track. But we got it and my ovaries I think are fine... wait, do I have those? Anyway no blood vessels were harmed in getting it down.



I don't have one of those fancy fly wheel covers that go on the bell housing and they seem like a good thing to have so let's make one. How hard can it be?









This is the part that's probably not good. I don't have anything to go on here so this is a bit of a guess.





Held it up to the bell housing and realize I need a spot for the input shaft to go through.



No idea if this will fit and function properly, guess I'll find out soon.

Anybody know if it should be installed before or after you put the transmission back in?

So here's where I'm at. Not looking forward to getting that hunk of metal up in the air and back under the Jeep





In hind sight I don't feel like this transmission needed rebuilding, but I wasn't sure and I am still trying to find the source of that awful noise so I went for it. Now I know and can feel good about the condition of my trans, plus I learned a TON, but I would have preferred to not go through all that.

If the noise is still there after I get this back together I am out of ideas. I feel like I've been through everything that it could be. I am going to adjust my rear pinion angle a bit, ITLKSEZ noticed in one of my photos that it might be ever so slightly pointing down in relation to the tcase output and he was correct. But the noise was there before I put this new rear end in it so I'm doubting that's the source of the noise.

 

If you need to do some more trimming to get it to fit right, here's what an original one looks like:

 

Oh wow! That's wildly different than mine Looks like it's trimmed around the entire starter housing not just the cone.

Do you install it before or after you put the trans in? Or either?

 

I hoisted mine up from above like this.

 

After. It slides up into place.

 

Used a hoist here too. Here I am getting the T18/D18 balanced on the hoist before sliding it under the Jeep and re-hooking it up:

 

Nice! I may need to go get my hoist that I left at Harbor freight. That really does look like the way to go.

 

There are a few of us locally who share a hoist. Whoever uses it last has to store it until someone else needs it!!

 

That's the deal I used to have. Even though I stored it for 4 years they didn't let me take along when I moved 5 hours away. I had to finally buy my own.