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Yep, about the same amount of material,maybe 3/16"-1/4"...I ground mine down with the seal in for reference. Did you get your flanges from TW?

Flanges should be in this week. After that, its on to modifying the shift rails for a twin stick setup, and then building the tcase mount.
I might need to put the truck on the back burner for a few weeks, as Dad and I just picked up a 9000# two post hoist for the garage (after the fiasco of the old one falling). I'm dreading having "clean" up the shop for the new lift, but I suppose now is as good a time as any...

Well, a 9000# hoist and a skid steer will put a serious load on a trailer - but its home. Pics to follow. On a related note, my flanges showed up today, which means I can go back to work on the truck again!

Yeah....just imagine a nice clean organized shop tho...I can barely walk through mine...trip...ouch

itchyoldfart wrote:Yeah....just imagine a nice clean organized shop tho...I can barely walk through mine...trip...ouch

Yep - ours is chalk full of shin skin removers too...!

So, as per my previous posts lamenting the failure of the shop hoist, Dad and I were on the lookout for a replacement, as the current one is too costly to repair. A friend of mine found a screaming deal on a 9000lb. two post and pointed us in the right direction, and it took only minutes for the ownership of the unit to change hands. Only two problems so far, one is that it is a 14' tall unit, so we'll need to cut it down to fit into the 12' tall shop. Not a big deal with a plasma cutter handy!
The second problem - its freakin' heavy!!!! Thank god for skid steers and equipment trailers. The only real challenge was putting the skid steer and the hoist on the trailer at the same time. We did it, but it was a ridiculously heavy load! As I'm here writing this, its obvious that we made it home







Now to clean out the shop and make some room for a much better and safer lift....

Here is also just a couple of shots to prove that I haven't done absolutley nothing in the last 2 months or so...

A shot of the 32 spline 205 - I still smile when I think about it...


My new speedometer. No more guessing at how fast I'm going - this is accurate no matter what tire size I'm running. Its a GPS unit from Speedhut. It was very affordable, and their service was great. I would recommend a unit like this for anyone who needs an accurate speedo for thier 4x4. It can be ordered with virtually any speed limit in standard or metric, and in several different face/bezel styles. This style most closely matched my Autometer guages, so it was a no brainer... Plus the look suits the truck.


And finally, just another teaser to help keep me motivated...

The truck is starting to look good !!

what a beast!

Big Beast, how much lift is under there, 4 or 6 inch?

The truck is sitting on the hoist right now, I figure I'll come down at least 8" or so - I hope... Most of the lift is from the body lift (3") I figure I might have 2-3" of suspension lift over what was there. The original front springs were bagged right out, so I might be only an inch or so taller than stock. I should have about 3-4" of up travel before the front tires get to close to the fender for my comfort... I'll need to really settle the weight on the front though to get an accurate measurment. Right now, its all guess work.

need.....


upppdaaate.

Believe me, there is nothing I'd rather be doing that working on the truck! My honey-do list has reared its ugly head somewhat so I've been busy, and will remain busy for some time yet to come. I've built 400sq. feet of sundeck, that isn't finished yet, and I've still got 100' feet of fence to build. In the mean time, I've got to drive 300 miles to help my sister move, and I'd still like to get out to the lake and do some wheeling yet this summer! I've got 4 trucks in the yard that need to be parted out or repaired, plus a toyota that needs some maintenance if I want to go out and play with it. I've got a hoist to get setup in the shop, and still some landscaping to finish. And to cap it all off, the wife is heading back to work at the end of the month, which mean my status of Domestic Commander just turned into a full time job. Thank god for weekends!

And the wife is still adding to the honey do list!

Happy wife equals happy life - right?

Hard to belive its been months since I posted on this, but time has been short with little of it devoted to the M37!... But, I've found a few hours lately so here is whats happened...

The parking brake setup has been converted from the stock M37 NP200 tcase over to the NP205. With some custom machine work done to the bracket (some by a professional, and some with a zipcut) the unit fits nice and should work as reliably as a brick through a window. Here are some pics...

This was the professional machine work that needed to be done. The grooves provide clearance for the rear output bearing and snap ring on the NP205. The NP200 mount was originally flat, so the grooves from the stock NP205 bearing retainer were copied.


This is the not so professional machine work that needed to be done. The neck (seal surface?) on the NP200 output yoke is a little longer than whats on an NP205 yoke. The NP205 yoke face is also thicker. This extra material takes up the needed room for the bolt heads that attach the brake drum to the yoke to clear the bracket. The easy solution was to lop about 1/4" off the end of the bracket. The seal still fits fine, and now everything clears nicely.


Here is the drum and bracket installed.


And here is the whole works, brake band and all.


Now, I can turn my attention to building a mount to hang the NP205 under the truck. Most divorced NP205's are a pia to mount as they don't bolt to a crossmember from the bottom, but instead have the mounts cast into the top, so they hang inplace. Given the type of terrain this truck will see I figured that a hanging, unprotected tcase wouldn't be a good idea, so the mount will incorporate a skidplate framework, and provide the structure needed to mount the case. As usual with anything custom, none of the trucks original tcase crossmembers would line up anywhere close enough to be useful, so I removed them and built my own replacements. To make life easy, I took a bunch of measurements from under the truck, and then laid out the frame dimensions on a piece of plywood. This way I can build the mounts with easy reference to the space available under the truck without having to crawl under it every 10 minutes.

The tubing used is all 1-3/4" 0.095 wall HREW steel. Its easy to work with, strong, and cheap. All the bending was done on an ALLSTAR bender with a 7" radius die.

Some basic layout work, to see what fits, and what hits...



This is the rear upper tube to hang the tcase from.





Here is the front upper tube. I almost started to weld this all together, and then I had a thought. If I weld it together like this, I'll need to cut it all apart to get the tcase out. That would be a p.i.a. at best, so I needed to figure out a way to make it come apart, yet still be stout.

Here is the answer - make one of the upper bars removeable. I fabbed up some flat mounts to weld onto the tube, then drilled and sleeved the holes. Two more mounting plates welded to the upper tube and viola! one removealble mount.




The rear hoops fits nicely, lots of room around the yokes and the shift rails. I'll finish welding it all up in the next day or so, and hopefully have it under the truck by the end of the week.



Spring is just around the corner... Gotta get my arse in gear!

Master Yota wrote:Happy wife equals happy life - right?

Well, one might think that would be the case. Some wives, however, are happy only when thinking up ways to make your life even more miserable than it already is. My first wife was a perfect example of this type.