Anyone mated a Dana 300 to a Ford T-18?

My nephew is about to swap out his SR-4 for a T-18. The swap is supposed to be pretty easy, but he'll have to mate his Dana 300 to it and the shift tower on the SR-4 sits behind the actual transmission and then the Dana sits behind that.

I'm wondering how the D300 is going to mate with the T-18?

Is he going to have to remove the shift tower and trash it and then bolt the Dana to it?

Also I've noted that the shift tower on the T-18 is going to be about 6" closer to the front of the jeep than the current SR-4 set up. He'll have to cut his floor board which he's not going to like.

I was wondering if maybe he can buy a new tranny hump, kinda like the one's we use and just bolt it in place over the new hole? Is this a good idea? Will it work?

 

Mmm... reluctant to bring this up, but I think a world-class T5 is a better fit. Expensive though. http://www.5speeds.com/t5/jeep.html

I think the SR4 has a similar shifter position to the T5.

Another possibility is the T18 out of a V8 FSJ - about 6" longer bellhousing would put the shifter close to the right place.

 

Yeah. It's too late for that. It's supposed to be here tomorrow.

This is mating to a SB 350 and the mods for that have already been made by R&P 4WD. We tried our best to think of everything but missed it completely.

I don't think it's that big of a deal as far as the shifter location...we can just cut a hole and make a new cover but I was looking for instructions as to how to mate the t-case to the t-18.

All in all I think he should have an awesome set up when it's over.

 

I am not sure which T-18 you are going to install but I can share my experience with installing a Ford T-18 in my son's CJ-7. He blew out 3rd. gear in his T-5 which forced us to make the decision as to what to do.

To mate the Ford T-18 to the D-300 we had to buy an adaper from Novak Conversions, www.novak-adapt.com. This adapter required that we change out the mainshaft of the transmission. Since we were going to have to go into the transmission anyway, we decided to rebuild it.

Yes, we had to cut a new hole in the floor for the trans shifter tower.

Regarding the decision to go to the T-18, we had to change out the bellhousing and clutch plate. After purchasing those, a used transmission, a rebuild kit from Novak and the adapter, it was still less than buying a rebuilt WC T-5 and is tons stronger. Of course we had to give up the OD but we got a super low 1st gear in exchange.