HELP ME GET LOWER GEARS in L-Head

OK, I have officially got the low gear bug. I have a L-head in a CJ-2a, t90 and d18 tranny. I have a ford T98/18 and Dana 300 just dieing to go in the Jeep. My question is, if anyone has any idea how to adapt the ford tranny to the lhead. I want to keep the freshly rebuilt engine, and dont drive on the road a whole lot. I have a centered diff D44, and just need a way to get the tranny to the engine. THe t98 has the short larger diameter input shaft, and I can adapt it to the d300 no prob. ANyone have any ideas here???? F-head owners out there have to have an itch to put one of these granny gear trannies into their trail jeep. HELP ME!!!!!!!!

 

Novak Conversions? That would be where I started.

 

Neither Novak or AA has anything for a T18 to L or F head conversion. Hicks 4wd said that he may have one, but has not been able to find anything for over a year!!! Somebody has to know someone here, ANYONE??????????

 

First, I'd think you could find a T98 from an F4 Jeep and use that. If it'll fit an F4, it should fit an L4. That will give you an equivalent transmission to the T18, just an older model. Keep the D18, sell the D300 and T18 and use that money for the T98 setup.

Otherwise, you can make your own adapter. First consider the transmission stickout; it must be longer than the bellhousing is deep. Make a plate adapter that matches the trans to the bell and has the thickness of the extra stickout. Then you must match the transmission pilot tip to the pilot bearing. You need to use a clutch disk that matches the splines on the trans input shaft and has the right diameter for the original clutch cover. You also have to mix and match the throwout bearing and input retainer to the clutch cover and throwout arm.

 

Well you have a classic problem.

You would need the input shaft, bearing retainer, bellhousing adapter, and transfer case adapter.

and when you are done you have a transmission that won't fit anyway.

The Ford case and the Jeep case for the T-98 were identical except for the front mounting bolt pattern and case flange.

The t-98/t-18 had two front mounting holes close together on one side and and two further apart on the other side. Well, those were mirror images on the ford and jeep cases.

sounds like no big deal - just drill a few holes in the bellhousing adapter, but the clutch cable won't mount because the case gets in the way with the ford transmission.

Besides, getting all the hardware would be expensive -- the rear transfer case adapters will run around $500 by themselves.

They did not make an input shaft for the F4/L4 and the T-18. T-18 and t-98 input shafts look similar, but are not interchangeable.

You'd be better off biting the bullet and buying the jeep t-98. No one makes an input shaft to modify a t-98 or t-18 for a four cylinder because usually someone wants to put in a large engine along with the swap.

If there was more demand AA or Novak would do it, but to date there is no money in it for them.

 

Oh, and if you want to use the Dana 300, here's a neat trick. Get one from a 1980 international Scout.

The dana 300 that was in ONLY the 1980 scout had the same bolt pattern as the dana 18 or dana 20.

But you'll HAVE to get the intermediate gear that goes on the rear of the transmission shaft with it. That gear is not made any more, and is necessary to couple the trans to the trans case.

The intermediate gear that couples the automatic 1980 scout to the dana 300 has the wrong spline count for the t-18/98, so it cannot be used.

 

Dan sold the input shaft to me. We are still working on the kit to put a T-18 to L/F head but only gets worked on in between other projects unfortunately due to demand of other projects, time constraints, etc. We've figured pretty much everything out, but have not yet done a blue print or made the pilot models. We are looking at doing both a 6.32-1 kit and a 4-1 first gear kit to start and see which has the most interest. My guess is the 6.32-1 kit. There is no time frame on this as again, it's being done in between other, more lucrative projects, so don't wait on me! I did want to let everyone know that this project has NOT been forgotten though. Especially with all the great feed back I received on this project. Nickmil.

 

How about now? Are you done now??? Just Kidding, thanks for the help, I appreciate all the bad news... I mean, help. ANyway, I will try again with hicks 4WD and look into mosers option of machining the ford t98 shaft to match the t90 + an inch for the plate adapter and decide what to do behind it as soon as possible. I would still love to hear anyones ideas, so Keep em comming...

 

hello ,

i just bought a one piece bell housing to adapt the sbc to a T14 A!
high impact .... that was the only company to offer this ..
aa and novak just offer a plate wich i don't like so much ... not centered?

you can give a try ....


good luck

 

Here is something I've been wondering about. I've got a couple of AA adapters for a T90 to GM. Wonder if it could be used in reverse and put a 420 or 465, adapters are readily available for tranfer case matchup. I don't know about input shaft legnth or matchup. Nick? anyone?

 

The T90-GM adapters have a thickness that makes the stickout of the long-shaft T90 the right length to fit into the GM pilot bushing with the stock GM bell. Turning the adapter around, I doubt the SM420/465 stickout and the L4 bell are the combined correct length ... you could easily measure and find out.

Re the pilot tip, it's a lot easier to bore out the stock pilot bushing than to turn down the input shaft. Either that or use a Ford pilot bushing that has the right ID, and turn to OD to the proper size.

 

I have been through all this recently, and the Ford t-98 that I have sitting in my shop has an input shaft that is shorter than the t-90 shaft, so you can machine it 'till the cows come home and it isn't going to get any longer.

If you wanted to machine a t-98 shaft down you'd have to have one from the jeep 230 application -- that is longer than the jeep 4 cylinder application. That input shaft would be from an M715 or a truck / wagoneer.

I have an almost new 230 input shaft for a t-98 sitting in my shop.
Actually I have three, one from the 230 t-98, one from the t-98 four speed, and one from a t-18.

You'll have to machine the whole thing since the diameter needs to be 15/16 of an inch for the shaft and the 230 shaft is around 1 1/8 or 1 1/16 inch diameter.

It is all academic anyway since the Ford trans will not properly fit into the jeep.

One thing that you really want to make sure of before jogging off to the machine shop. The gear teeth need to be the 17/27 count. There were a couple of versions of the input gear, but the one that you gotta have for the granny low is the 17/27. It'd be a real downer if you spent the money to redo an input shaft and found that you just machined a shaft with the 4.01 low gear.

By the way, the 17/27 input shaft is NOT interchangeable into a transmission that was originally set up for the 4.01 low gear unless you swap out the main drive shaft cluster along with it.

kamel

 

I hate to say this since it's not really the answer to your question... but you are on the Dauntless forum.

Have you considered swapping a Dauntless V-6 into the CJ2A? The T-18 is very easy to adapt to a Dauntless or even a Chevy motor. A Dauntless swap with the T-18 will not only take care of the gearing, it will also give you enough power for hill climbs and even street driving at highway speeds - even up hill

I just did this swap on my CJ2A. It was probably the best modification I could have made to the Jeep. It totally changed the personality of the Jeep and now it is a very useful vehicle. Gearing alone might have helped me for slow speed rock crawling, but the Dauntless helped in every situation.

If you were to go with a Dauntless/T-18/Dana 18 drive train, you could actually keep the transfer case in the stock location and have reasonable drive shaft angles even with a mild lift. I think you are going to find that your drive shaft will get very short with a T-18 behind the L-head and an adapter in between the L-head bell housing and the T-18. The T-18 is already almost 3" longer without the adapter. Having the rear output up high on the Dana 300 will not help the situation.

 

Thud?