1963 Us Navy Dj-3a

The standard yoke is worth about 5/8" additional driveshaft length. And my experience with Tom is that you will not be waiting long.

 

5/8" is probably closer to accurate.

Tom Woods sent a notification that they already shipped on Friday. I'll probably have the driveshafts before I need them.

 

I'll take the TJ up. At least it runs right now.

 

Yesterday was transfercase day. I thought I was done cleaning, but spent a couple more hours with wire brushes getting the nooks and crannies clean.

Then I took a file to all the machined surfaces to remove any burrs:


I cleaned silicon out of all the bolt holes using some surplus picks I got from my Dentist:


I also chased the treads on all holes and bolts:


Then it was time to start assembly. It was a lot of test fitting and removal to see what needed grinding for the 3.15 gears.

First item to grind is the high/low shift fork. The larger lower gear just hits it at the shiny spot. Grinding area marked with Sharpie:


Done:


The next spot is the bottom big gear to the case. It doesn't actually touch, but it's closer than I'm comfortable with. In low range:


In high range:


Mess made with the die grinder:


Better:




With the parking brake removed, the bolts that hold the output housing stick into the case and may interfere with the high/low range shift fork:


Marked for cutting:


Much better:


I found out the hard way that you can't get the intermediate gear in with the output shaft in place. I didn't need to remove it, but I needed to pop the bearing races out so I could move the shaft out of the way.

I used sticky "Assembly Goo" for the rollers and didn't need a dummy shaft for install:


The Assembly Goo did a good job of holding the thrust bearings in place too.

Rather than shove the far O-ring on the intermediate shaft all the way through everything, I drove the shaft out the far side enough to get the far O-ring on:


The next bit of grinding was making clearance on the end of the 2wd/4wd shift fork rod. It hits the intermediate gear when in 2wd. The instructions say to cut 1/2" off the end of it, but I determined it just needs a clearance notch, It ended up slightly longer than this:


Time to set the output shaft preload. I started with the shim pack that was already in it and it was slightly tight at just over 0.003". It turns freely and is close enough to the minimal spec of .004, so I'm just going to run it. It's only going to get bigger:


When I was installing the yokes, the rear one wanted to bottom out into the seal and cause lots of drag. Confusing. Oops, this might be why:


With the speedometer gear where it belongs, things were much better.

It's fully assembled, seems to work as it should, and ready for painting tonight:


I hope to have it back in the Jeep by the end of the week.

 

I believe you're supposed to grind the case down to slide the intermediate gear in. At least that's what I did, and what I've seen before. But if it worked for you without the grinding, then it's probably easier to not grind the case in the first place.

Good work. It's coming together.

 

I probably should have ground that, but I already had that confounded snap ring installed on the lower shaft and didn't want to take it off to empty out of the case again.

 

Where did you get the 3.15 gears? Are they Terralow?

 

I got them from Advance Adapters because I didn't want to deal with Herm. I've heard that Herm is the current manufacturer of them after TeraFlex stopped making them a few years back.

 

Herm is the dealer for them, having them manufactured overseas by the same people that at the end manufactured them for Tera Mfg. He owns the rights to them and last I heard was the sole dealer for them but that is not to say he isn’t selling them through AA since he has been in bed with them for a very long time. Herm bought them lock stock and barrel from Tera. He told me personally he planned to have 20 and 18 gear sets made but not 300 gear sets.

 

Interesting he doesn't want to do the D300 gearsets. It seems like there would still be a market for them.

I have to say the visual quality of the gears is fantastic. Very well machined.

 

Tonight's task is watching paint dry:


The Rustoleum satin always takes forever to dry and it's especially bad when the shop is at 48 degrees.

It should be dry enough for me to flip it over and paint the other side in the morning.

 

Just a gut feeling but I’m guessing he doesn’t want to compete with JB Conversion and their Lo-Max 4-1 set. The Lo-Max is stronger but the Tera is a little quieter in my experience. Both are well made units and serve well in the right application. You should have no problems with the Tera kit.
One thing I might suggest is at some point building a reinforcement for the case. Something like Jason Bunch down at Tri-County Gear used to make. I have seen a couple cases crack through the intermediate bore.

 

Interesting. I had not heard of these. I did manage to find a single picture online:


With a little CAD work, you could have Send-Cut-Send laser cut the needed parts and weld them together. You could also add an ear to pick up the hole for the clutch pivot for more support yet.

 

He was doing two types, the one shown in your picture which is the stronger of the two. Iirc the other one only strengthened the pan rail. It was basically just a thick pan spacer.

 

Last night was watching paint dry on the other side:


And these showed up:


Hopefully it all goes back in the Jeep tonight.

 

With the help of my wife grabbing the PTO hole from inside the Jeep to help lift, the transfercase is back in the Jeep. Shiny new Tom Woods driveshafts too:


I went to put a beefier yoke on the back than I had on it and it interfered with output housing casting. I really want to use the stronger yoke, so I cut a ring off the back of the housing. Now it ends just past the seal:


Clears fine after the mod:


The old speedometer cable was a little rough:


I grabbed one out of my pile of spares:


I ran the vent line for the transfercase up under the hood and bolted the floorboards in. Hopefully I don't need to take them out again for a while. I like how they turned out:


I also added knobs with labels so my wife can drive the Jeep:


No black and yellow sticker in this one.

 

Wow, that tcase is tucked up in there. Looks good
I like the old school knobs

 

Is that the Tom Wood's yoke you used on the rear? I did the same thing to the output housing but with a belt sander, though my yoke (barely) cleared from the start. I like the Tom Wood's yoke, and I may look into putting a dust shield on it and making it work on the front of my tcase if I can ever figure out what's going on with the fitment (or lack thereof) of parts.

The whole floorboard, shifters, and boots setup turned out well. Personally I thought the big flat top would look a bit janky, but it actually looks pretty good. It also leaves lots of space for cupholders or perhaps a lockbox to throw the docs and regs in. Good work on that.

Whole Jeep is coming along pretty fast.

 

@Fireball, this was really helpful for me. I had heard that a normal yoke added more space compared to the standard parking brake "flat" yoke that is normally on a d18, so tried using one from my spare parts. The one I had on hand must be a front yoke, which has a dust shield. When I torque it down, it binds on the housing.

After this post, I now see that I can trim the housing down a little and make it work. Thanks! I am intrigued by the "beefier" yoke, however. Would love some more info on it.

 

You made quick work out this project…nice job