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1989 Jeep Cherokee 1 ton swap

I’m an idiot. I was trying to use a shift collar from a 242 I picked up to finish this, and they totally won’t work.
So I have to go back to pick n pull to buy them for $2.
 
Assembled.

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$70 Seal extender.
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fl0w3n said:
Fook yeah bud that’s some Canadian excellence right there
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You’re really going to like it when you get yours. Hopefully you have the seal extended included, and have the 6 gear planetaries ready to go. If you need another sun gear let me know. I have a 242 I’m about to throw out, and maybe a fucking transmission because I’m sick of it sitting around (21 spline).
 
Required for the NP231 going behind the crawl box. I had to talk to NWF about it directly. It isn’t mentioned ANYWHERE which is annoying and I’m sure it’s a ‘we would tell you if you called us. We need to fix the website to include it’ type of things.
 
RunningProblem said:
Required for the NP231 going behind the crawl box. I had to talk to NWF about it directly. It isn’t mentioned ANYWHERE which is annoying and I’m sure it’s a ‘we would tell you if you called us. We need to fix the website to include it’ type of things.
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Depends on which input your 2nd t-case has. If it has the long input you shouldn't need it - I think the long inputs (in XJ's anyway) were behind the ax-15, where the t-case behind AW4 would have a short input and need the seal extension. (I might be 180 out on the lengths - i.e. manual transmissions may have been the long input t-cases)
 
Opiebennett said:
Depends on which input your 2nd t-case has. If it has the long input you shouldn't need it - I think the long inputs (in XJ's anyway) were behind the ax-15, where the t-case behind AW4 would have a short input and need the seal extension. (I might be 180 out on the lengths - i.e. manual transmissions may have been the long input t-cases)
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To run a 231 Short 23 Behind an AW4 requires our 1/4" Mounting foot and our 3/4" Seal Extension.

Kris
NWF


Apparently my 1991 transmission has a ‘medium’ input.

The Novak Guide to the New Process / New Venture Gear Transfer Case Input Gears

The Novak Guide to the New Process / New Venture Gear Transfer Case Input Gears
www.novak-adapt.com www.novak-adapt.com

So maybe I don’t need it.
 
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Real short clip of the jeep today.


I need to extend breather hoses for sure.
Hydro assist probably would have been nice to have in a few spots.
Jeep performed great.
Having a HAM radio mounted in the jeep for communications instead of having a handheld would also be great.
 
Did you get the doubler in?

I won’t be making it to Reno run, I’ll still be moving that weekend.
 
No doubler yet and fuck moving. I don’t have a shifter for it, and it probably would have been nice. Plus I just ran the Boston Marathon so I was a little busy.

Another photo of me. Sadly, there are no photos of the poser shot from the video above. I’m sad I don’t get to update my dating app profile picture with one of me doing something cool. I guess I’ll just have memories.


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RunningProblem said:
You’re really going to like it when you get yours. Hopefully you have the seal extended included, and have the 6 gear planetaries ready to go. If you need another sun gear let me know. I have a 242 I’m about to throw out, and maybe a fucking transmission because I’m sick of it sitting around (21 spline).
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I would pay shipping to AZ for a 242.
 
Pablo said:
I would pay shipping to AZ for a 242.
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It’s not a complete 242 anymore. Most of the parts are theirs but it’s all in pieces. I can imagine it would be more expensive than finding one in a junk yard but I’ll mail what I have if you’re serious.
 
Just had a customers Ecobox show up. Definitely a nice piece that’s for sure. His is the integrated version for a D300 so it’s a bit shorter.
 
I bought a TYT-9800 ham radio and a magnetic antenna for trail communications. A handheld works. It just isnt as convenient and can roll all over the place, or switch to the local FM radio when someone is spotting you going down a pile of rocks while their wife records you and you can’t see anything except the horizon. So Amazon delivered what I needed and I went with a 50 watt unit because sometimes I like to have what I don’t need. I’m confident a cheap 25 way BTECH radio would have worked fine. I don’t know why I would ever need to reach a stranger 50-100 miles away and I don’t know if this would do it. It has a removable faceplate and the mic plugs into the removable portion but there isn’t many places I would mount it and need to move the head unit.


I ran wires through the radio antenna rubber grommet. Oh how much fun THAT was with 12 gauge wire and a small poker. Originally I was going to overcomplicate it with male and female connections to make it removable until I realized it’s a Cherokee and people will already be impressed I’m a licensed ham radio operator to notice if I made it easily removable or not. I opted to keep the red wires so it would match all the other ones in the engine bay.

probably where it will end up living because I don’t want to add wire or mess around with mounting it to a floor.
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Radio antenna grommet.
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Ram the wire up to a tiny hole by the hood prop rod thing.
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‘Clean’ install.
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I drive up this with help from a spotter or three. With 30 psi in my tires. It was awesome. I had to readjust my line because passenger front and driver rear were working together to make the whole thing want to flip over. It might have been easier with hydroassist or my doubler in. Maybe after this weekend I’ll get off my ass about those things.

The challenging part was the driver side slider kind of locked the jeep into position so I had to use it to pivot while not having enough power to do so. Then once you get up you turn passenger and the Jeep wants to flip you the other way.


The ONLY reason I ran this was because I was told to hit it and told guys they were in the way. I had no clue I’d actually make it.
 

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Passenger front wants to push your driver rear farther into the hole and makes you want to flip.
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Big bang either right before or after this photo.
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I spent way too much time on this. Also, it doesn’t match YouTube videos. The assemble was straightforward. What I didn’t understand was why mine was so different. I literally too the entire ecobox apart, bolted on the rear section, then the 23 spline shaft, tapped it into place to confirm it fits, pulled it out to install the extended seal housing (NOT fun to remove) to have it do the same thing every time. Yes I was expecting this to magically work one time as if I’d done something wrong.

With the ecobox on a np231 in a Jeep Cherokee you need a $70 extended seal housing AND a clocking ring…in MY Jeep. The NP231 is a medium length input and I think the other (NP205/Dana 300) more popular cases have a longer one.

I assembled the ecobox thinking I’d save time. It would have been smarter to test fit this a whole bunch of times. The extended seal housing was contacting the front bearing retainer on my transfer case was contacting the extended seal housing. Literally NOTHING in my research said this would happen. It’s supposed to drop in perfectly. It didn’t. It wasn’t uNeil FordFascist told me it might need a clocking ring due to the gap. I just so happened to HAVE a clocking ring with this AND the mounting foot. I also had the hardware to Mount all this shit onto the transfer case after 6 hours of messing with it and not comprehending what I don’t know. Maybe I’ll take more photos later.


Extended seal housing installed. It is flush with the case in this photo.

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Stock NP231 bearing retainer. One video using a Tera-Low said they needed to swap the bolts. This wasn’t my contact problem. The housing above was resting on the retainer and wouldn’t go anymore.
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Contact problem.
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Gap created.
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Probably hard to see, but I’d removed the extended seal housing thinking I’d be able to measure depth or see something. It really didn’t show me anything besides I should buy a NP205 from a Ford and throw lots of money at it to avoid saying I have an Atlas.
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Clocking ring installed. The extended seal housing now slips over the input just enough to seal. Studs were included with the kit. I have no idea what orientation this puts anything in. There are some Ws on the cases for lining things up. I just put them where it ACTUALLY lined up because no one gives a fuck about letters being aligned when things don’t go together. They’re probably lined up according to the manual though.
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Voila or whatever.
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Just under 24” long from the rear driveshaft flange to the front of the Ecobox. With the clicking ring and mounting foot. I had to clearance the mounting foot to get it to fit over the bearing retainer. Later I ran 12 miles to unwind from this day. Maybe it will go into the jeep tomorrow. I don’t have shifters so after I figure out clocking it up, if possible at all because there is a massive fucking hump in the way, I’ll get driveshafts made then manually shift it into 2WD. The shift levers don’t appear to interfere with each other and they’re both on the same side.

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I’ll be ordering cable shifters from JBFAB (I think this is the correct vendor) with ‘custom’ all over it since no one does this. Apparently people think this will destroy itself or last forever.


For reference, the ecobox has a 6 gear planetary, and I’ll be installing a 6 gear into the NP231, I guess tomorrow before considering step 1-10 done on this.
 
The case allows me to have 1:1, 2.72:1 and 7.39:1.
For those who care about numbers the crawl ratio :
AW4 1st gear 2.8
Differential gears 5.13
Transfer case 2.72 and 7.39

39:1 with one case.
106:1 with two cases.

I’m sort of looking forward to 106:1 just because I’ve always wanted to be a Toyota. If I had the Tera-low it would be 156:1.

I’m hoping all the upgrades keep the case from eating itself alive. Blowing up a T case in the middle of a wheeling trip in a remote location would suck.
 
fl0w3n said:
Bummer you had to fight it, but good to have it assembled now.

Also clarifies your user name now.
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Yeah no shit. I constantly think it’s going to be easy and go together like it does on TV.
😃 🔫
 
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