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.
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.
Contact problem.
Gap created.
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.
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.
Voila or whatever.
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.
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.