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'56 willys truck

I understand not wanting to wait for something to be completed because sometimes that's exactly what is needed. But, I"m at the point in my life that I try to be patient as much as possible because, generally, things work out better then trying to rush it and sometimes better solutions present themselves. We all do things based on our experience

I've been enjoying your successes, trials, and tribulations throughout your build here, so to your continued success with it :beer:
 
Will— True words.

I will say at this point if something new came out I doubt I would buy it. It’s either the ORD magnum or a great deal on a 4spd Atlas, because they are proven.
 
Well, I couldn't hold out, so I ordered the ORD magnum NP205 underdrive box, but we did talk that if the thing went on sale(highly doubtful) for Labor Day that they would honor my order with the sale price. Again, since this isn't an on-the-shelf item and they're built when you place an order it's highly doubtful it would make any sale. So it should be here end of Nov or early Dec.

Until then it's more hacking a big dead tree down in the backyard and other home stuff and tinkering on the jeep when I can. I think I'm going to bob the rear bed, but I'm not sure when that will happen. I'm still not ecstatic about the cooling system so that's always on my mind to see if I can make it work better and I'm tossing around 4 linking the front and I'm probably adding a 2nd battery too. Next year may see Vintage Heating and Air unit go in but we shall see. Still need to figure out air inflation system also, so that's near the top of the list kind of.

So in the meantime when/if I drive it I'm gonna bungee cord the doubler shifter to keep it from popping out and hope nothing catastrophic happens.
 
csutton7 said:
Well, I couldn't hold out, so I ordered the ORD magnum NP205 underdrive box, but we did talk that if the thing went on sale(highly doubtful) for Labor Day that they would honor my order with the sale price. Again, since this isn't an on-the-shelf item and they're built when you place an order it's highly doubtful it would make any sale. So it should be here end of Nov or early Dec.

Until then it's more hacking a big dead tree down in the backyard and other home stuff and tinkering on the jeep when I can. I think I'm going to bob the rear bed, but I'm not sure when that will happen. I'm still not ecstatic about the cooling system so that's always on my mind to see if I can make it work better and I'm tossing around 4 linking the front and I'm probably adding a 2nd battery too. Next year may see Vintage Heating and Air unit go in but we shall see. Still need to figure out air inflation system also, so that's near the top of the list kind of.

So in the meantime when/if I drive it I'm gonna bungee cord the doubler shifter to keep it from popping out and hope nothing catastrophic happens.
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You aren't the first person I have heard of have issues with the nwf stuff on the street. You made the right choice with the magnum box, I have two rigs with them, zero issues with a bunch of street/highway use. I'd take the magnum/205 over the 4 speed atlas all day as well. The vent on the magnum does have to be really long, and if you decide it could hold a touch more fluid than recommended like I did.... it wont haha.... but will quit puking when it gets to the correct level.
 
Timmay--thanks for the tip and info, really appreciate it. I'm not sure how I missed not seeing ORD had this back in 2017 when I bought the NWF Blackbox eco, but I did. I have the vent line going to the top of the bed, so it should be long enough at around 48" or so.
 
Not much going on as I'm still hacking on the tree in the backyard. One 40' limb hit the deck and took out 12' of glass railing and 3 posts, but the glass didn't break. I should've used a snatch block as the winch cable got sucked tight into the crotch and stuck and then I was fucked, but I thought I'd get lucky, oh well. This limb was the furthest from the deck but it swung around and boom. Not a big deal to me as I know how to build stuff, being a General Contractor in the past, just funny how the one limb that should've never hit anything did. All the other limbs were hanging over the deck and house and I got them to swing away, but not this one. I sitll have one main trunk limb about 25-30' long to cut and hope it falls like it should with the winch cable and then I'll be down to hacking on trunk that'll be about 12" tall once this last section comes down.

I contacted Offroad Design about a week ago and they thought the magnum box would be ready in about a month, so if that happens that's 1.5-2 months ahead of when I thought I'd get it, but we shall see if it happens. I told them I'd contact them in early Oct to find out the status.
 
First pic is the first limb I attacked as it broke and then the others are just some random shots as I hacked away. I should’ve taken a pic of the whole tree before I started, but I didn’t.that’s a 32’ extension ladder for reference and in some of the pics it’s sitting on the deck which is about 3’ off the ground. Been kind of fun but tense moments also!! In the last pic you see the limb shooting off to the left of the main trunk with no limbs, that's the one that took out the deck railing, but the cable was just the right length when it got stuck to let it swing around as it came down. We had to get a rope up around that limb to help break it free, cuz the winch wouldn't pull it anymore once it got stuck and it took us about 5-6 good tugs to get it to finally snap the little bit left holding it from coming down and I had probably moved it 15-20' with the winch already and it had already cracked a few times before it bound up. Was pretty crazy that it could stay in that position with so little holding it. In fact it's pretty crazy how little amount of a limb can hold itself up before it snaps free.
 

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Ya, that's a big ass tree. 32' on a ladder, no thanks, I've learned over the years that I'm not wild about heights.
 
Yea, it was as tall as the big tree still standing in the corner. It's a bit tense being up on that thing and cutting I'm not going to lie and the higher the ladder the more tense it is! I have a harness I wrap around the tree when cutting and I tie the ladder to the tree and secure the bottom of the ladder too with some rope, but when you're cutting and you hear that first crack the scramble is on to get unhooked and down and over to the winch to pull it down and even more tense if it doesn't come down and you have to go back up the ladder and cut a little more. Trees are strong even when pretty much dead as this one was.
 
csutton7 said:
Yea, it was as tall as the big tree still standing in the corner. It's a bit tense being up on that thing and cutting I'm not going to lie and the higher the ladder the more tense it is! I have a harness I wrap around the tree when cutting and I tie the ladder to the tree and secure the bottom of the ladder too with some rope, but when you're cutting and you hear that first crack the scramble is on to get unhooked and down and over to the winch to pull it down and even more tense if it doesn't come down and you have to go back up the ladder and cut a little more. Trees are strong even when pretty much dead as this one was.
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Need a wireless controller for the winch so you can run it from the tree...

Aaron Z
 
Aaron--no thanks on that, I want to be away from the limbs as they unhinge themselves!! Of course if you could crawl onto another limb then yea that'd be sweet, but on a ladder right at the cut line I'm gonna be a chicken and get off that ladder as fast as possible. But the wireless part would be nice for sure.
 
I just cut some limbs out of a pecan tree last week end. I rented a 50 boom. The tree was about 80’, so still some big limbs. One limb I tied a rope on and pulled with my tractor to make it fall the right way. After I cut it and it fell, it was standing on the base of the tree. Since I was still hooked to the tractor, I might as well just pull it off the tree, right? MF’er fell right on my deck and smashed one of the built in chairs. Nothing that another day and couple hundred can’t fix.
 
WaterH--I was going to rent a 50' boom, but figured I'd give the old winch a try since I had that big elm tree in the corner to anchor to and a big ass ladder and besides me being lazy and not wanting to move that heavy ass ladder another time to put a snatch block up there I paid the price, but like you it's just another day to work on something else!! Still sucks when a limb goes rogue.
 
csutton7 said:
Aaron--no thanks on that, I want to be away from the limbs as they unhinge themselves!! Of course if you could crawl onto another limb then yea that'd be sweet, but on a ladder right at the cut line I'm gonna be a chicken and get off that ladder as fast as possible. But the wireless part would be nice for sure.
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So you're saying you don't want to have someone make a video like this about you? :lmao:



Aaron Z
 
Aaron--:lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:---yea no vids of me cutting that I know of(the kid has had a couple of chances, but I think he sets his phone down) and once I hear a crack I'm like a ninja coming down that ladder, well maybe not a ninja more like a sloth.
 
Down to just a 14’ tall stump that I’ll prune on a bit but won’t cut down until next year cuz I have 4 more trees to cut and I need it for cable routing to pull the trees down and not hit the house or deck.

Got everything cut up for firewood and stacked-err tossed into a corner of the yard and next to the deck, so the yard is cleaned up.
 

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Got the new input shaft in and then I couldn't find any red loctite, so that shut me down, but I got some yesterday, but wasn't able to finish the assembly. Hoping I can work on it after work today and then be able to fight installing it back on the truck and then figuring out all the changes to driveshafts(the magnum box is 2" shorter than the NWF box if I remember correctly), mounts, etc.
 
If building something always came out perfect, we would never learn anything. Mistakes grows the mind and strengthens our ideas.

Keep up the good work... :beer:
 
First modification was to the shift lever as it would not allow the back housing piece to align properly. So out came the mini grinder and I cut and ground down one side of lever so I could slip it on from the side vs sliding it on from the end. I then tapped both the shift lever holes and the shift rail holes to lock the lever to the rail. Now I need to buy some Right Stuff to join the front part of the magnum box to the back part cuz I used it all up. Hope to do that after work.
 

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Got it mated up.

You will need a long Allen wrench that has the socket end on it to get the Magnum box backing plate/seal housing attached to the t-case. I used an 8mm but I think is ¼” to be honest. I just grabbed it and it worked and then checked the size and saw it was 8mm. It worked for torquing the front half of the magnum case to the rear, but it doesn’t need to be a long one.

No gaskets are used just the right stuff, although I used some black rtv oil resistant on the t-case to the rear magnum box because the directions didn’t say what to use until you get to joining the front of the magnum case to the rear part.

The vent tee fitting they give you needs to be installed before you bolt the shift lever back on also or if you are like me down to Home Depot to buy some ¼” brass nipples so that you can get up high enuff to screw the tee or 90* fitting on it, cuz I was doing something different and I didn't want to remove it and It will need to be 1” long. I used 1 ½” cuz they didn’t have a 1”. A close nipple will not work.

Also in the parts you receive, they give you a ¼” brass tee a 90* and barb fittings, clear hose (to be able to check the fluid level) and clamps. They say to use the tee at the vent and the 90* fitting at the drain but I’m using tees on both so that I can drain it without having to remove the hose and of course the tee at the vent so that the vent will work and the fluid level hose can tie into it.

The Magnum box measures 6 ¼” long and the NWF ECO Blackbox is 8 1/16” long, so I definitely have some fab rework ahead of me.
 

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Since the heim on the cable shifter is for a ¼” rod and is a 1/4” x 28 thread pitch where it threads onto the cable end and the bolt on the Magnum box requires a ⅜” heim and threads into the shift arm but that has a 5/16” x 18 pitch thread meant I had to get a different heim. Ace Hardware had no heims that would work, so I had to get a 5/16” x 18 bolt and a ¼” x 20 bolt and I welded them together so I could use the heim I had and be able to thread it into the shift arm. You can see the shift arm bolt that came with magnum box sitting on top next to the modified bolt I made in the pic below.

Next up was to get the t-case installed onto the tranny and I got it done in pretty good time. Then I had to modify the mount for the magnum box cable since it was for the NWF box, so I had to flip it around cut it and then use the cutoff and weld it on to create a 90* mount and then welded that to the mount for cable shifters for the NP205.
Pic tomorrow as I had family duties.
 

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Forgot to take a pic, but I worked on reconnecting the vent line to the NP205, which involved adding a 1/4" x 2" brass nipple and coupling to the brass 90 on top of the NP205. Then I installing the sight tube for the Magnum box. Then the vent to the Magnum box required me to extend it like the NP205, but I needed to go buy a 1/4" brass 90 for 1/4" pipe to complete it, but I was cold, so I didn't complete it.

There's mounting foot on the Magnum box, but due to my tranny cross-member being a combo of DOM pipe and 1/4" L-angle this makes it a bit of a puzzle to figure out how to bolt it up and then mount it to the cross member. Dilemna #1 is the drain/sight tube system I did with the Tee, although it can't be much different with the supplied 90, it makes it tough to get the 4 bolts threaded in. Now maybe if I turned the tee so that it ran front to back vs side to side it may not be as much of a headache, but the drain plug would be fun to remove and reinstall into the tee, so I'll fight the bolts. So plan is use some 7/16"x 14 thread pitch studs about 2" in length to install into the mangnum mounting foot vs the bolts and then I only need to deal with nut removal vs having to try and get bolts in and out, so I bought the studs. But again I didn't do any more work on the truck since I was cold. Maybe tonight I'll continue if I get a chance and it's not too cold.

So of course the rear drive shaft is 1 3/4" short, but it may work, but I am going to take it to the driveshaft guy and discuss.

The front driveshafts(I have 2, one I had built with 2" DOM that was too short(not sure how) and the two-piece shaft I made & was using that is now too long). So the front one I had built (3" or 3 1/2" DOM is still too short and I think it's on the verge of still being short even though it's now 47" from t-case to pumpkin it will stretch to 51" or 51 1/2" before it separates. I'll have to remeasure that because something in my brain says I had concerns about it still being too short. Again I'll discuss when I take it to the driveshaft guy. I have to cut the front shaft of the two-piece down to make it work if I can. My mounting for the carrier bearing may force me back to the one-piece shaft due to the angle and being shorter.

Then there's the rear lower link arms that I'm not sure I can stretch by unthreading the heims or not, but I have to install the cross-member first to see if that will work or if I sleeve them and make them longer.

I think that's all I'm up against to get it back on the street, but family duties, the weather and hunting season in two weeks may hamper the progress.
 
Magnum box filled with fluid, but I had to call Offroad Designs because my instructions were conflicting in the quantity. They said 3 pints or ¾ of a qt. 3 pints is 48oz or 1.5 qts and ¾ of a qt is 24oz, so just a little difference!! They confirmed 1.5 pints or 24oz(¾ of a qt) is the correct amount.

Got the vent done to the Magnum box.

Temp installed my rear crossmember and I’ll need to modify it so that the double cardan won’t impact on full droop, this will require hacking a 2-3” wide x 1” section lowered ¾” or so out of the top center. So all in all that’s a minor mod that I was hoping would be the case, so that made me happy as did I won’t have to modify or make new lower link arms.

The mount for the magnum box will require me to find some grade 8 bolts with long enough threads that I can hack to make studs the correct length as the studs I bought won’t work. The center section between the two threaded ends is too long and this makes me have to add washers and that causes the studs to be longer than will work. If I can’t find bolts with enough thread I’ll have to get some all-thread and make studs from that.

The front driveshaft will need to be shortened as it’s 47 ¼” long in its full compressed state and that’s the exact dimension from t-cast flange to yoke. The two piece carrier bearing shaft will need to be shortened also and that I can do, since I built it the first time. Yea I could shorten the other one myself but the shop can do it way faster and time is running out.

The rear driveshaft probably needs lengthened. It will bolt up and it has 3” of shaft engagement at ride height and I don’t think it will ever get extended at full droop but originally it had 4 ¾” of engagement so I’d like to get back close to that is my thought. Droop is 9-10” and compression is 6-7” on the suspension.

Comments are welcomed as I always like to here what others have to say.
 

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