Here are some pics of the exhaust and the pitman arm. The pitman arm is two arms welded together. I bought a 4" drop pitman arm and heated it with a torch and bent it to a lower angle. Then I cut the splined end off the factory pitman arm and welded the two arms together. It ain't pretty, but it's very stout!! For the exhaust, I ran the factory Benz pipe off the turbo and ran a 2 1/2" pipe back by the rear diff. I had to tap the firewall in about 1/8" to clear the down pipe. There is a 45 degree turn down right in front of the rear axle. I cut the bracket that fits into the rubber hanger off the stock muffler and welded it to the turn down. I will run a tailpipe if I notice exhaust in the cabin. I did not drive it long enough before I broke it to notice. That is the oil cooler in one of the pics, I mounted it right under the bumper. I got lucky, my Jeep had the 2.8 V6 and the trans sat farther forward into the engine bay, that gave me more clearance from the front suspension to the oil pan. My front panhard bar is about 1" from the oil pan, my motor mounts are 1/4" plate, the bottom of them is level with the frame rails. My hood closes, but the front of the engine rubs slightly. I am going to add 1/8" of shim to the trans crossmember, that should lower the front of the engine enough to clear the hood. I got the trans back in and hooked up with the new flexplate and modified torque converter. Tomorrow I will put trans fluid in and see what happens. If you need more pics, let me know. Good luck with your project and post some pics of it!!!!

Happy Holidays!!
John

 

Drove the Jeep around quite a bit this morning, runs really good. No noticeable vibrations from the torque converter setup or anything else, ran like it did before the failure. I still need to install the oil pressure sending unit, will probably do that this afternoon. So far, so good!!!!!

John

 

Way cool!! I am really interested in your long term results, as it looks like I am going to be using the same vintage 84-86 due to the emission restrictions here. I plan on using it mostly for my dd so I look foreward to mileage updates etc. Hopefully gear changes wont be ness. Thanks for the new pics!

 

looks good, i really hope that pitman arm doesn't twist on you tho. im glad the trans is working now, how high have you revved it so far to see if theres any vibrations?

 

I don't have the tach hooked up yet, so i'm not sure how high I have revved it. I drove it fairly aggressively today, up to about 60 MPH, the engine was wound out pretty good being it's only a three speed trans. No vibrations, the same as it was before the failure. With all the fluid in the converter, it probably dampens most of the harmonics, kind of like a fluidamper harmonic balancer. It shakes a little at idle, but it always has. The Jeep was fairly noisy with the gas engine too, so i'm not too worried about it. I'm relatively certain that if there was a balance problem ,I would feel it, higher RPM's would be worse. The trans shifts good and strong, I just wish it had OD. I am going to drive it to work tomorrow and put some drive time on her.

John

 

sweet, they redline at 5100 so you can mash the gas in neutral and not blow it

 

Very cool too see progress!!!

A few thoughts that come to mind:

Someone mention using a rack and pinion for the steering. Though yes, I did that in mine, I do not recommend it. Solid axle front ends and r&p do not mix well. It makes for some really funky steering when you are not on smooth surfaces (yes you can train yourself to anticipate it, but it is something I will not do again). I never was overly confident that a good bump on the highway wasn't going to tear the r&p off of the cross member I made, or bend the tie rods.

O.D. transmissions... I remember reading some folks posting in other threads that when swapping in manuals with O.D., they were very disappointed in the motor's ability to handle O.D. They seem to like that 1:1 high gear better. Can anyone give the definite yes/no on that?

What rear end ratio are you running? Keep in mind what the factory mb #'s were, and tire diameters. When I stepped up to a 31" tire with the jeep 4:10 rear end, it put me at more than 90% accurate on the speedo and left me with more than 85mph on the wide open road without feeling like I was anywhere near the top end of the motor. Correct me if I am wrong, I think the 300SD had like a 3.07:1 rear and 185 or 195/70-14 tires. 300D turbos were close, if not the same as the SD's ratio.

Exhaust: If the strait pipe is a bit too loud for you/your neighbors, I ended up reusing a stock mb resonator can in line with my strait pipe. It cut out the raspy strait pipe sound without destroying that wonderful turbo song. A buddy of mine used an agricultural "tractor muffler" (looked like a glass-pack or cherry bomb) and it sounded really good. Well, actually, it made it sound like a city bus, which "I" thought sounded really good. Opinions may vary, .

I've got my rebuild in the back of my mind, and slowly taking notes on everyone's successes and failures. This is making the trial and error so much easier to swallow. I wish I had this kind of feedback when I was building my MJ. Guys on this site are so supportive! I've been hanging around Pirate4x4 a great deal and leeching off the wealth of information there in terms of jeep info, suspension and front ends, etc. (until it turns into a flame-fest). I think I have finally made up my mind on what will be incorporated into my next build (91YJ).

Keep on keepin' on!

 

Hi vwdieseljunkie. I have been looking at your pics of the comanche, nice! What trans do you plan on with the yj? I would like to here more, I am starting down this road too. The more info the better! Thanks in advance.

 

I'm not sure what gear I have, I think it's pretty low. It's spunky off the line and revs pretty high in third. I need to figure out how to connect the tach so I can get a better idea of what's really going on. It definitely revs higher in high gear than my 300SDL, and the SDL is a dog off the line. I'm guessing around a 3:42 or 3:73 probably. I thought an OD (like a 700R4) would help with MPG's and the low first gear would help the little diesel off the line. My A904 shifts good, so I am not going to mess with it. If it goes out, I was going to swap in a 700R4. Thanks for the heads up about the R&P, I thought about doing that so I could hook the AC back up, from the pics I saw, it looked like you retained the Benz AC compressor. I might be able to mount a compressor on the plate next to the valve cover where the cruise control unit used to sit. I might put a turbo type muffler on it to quiet it down just a little.

Merry Christmas!!
John

 

Holy Cr@p John, I just looked at the picture of that pitman arm, that is scarier stuff than my booger welded r&p cross member. Was the pitman cast steel, or cast iron? What size tire are you running? I would be very careful with that, and keep my eyes open for a different alternative (but then again, I don't know for sure just how much pressure that pitman arm is actually under) I just keep thinking about the "what if's".

Since your jeep was originally the 2.8, I'm guessing you have somewhere around the 3.5:1 rears (+/- .25). I don't think the 6-cyls got 4.1:1 rears (maybe someone can correct me). That should put you being fairly comfortable with a 28-30" tire (235/75-15) Little bigger for highway cruise, little smaller for spunk off the line. Remember, the wider and taller you go, the more strain on the steering.

I was talking with my buddy last night that helped me with my build back in '04, and when I told him about your torque converter issue, his immediate response was that either the compression stroke of the diesel was too much for the little tabs, or that it wasn't centered. He reminded me that you can't compare diesel HP to gas HP, because it's like comparing a impact wrench to an air ratchet. (or a hammer drill to a regular drill)

I was hoping to see someone chime in with their opinion on the O.D., I'll see if I can't find where I read that. It was a knife in the gut at first, but I also remember what it was like when we had the om617 in our boat, and with a large prop, cruising at about 3k rpm and always under load, the turbo would get absolutely cherry red (that's not to say it doesn't do that in the mercedes, as I've never been able to see the turbo while cruising the highway, )

My biggest hanging point so far has been that 5-link jeep front end vs. the oil pan. I think I have made up my mind to make my next build IFS. I got flamed pretty hard when I mentioned making a jeep IFS on the pirate board last year, and now there's a guy putting the ford ttb dana 50 in a jeep and they think it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. I guess I just don't put enough bling into my projects, . But, at least I can watch his progress and learn. My thoughts for now are to either use the dana 35 ttb (explorer/ranger) or dana 44 ttb (f150/f.s. bronco), and have the cross member forward of the oil pan (making it basically a "mid-engine"). I'll make up my mind one day.