IH 54 R-100 4X4

[Jesse S]

My Goodness what a slab of aluminum ..
Needing to slice it in half ..

Making up some spacers to drop the trans/transfer case in the frame .. Net a better driveshaft angle .. They will be installed between the crossmember and frame rails .. Did slice it into two pieces and holes are drilled .. Need some bolts from Ace .. That's for tomorrow ..



That worked out pretty nice ..

What didn't work out so nice is the column shifter ..
Seems that the gate in the column is not long enough to engage first or second gear ... Worked alright when the TH400 was in it ..

Going to give it a shot and try to modify the column to work in all gears .. ??



Looks like the slot needs to be longer .. The mark on the column arm is the stop ..
Thinking by making it longer will allow the arm more throw ..

 

[Jesse S]

Pulled the fenders gave me the room to do the cuts using a mirror ...



Didn't want to take out very much ..... Thought was to creep up on it ..

"Great balls of fire"

Seems that the column will need to be pulled and took apart ..
There's a internal stop that will need to be dealt with ...
Kind of knew it wasn't going to be as easy as just cutting the slot deeper ..

(Guess I shouldn't have broke the dang mirror)

 

[Jesse S]

With cutting in the notch did allow enough swing for second gear.
Getting manual first gear to work requires digging into the column ...
Not all that sure I want to do that work cause the Caddy column works very well as is ..
Did find a small problem that's being taken care of, the lower "Borgeson" U-Joint was showing some ware, got a new one on order .. And since I was in the mode of working with the steering components thought the timing was great to add some beef to the steering box mount on the frame ..

Really had no need to do this. My frame showed no signs of cracks, but that area is a known weak link ..



A bit of overkill won't hurt a thing ..

Next on the todo list is to shorten the rear driveshaft ..
Taking 3.5" out of it ...
There's a driveshaft shop a few miles up the road from me that does superb work in this field, drop it off and wait for them to call me ...
The front driveshaft also will need work by adding some length to it ..

Hoping this will be the end of the work needed for installing the overdrive trans .. Been a very long journey to get to this point !!

It's easy. they said ..
Piece of cake, they said .. Yeah, right !!

 

[OldCracker29]

Over kill never hurt anything.

 

[Jesse S]

Over kill never hurt anything.

You shouldn't had said that .. Lol



Just ordered this brace that will tie the steering box to the front crossmember ..

That's as far as I'm going with beefing (Overkill) the box mount ..
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Just dropped off the rear driveshaft to have shorten ..
In a few days the truck will be rolling under it's own power ..

 

[OldCracker29]

You shouldn't had said that .. Lol

View attachment 7914

Just ordered this brace that will tie the steering box to the front crossmember ..

That's as far as I'm going with beefing (Overkill) the box mount ..
____________________________________

Just dropped off the rear driveshaft to have shorten ..
In a few days the truck will be rolling under it's own power ..

Well, to much overkill might hurt the wallet.

 

[Jesse S]

Done with the weld-in plates ..
The tie brace bolts in ...

 

[OldCracker29]

I know builds like this take time, but I can't wait to see it altogether.

 

[Jesse S]

I can't wait to see it altogether.

That make two of us ...

Three years in this time around .. Working by myself makes for slow go .. Had quite a few big dollar parts that took time saving up for to buy slowed up the movement forward with the project a great deal ...

Been getting ready to jump into a fairly huge job ...

 

[OldCracker29]

Vehicle wiring sucks...good luck!