SM465 swap and some other stuff

very nice.
My 66 cj5 has a 231/th350/d18. I have a spare sm465 Im thinking about installing. Looks like overall length of the transmissions are the same. Does anyone know if the adapter for the auto will work with the manual?
Also looking at a pair of D44 axles from a 78 waggy. He'll sell the pair for 200 bones. Any suggestions on swapping them in? Both front and rear are offset to the right side but are geared high 3.08. If I regear them is this a good swap? D27 spiders are trashed and rear D44 has the two piece flange/axles. Both are open.

 

I don't think of the added width as a negative, maybe a positive. The body already has flares from a later model so the coverage should be ok. THis will be a significant fabrication project for me so I will seek some help along the way. Thanks for the reply and input. I will hold off on the tranny swap until I get the axles squared away then look at that.

 

More progress. I've been cutting out some rust inside the tub in preparation for putting Monstaliner over the the Herculiner. I started doing this with a cutoff wheel, but then broke down and bought a chicom plasma cutter with excellent reviews from Amazon.



Holy crap why didn't I buy a plasma for the garage earlier! I have a Hypertherm Powermax 800 at work but it was always a pain bringing stuff in and using it. Anyways this is making life a whole lot easier.

Started fitting the Corbeau Baja JP.



I ended up raising the rear of the seat a bit and discovered that I needed to move the seat back just a bit to alleviate the harsh angle at my ankle when on the gas pedal. I notched the wheelwell slightly and it feels much better now. Its amazing how much cleaner and easier this was to do with the plasma versus the cutoff wheel, not to mention quicker. I still need to grind a bit to get the new piece to sit flat. I'll weld it up and do the passenger side tomorrow and then tackle the seat frame.

 

Well, its on the road finally! Today was the maiden voyage to the gas station and everything seems to be working as it should! A few pics of the last few weeks

Seats and cage back in


Switch panel wired up


Switch panel, 12 volt outlet, and dual USB outlet installed


Fresh Monstaliner. Took a while to prep the old herculiner but this stuff is so much nicer on the knuckles and shouldn't trap nearly as much dirt


Shift boots I sewed up out of vinyl with the exception of the transmission shifter


Arm rest made out of vinyl and 2" foam mounted on the ammo can center console


After the maiden voyage!



Still to do:

Mount the CB. Not sure if it will go back in the center console like before or be mounted elsewhere.

Alignment

Stereo system. I was going to mount 6.5" marine speakers in wakeboard tower pods but found those to be too much $$. I'll be mounting the speakers in 6" PVC caps that are u-bolted to the cage just behind the seats. A bluetooth or direct connected marine amp will sync right to my Iphone and provide tunes without the need to mount a headunit.8)

Find a spare tire and rim

Fab up rocker guards

Some sort of heat shield for the mufflers, they make the floorboards hot!

Get a new tach. The Summit racing tach I currently have is reading about 200 rpms lower than my timing light reads.

Install air compressor under hood. I have a 12 volt high pressure HF unit but have been considering finding a York and trying to make it work. Its not really a high priority thing at this point.

Rebuild and re-gear the axles. I plan to do this during the winter months. The SM465 has a pretty good jump between 2nd and 3rd, going with lower gears should help minimize the RPM drop.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm happy that all my hard work and patience has paid off!

 

Good Job, Nice to get it back under it's own power..........Time to have some fun!

 

Yep, time to add the pin stripesR) Looks nice.

 

Nice job. Turned out very nice.

 

Love that switch panel. Where did you get it?

 

Switches and mount came from OTRATTW. They are the Contura V laser etched switches.

http://www.otrattw.com/

 

Looks good, nice work.