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Varg In Jeep's Clothing

Discussion in 'Builds and Fabricators Forum' started by ITLKSEZ, Aug 20, 2015.

  1. Nov 9, 2015
    uncamonkey

    uncamonkey Member

    Greeley CO
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    That is a fairly common swap in Europe. I will be watching to see how it works out. I rebuilt the B18 in my 124 volvo and put the wrong cam in. At around 5K RPM it was great on the highway. It looks like it may be a 2.3, good motors. I'm at over 200,000 on mine and no oil burning or leaks. Even in a stock vehicle you need to understand that the motor will bounce around a bit so you need to figure out your exhaust system so the motor won't tear the pipes apart.
    Just saying, I've had to redo a few systems to keep things from breaking.
     
  2. Nov 9, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
    Joined:
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    I'm hitting this head-on with different motor mounts. The stockers were soft and floppy when new, and they only got worse from there. Plus, the jeep frame is much narrower than the Volvo's unibody horns, so I wouldn't really have the width to use the stock mounts anyway. Thanks for the heads up.

    Since the exhaust dumps right onto where the front driveshaft will be, I might end up having to rebuild more of the exhaust than I'd planned, too. I never said this was gonna be quick. Or easy. :) Now work is picking back up again, so it'll probably get pushed back into the corner again for a month or twelve. Unfortunately I have to share my shop with wood and steel, and they don't get along.
     
  3. Nov 11, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
    Joined:
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    Well, I hit a snag. What I had planned on doing with the drivetrain might not work. Or I should say, might not be worth it.

    I pulled out my D300 from deep under my shop countertop and dug out my Volvo transmission from up in storage. I put them on the table at their minimum separation with what I have to do inside, and my adapter will have to be at least 2 1/2" thick. If I'm going to have a transmission in this jeep with a 6 1/2" gap between the two cases, I might as well adapt a 5-speed to the Volvo bell housing that was designed to be used with the D300, like a T-5. Snag one.

    I am having doubts on the strength of the aluminum (Volvo overdrive) tunnel that I was going to adapt from. It's robust and well-ribbed, but I'm not sure it was designed with the strength to have 100# of transfer case hanging off one side of it with low-range gearing compounding the torque stresses. That tunnel doubles as multiple bearing retainers and oiling valleys for the back of the transmission; otherwise, I'd consider fabbing the whole adapter out of steel. Snag two.

    The yoke I was planning on adapting from off of the back of the transmission output shaft is odd (large shaft with small OD as compared to all my other small shaft/large OD Volvo yokes). It must be special to the 4-speed. I don't have a mate for it, and it will probably have to be custom made if I can't find one in a yard. My dad worked in a machine shop when I started this project, but he has since retired, so any machine work will now come out of my pocket. Again, the time and money might be better spent on a different transmission. Snag three.

    Ugh. Back to the drawing board. Thoughts?
    Obviously an NV4500 would be a great... But I don't have an NV4500 tree.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2017
  4. Nov 11, 2015
    kf_chris

    kf_chris Weary traveler!

    Rock Hill, SC
    Joined:
    Nov 13, 2008
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    91
    Nice build so far....can't offer you much in the way of advice (I have a complete cj5 drivetrain in mine and have ruled out any swaps with this jeep). I'm a weld inspector by trade and you have some NICE looking welds!!!
     
  5. Nov 11, 2015
    uncamonkey

    uncamonkey Member

    Greeley CO
    Joined:
    Jun 2, 2009
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    I can't help you either, I just have seen a few Volvo/Jeep swaps on the internet It would probably be easier to drop the 472 Caddy motor into my Commando.
     
  6. Nov 11, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
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    Thanks kf_chris. Cool profession! Welding is like a fine art. I feel like you can never truly be a master, just a life-long student. You can either be happy painting stick figures, or you can try to improve your skills and technique every time you pick up the paint brush. I can honestly say I learn something new every time I weld.

    Uncamonkey, do you happen to have any links, or remember where you've seen that? I've done multiple searches on this, and can't find anything. Just people swapping them into kit cars and little track cars. Nothing converting them to 4wd. If I had the length, I could easily do a divorced case, but that just isn't an option here.

    I'd really like to stick to a car-style 4- or 5-speed, since my wife will be the primary driver. She hates the t-18s in my 3B and dump truck. That leaves me with a T-5, a Saginaw 4-spd (with an advance adapters kit and run a Dana 20), or something I'm not seeing? The AX15s from later jeeps would work (and Toyota cases, for that matter), but they don't have a standard round bearing retainer on the front of the transmission. I don't know if I want to get into that complex of a bellhousing adapter.

    I'll just keep staring at this. Maybe something will come to me.
     
  7. Nov 11, 2015
    SFaulken

    SFaulken Active Member

    Bellevue, WA
    Joined:
    May 24, 2011
    Messages:
    1,178
    Well, the weight of the transfer case, you can ameliorate that somewhat, if you redesign the crossmember/mounting setup a bit, so the crossmember carries the weight, rather than the tail of the transmission. Beyond that, I dunno. T5's are easy enough to come across, really, I didn't need the 4wd provision for the one in my hotrod, but I picked it up for $200 at a swap meet a few years back...
     
  8. Nov 12, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
    Joined:
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    Theres a freshly rebuilt jeep T-5 on CL right now for $350. I was just ready to start wheeling and dealing with the guy when I went back down to the shop and pulled up a chair and stared at this hot mess some more.

    Then it came to me.

    I pulled the big aluminum tunnel off the back of that transmission and put the 9/16" thick aluminum rear plate back on that came on that transmission. It is perfectly flat around all the mounting bolts; I'll be able to make a 1/2" steel plate to capture all 8(!) rear mounting bolts and just bolt it against it, maybe with a few rolled pins to center it. I'll make a similar plate for the D300, machined to fit. I'll then make the stub shaft that will bolt to the trans output yoke and slide into the D300. When that is in there square and comfortably, I'll be able to measure the distance between the two plates and make some tubing/plates to weld in there to marry them. Crisis averted!

    I was concerned about the overall drivetrain length being an issue, but my '62 3B has the F-head, a 1" adapter between the bell and T-18, the jeep T-18-to-Dana 18/20 adapter, and a Dana 20. The overall length from the front of the bell housing to the center of the rear U-joint is 32", allowing me with a 14" driveshaft. As this sits on my bench, the Volvo bell/M45/D300 combo is measuring... wait for it... 32"!!

    And check this out. The flange-style output yoke for the Volvo M45 transmission has the identical spline count and width, engagement length, and outer seal diameter as the Dana 300 output yokes. I'm planning on using a Volvo rear axle in this project, so as long as I can find more of these yokes, I'll be able to just use shortened Volvo drive shafts, rather than custom shafts with different sized u-joints (Volvo uses a u-joint that is similar in size to a 1310, but metric IIRC).

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2017
  9. Nov 12, 2015
    uncamonkey

    uncamonkey Member

    Greeley CO
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    It's been many years since I have seen anything on the Volvo swaps. Several years ago I went in to get u joints for my '68 Volvo. The guy behind the counter looked it up and told me to tell him I wanted u joints for a '64 Nova, same part and cheaper. I should have saved some of the parts off of my old Volvos like the York AC compresser etc. The rear axles are basicly D44's with disk brakes. The 164 was 3:73 ratio and the 144 was 4:10. Mounting them to leaf springs could be interesting as both had coils and trailing arm suspension. Not undoable however.
     
  10. Nov 12, 2015
    Streeetch

    Streeetch New Member

    Rock Springs, WY
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    Oct 31, 2015
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    Wow, I love unconventional swaps...
     
    ITLKSEZ likes this.
  11. Nov 13, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
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    I stumbled on one of those rare Craigslist finds yesterday...

    To make the adapter between the trans/t-case, I need to make a small stub-shaft that has 23-splines to mate to the D300. I found an automatic transmission on CL yesterday from a '92 Dakota that was originally married to an NP231 that shares the same 23 spline input as the D300.
    For $20!!

    When I got it home and split it open, I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was the output shaft perfect for what I needed, the shaft that feeds power to the overdrive planetary gearset is also 23-spline. I got two shafts for the amazingly low price of $20! Plus I'll have a healthy pile of aluminum to scrap out if Al prices ever come back up out of the basement.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2017
  12. Nov 13, 2015
    47v6

    47v6 junk wrecker! 2023 Sponsor 2022 Sponsor

    USA
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    dude, make it happen and this swap will hit it out of the ballpark
     
    ITLKSEZ likes this.
  13. Nov 15, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
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    This just got interesting. I've been having crazy luck lately finding parts. I ran out to Pull and Save today. I picked up a turbo & manifold

    [​IMG]

    An intercooler

    [​IMG]

    An oil cooler

    [​IMG]

    And a distributor ($225 new)

    [​IMG]

    All for $117! And the intercooler will fit perfectly behind the 3A grill.

    [​IMG]

    I'm not sure if I'll use everything yet, but I couldn't let it go. Three different guys saw me pulling the turbo out and expressed their envy.

    Now I blew my budget for a flywheel, pressure plate and clutch, what I actually went there for.
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2017
  14. Nov 15, 2015
    47v6

    47v6 junk wrecker! 2023 Sponsor 2022 Sponsor

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    Killer. Super turbo killer!!!!
     
  15. Nov 15, 2015
    uncamonkey

    uncamonkey Member

    Greeley CO
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    I do recognize that exhaust pipe in one of those pictures. Sometimes I wish I had a turbo on my 86 Volvo but it runs much better than all of my old ones so I can deal with it. especally since I have gotten 34 MPG from it on a trip to ID. A few other things, the turbo on a Volvo can get screwed up easily if you turn off the motor before allowing the turbo to cool down. A friend had to replace three of them. She had a lead foot, but loved how the car performed. The radiator is about exactly the same size as those used for a 225 V6 and the hose connections are in the right places but I don't think the are the same size. Just going to sit back in my corner and watch how this works out
     
  16. Nov 18, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
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    So... I've been hard at work building adapter shafts with woodworking tools. :p

    Since my experimental shaft is probably going to be the weak link in this experiment, I figured I'd make two so I could keep one in the tool box for a spare to get me home.

    The primary shaft began life as the male/female shaft and planetary gearset from the overdrive unit inside a 46RE transmission from a Dakota.

    [​IMG]

    Since I don't have a metalworking lathe, only a woodworking lathe.... :shock:
    After pounding out the gears and bearings, I turned a block of wood to tightly accept the snout of the gearset and screwed it fast. I cut off the majority of the housing, leaving a plate with the splined hole. I ground the face perfectly flat using a 7" grinder while the part was spinning in the lathe. (Don't try this at home.) I then ground at the face further, but leaving a centering ring that fit perfectly in the mating yoke's recess. I then had to grind the bore out a bit to allow the transmission's output shaft to fit in there. I was then able to trim the shaft to length and drill holes in the plate. It worked like a charm.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    The shaft slides in from the back and stops on the ends of the splines. Once it is bolted together, the shaft can float, but can't move in or out. Now that I have this done, I'll be able to move onto the adapter plates. My finished distance between trans and t-case will be 5 11/16" from face-to-face.

    [​IMG]

    Now I can start on the mounting plates to join these two cases together! :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2017
  17. Nov 18, 2015
    47v6

    47v6 junk wrecker! 2023 Sponsor 2022 Sponsor

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    holy awesome! I love this. make it happen
     
  18. Nov 19, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
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    I changed the title of this thread. It's a little more creative. :cool:

    "Varg" is "Wolf" in Swedish. Volvos are (were) built in Sweden...
     
  19. Nov 19, 2015
    uncamonkey

    uncamonkey Member

    Greeley CO
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    OK, but I thought that Volvo in Swedish meant "I run".
     
  20. Nov 19, 2015
    ITLKSEZ

    ITLKSEZ Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

    Liberty Lake, WA
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    Volvo translates to "I roll" (as in movement) in Latin, but that doesn't sound good when associated with jeeps. ;)
     
    Muzikp likes this.
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