Down and Dirty Transaxle Build

few updates… had a 4 day weekend and made some good progress…

got my skid plate all welded up and turned her back over… put the axles back under and she's a roller


me next to it so you can get an idea of its size..


got the orbital mounted..


some front bumpstops


rear bumps… i didn't get a pic of the pads all finished out..
 
Thanks!

the ar400 cut and welded no issues… I was cutting with the torch and i was glad i didn't have much cleanup to do cause it grinds sllloooooowwwwwww.. it warped slightly when i cut it but no big deal.
 
Looking good Trey! Next time Cob comes down I may hitch a ride and check this beast out! Weldz look killer.
 
making some solid progress still…

got driveshaft made from the transaxle output to the t case.. took a little machining to get a super short shaft with a slip so i'll be able to take it out for servicing without having to remove the t case..


then i got to work on winch mounting… I picked up this T-max competition 9000 as more or less a basket case… the clutch setup was broken because of a design flaw and the solenoid pack was bad but the seller had a new solenoid with it but no clue on wiring it back up because the previous owner had disassembled it and given up.

Whats cool about this winch is the "boomer box" controller.. It was a major PITA to get it put back together because its packaged very tightly but I put some time into it and she's good as new.. its a standard and wireless controller.. basically if the battery in the remote dies, you plug it in directly to the box and you're back in business.. plus its a pretty fast winch…. hopefully I won't need it much right?



I also modified the clutch handle so it was more out of the way and not poking me in the back of the knee..



I added some beef under the floor pan



I stitch welded the reinforcement underneath so i didn't weaken the floor pan and plug welded it on top



the location is unconventional but in this thing, I'm gonna have to use every available inch..
 
I also made some major progress on t case shifters…at first i tried fitting a cable shifter in there but there wasn't a clean way to fit the cables and i read a bunch of complaints about broken cables so i decided to go outside the box..




The transfer case mounts I want to use didn't come in because of my ***got mail man so i did the shifters first so for now they're really efficient case movers lol…

hopefully i'll have the t case mounted this week… I've got parts to build my front and rear driveshaft coming in this week also
 
Transfer case mounting… for this one I modified and added to the TTF plate




This one came from behemoth drivetrain




Gots me some stickeeeeey treps..


accelerator pedal fab… i ended up buying a universal throttle cable since it needed to be in the 13 foot ballpark lol… I wanted a large pedal since my foot can fall off the skinny one i have in my current rig at times that are never good haha




flooring in the fuel cell and storage area..


mucho thanks to Pearce for letting me borrow a dimple die!
 
had to do some rework on the shifter mounting.. i hadn't left room for a panel to go up under the edges of the shifter and i integrated the RAD shifter for easy access… anyone got a killer idea for keeping junk out of the shifter? the builder said the microswitches are waterproof, Im more concerned with mud and small rocks getting in there and jamming it up..




Steering hydraulic lines are done, minus the return line and the AN stuff for that will be here in a few days.. ran bulkhead fittings through the floor pan to clean things up a bit… 10lbs of ****...





pressure line from the pump… came out pretty clean


you can see the see the PS cooler location there in the upper corner..

I also added some adjustable detents to the 205, hopefully she'll be more friendly to shifting now..

got my fuel cell in… i ordered the artec mount for it, should be here in a few days..

hoping for a shakedown run in 6 weeks or so…. :cougar: gonna run it a few times without paint then tear down for blasting and a professional paint job.. I'm thinking of painting the chassis a blue color close to the color of the shock hardware with white panels…. any suggestions on that?

all 4 driveshafts are complete also… not really worth posting pics of them haha
 
I built a similar rig

You WILL break the trans output when not in low in the tcase - upgrade it there first
 
Looking good man! Can't wait to see this done. I thik the blue and white would look flashemifyougotem.

On the shifter maybe you could just get a little strip of thin rubber and cut a slit down the middle of it and slide it down over it. It wouldn't keep everything out, but would probably keep most of the big stuff out.
 
couple progress pics from last weekend..

made a stop for the throttle pedal to take some stress off the cable.


Mounted the PS reservoir.. I added onto a factory bracket to save some time.


got all the tires mounted finally and put on…. big motivation boost there :****:

Also figured out i need a longer cable for the trans shifter… working with WOD on getting a new one from winters, looks like i need the 10 footer in case someone has one they'd like to sell…

We got the fuel cell mounted but didn't take any pics of that.. fuel pump and system fittings and hoses will be here for this weekend.

All four corners are sitting on 150lb springs, it looks like i've got about 450 per corner up front and closer to 500 in the back so she's gonna be a little heavier than I'd hoped but I'd rather have beefy parts that are reliable than the alternative...
 
on that intermediate shaft and trans output

Is there a small snap ring on the splines? If so I'd suggest removing the snap ring - when/if the shaft breaks you will have to disassemble trans to remove the piece left in there
I just took the ring off and then put a collar stop on the shaft slip once installed so it wouldn't pop out
 
zjtrey said:
had to do some rework on the shifter mounting.. i hadn't left room for a panel to go up under the edges of the shifter and i integrated the RAD shifter for easy access… anyone got a killer idea for keeping junk out of the shifter? the builder said the microswitches are waterproof, Im more concerned with mud and small rocks getting in there and jamming it up..


Click to expand...

Rory makes badass shifters.

What trans are you running?
I got his kit to put the micro switches in the winters shifter for my AW4, didnt want to mess with 2 shifters.

Nice build :dblthumb:
 
Thanks for the compliments!

The trans is gm 4t65e HD.. its a front wheel drive version of 4l60e/4l65e.. really looking forward to driving this thing.. feels like I'm close and real far away all at the same time :****:
 

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