I think hes still having issues with a yoke to fit in the jeep tailcone.

 

Not anymore. I got the slip yoke out of a 5.9L Jeep Grand Cherokee. It had smaller u joint holes, but it fit the 242's extension housing. I had a custom driveshaft made with a "crossover" u joint to fit the slip yoke and my driveshaft.

So the truck is back together and driveable now (I've been out driving it all morning), but the transfer case is in 2wd still without a working shifter. I'm going to work on that some more this afternoon. Its kind of just trial and error as far as trying to make it the right length to have the right amount of throw. I did get my shift plate made and it worked great as far as the angle it sits at!!

 

Cool. Good work. Keep it up.

 

Cool! How much was the custom driveshaft? Let's see some pics.

 

Alright, here is the final shifter assembly that will shift through all 5 positions.

What I had to do was weld some brackets to raise the shifter up on the transmission. Since I have a 2 inch body lift, this was not a problem. Then, I had to weld a strip onto the end of the shift lever to give it a longer throw radius to allow it to go further for the extra position. It's not pretty, but it's fuctional.

DSCN0374.jpg?t=1255810891


And here is the shift plate my buddy cnc milled for me. It ended up being straight, instead of the double-bended design that I had drawn out and posted earlier in the thread. I wasn't 100% sure it would need that double bend, but had it needed it, it would have gotten bent.

DSCN0375.jpg?t=1255810909

As for the driveshaft, I took it to the same place I had it custom made back during the transmission swap, and it was $195. It kinda pissed me off since I had just had it done last March, but thats the price of customizing the drivetrain!

Anyway, the truck is officially AWD (when selected), and I already test drove it and it grips the road well.

 

Cool. Glad it worked out for ya. Any leads on selling the 231?

 

Thanks! Nope, not yet. I don't expect it to sell too soon. My last one took 3 or 4 weeks to sell.

 

Thats cool! Now you just need some rain or light snow to truly test it out! It's cool how we can throw something on our trucks and make it totally something that no one else has. And the best part most of the customizing we do is simple stuff, that makes all the difference.

Okay now one small project is down. What is next?

 

Ha! Snow... whats that? :P JK! We don't see much snow around here, but we are getting a lot of rain! Maybe it will snow some in January.

Very true!!! I'm fairly sure I have one of the, if not the only 1995 v8 5 speed AWD Dakotas in the world!

Next is the very large project of the 2wd I have in the garage. Gotta get that frame painted and the body put back on!! But the 4x4 is gonna have to ride as is for a while so I can work on the new truck.

 

So just an update...

I finally got to use AWD in the rain the other day. The roads had plenty of standing water. I pulled out of my neighborhood (sharp right turn up a slight hill). I layed the pedal down in 1st gear and held it through 5200 rpm and none of the tires even so much as chirpped. Had I been in 2wd, the truck would have been sideways.

Needless to say, I like it! (Although going sideways can be fun, so luckily I still have that option :P)