[Fred007]

There have been numerous people that have helped me with this project and lots of online information and vendors. Here is a list in no particular order of the folks/companies that have helped.

YJ Jeep Forum http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/
Offroad Toy Store http://www.offroadtoystore.com
Advance Adapters http://www.advanceadapters.com
Quadratec http://www.quadratec.com
Acme Truck Parts http://www.supertruckusa.com/
Novak Conversions http://www.novak-adapt.com/
Dakota Digital http://www.dakotadigital.com/
Don's Sport Vehicle Sales http://www.egauges.com/
J&L Four Wheel Drive Center http://www.jl4wd.com/
Mountain Offroad (M.O.R.E.) http://www.mountainoffroad.com/
MTS Company http://www.mtscompany.com/
Street & Performance http://www.hotrodlane.cc/
Summit Racing http://www.summitracing.com/
All Data DIY http://www.alldatadiy.com/
Autometer Gauges http://www.autometer.com/
Applegate Auto, Madison, WI
Exhaust Pros, Madison, WI
CarQuest Auto Parts, Madison, WI

[Fred007]

Originally Posted by leftlanetruckin

so am i right in thinking you are running the dana 35 behind that motor then?
lemme guess you dont hit the gas pedal too much?
excellent work, and a good end result, but i would seriously consider at least a ford 8.8 rear end mate.
i do envy your motor........
again, excellent work!

martin

Yeah, rear end swap is #2 priority right now. Between a bit of eye surgery and getting a bent 8.8, I am a little behind. Every time I really get on it, I worry I am going to hear a loud "clunk".

[1 ton yj]

Good job on the swap. One thing I am curious about is the oilpan. All the 5.3 and 6.0 swaps I've seen use the LS1 pan for ground clearance, but your LS1 has the truck pan. What do you think was the previous owner's reasoning for this?

[jeepthrill85]

Great job and excellent write up, I'm just gathering parts now for my swap:

2003 'vette LS6, I'm trying to decide if I wanna go auto or standard.
[IMG][/IMG]

[gradymeister]

Just out of curiosity, what did it cost you to do the swap?

[Fred007]

Originally Posted by gradymeister

Just out of curiosity, what did it cost you to do the swap?

Ahhh.. the really tough question. Doing the write-up, I added up all the major parts and got a total that shocked me a bit. Not including the Jeep, I've spent about 15k. Now, there are some mistakes on my part in that number (overpaid for shipping, etc.) and it includes a soft top, the lift kit, seats, etc. but does not include the misc charges at the local auto parts store.

Adding it up has made me slow down a bit, but I'm pretty close to where I want to be so need to push on.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Please don't tell "She who must be obeyed..."

[Fred007]

Originally Posted by 1 ton yj

Good job on the swap. One thing I am curious about is the oilpan. All the 5.3 and 6.0 swaps I've seen use the LS1 pan for ground clearance, but your LS1 has the truck pan. What do you think was the previous owner's reasoning for this?

He said the stock pan was really wide and hit (or was real close) to the control arms. Also, the deeper sump was better for inclines.

[Fred007]

Originally Posted by jeepthrill85

Great job and excellent write up, I'm just gathering parts now for my swap:

2003 'vette LS6, I'm trying to decide if I wanna go auto or standard.
[IMG][/IMG]

I went with a manual because I had a CJ5 many years ago that is a manual and this is not a DD for me. If I was going to drive it around more in the suburbs, I think an auto might be the ticket.

[88blueyj]

man that is sweet ive been wanting wanting to that with my jeep also but with a ford motor instead. so in all the things u did for the swap about how long did this take you?

[sam.b.]

very detailed swap kudos to you
cant wait to see it on rocks or 60s

[Fred007]

Originally Posted by 88blueyj

man that is sweet ive been wanting wanting to that with my jeep also but with a ford motor instead. so in all the things u did for the swap about how long did this take you?

Sorry for the delay in responding. I started removing the old engine in October 2007. Started the new motor in Jan 2008. Mostly working on weekends and avoiding the really cold weather (WI). Did some work while snowing with the garage doors open which was not too much fun...

[Fred007]

Started the front lift install on May 24th. Based on what I had read, I thought it would take about 8 hrs to install and planned on spending the whole weekend. Started with removing the tires and getting the Jeep up on blocks and secure. Hate the feeling crawling under a vehicle when it is not completely solid. Removed the old shocks and started on the sway bar and trac bar. These proved to be a real challenge as the upper sway bar bolts just would not come off. I had sprayed everything with PB Blaster days before and the bolts were coming off okay, but I could not get the sway bar bolts to pop out of the sway bar itself. They are like tie-rod ends and “press” into the sway bar.

Left them alone for a bit and worked on the front springs. These also proved to be a real pain. The nut came off the frame attach bolt just fine, but I could not get the bolt to turn or come out. It seemed fused to sleeve on the inside of the spring. After using a large pipe and breaker bar I was able to get it to turn just a bit. Coating with more PB Blaster and working it back and forth seemed to help a bit. I then used my tie-rod fork to pry the bolt out of the spring/frame attach. This proved to be a common approach for the other 3 springs and ended up eating up a bunch of time. Got the old springs removed and cleaned up the perches and plates. Installed the new BDS 3.5” lift springs and M.O.R.E. shackles. This was a fairly easy process and just involved using a jack to get the springs and axle to line up properly.
I ended up the day just having the passenger side done and ready to hit the driver’s side the next day. Not sure how you could attempt this project without a couple of key tools:

1. BFH.
2. Tie-Rod Fork
3. Impact Wrench
4. PB Blaster

Got the driver’s side done on Sunday then ran out of time. I used the brake line relocation brackets from BDS but after getting all this done ordered a set of braided lines for a 4” lift. I plan on replacing the calipers and brake lines in the near future and would rather go this route than the relocation brackets.
On Sunday, I started the morning figuring I would just torch the upper sway bolts and move forward. That tool about 5 minutes and proved the easiest way to get them off. One suggestion on the forums was to just remove the whole sway bar so you can beat on it properly. In hindsight, I should have taken that route. As I learned on Monday, the upper sway bar bolts are very expensive ($37/each) so that turned out to be a little more $$ than I was expecting. Got the front lift installed and buttoned up on Sunday. Took it for a little spin to let the springs settle and that was a little strange.

So, I had to let the Jeep sit for a week half-lifted. At least I knew what the next weekend would entail as I thought the rear would be a little bit easier. It turned out to be easier but with some of the same challenges as the front. Namely the spring-to-frame attach bolts just not wanting to come out.

I also installed the t-case drop supplied by BDS. While I have a SYE and CV driveshaft, thought I would go ahead and install this and see what the effect was. I did have to relieve a little from the cover plate for the t-case shifter but that was the only thing I had to change. Since I am swapping in a Ford 8.8 shortly, I am not that worried about the pinion angle right now and more interested in what it will be with the 8.8 mounted in there.

Here are a couple of pics showing the lift installed with the t-case drop. Right after I took these, I removed the t-case lift. I also got some advice from members on the www.jeepforum.com to remove the front and rear trac bars. These are now removed but I did keep the front sway bar for now.

[yamaguy01]

Dude, sweet write-up! What happened to the rest of the build? I found this link on another post and lucky for me it was not too long and I got to read through it in a fairly short amount of time. I did almost an identical build to my YJ. However due to military obligations I had to abandon my build 95% completed and have not touched it in 3 years. Reading your posts reminds me of some things that I forgot I needed to check into and some things I never thought of or have run across yet. I'd love to see more pictures of how you ran the exhaust and where you mounted the O2 sensors. Did you eliminate the rear sensors or are you running those too?

Dave

[Fred007]

Ford 8.8 Rear End July 2008

I got a donor rear end from a local auto parts recycling facility, LKQ Corporation. It came from a Ford 2002 Explorer Scout. It had 3.73 gears and a limited slip and about 45k miles. It had the backing plates and rotors but no calipers. I ordered a complete set of brakes from Currie Enterprises. These came with the backing plates and mounting brackets, calipers, pads and rotors.

I started by removing the spring perches and shock mounts, then grinding everything smooth. I had nicked the tube a bit with the torch when removing and welded the depressions then ground them smooth again. I kept the old backing plates on until I was ready for the new pieces which proved prudent as the axle fell a couple of times, and it was nice to have the old backing plates on there to absorb the fall.

It was time to figure out where the new perches and mounts would go. I ordered the kit for this from M.O.R.E. and have had excellent luck using their products. Since I wanted to keep driving the Jeep while I was working on the Ford rear end, I just removed the D35 and slide it forward without disconnecting the brakes. Got the 8.8 in position with the new perches and tightened the bolts a bit. Setting the pinion angle was a bit odd as the D35 was in the way of actually connecting the drive shaft. However, using a range of 14-19deg as a guideline I set the pinion angle and tack welded the perches and shock mounts. I removed the 8.8, replaced the D35 and headed to the welders.

I decided to have a pro do the final welding as my welding skills are coming back slowly. Once I got the axle back from the welder, I had a local sandblaster clean up the axle so I could paint it. I was considering having the whole thing powder coated but the cost and the fact that I would have to remove all the components from the housing kept me aware from that option. I planned on replacing the seals so getting it sandblasted with the old seals in place worked out fine. Once I got the blasted rear end back, I wanted to prime it real quick as the casting wanted to start rusting fairly quickly. I used Rust-Oleum galvanized primer for the first coat, then Rust-Oleaum hammered finish enable for the final coats.

Once the rear end was painted I removed the axles so I could replace the seals and install the new backing plates and caliper mounting hardware. The c-clips were easy to remove once you push the axles towards the center a bit. One thing I did was to drop a c-clip when I had the housing vertical which was a mistake as it ran down in the piping for the pinion seal. Took a while to shake it out of there, but it eventually came out. Installed the new seal, backing plates and caliper mounting brackets and replaced the axles. Removed the pinion nut and replaced the pinion seal. One thing I neglected to do was measure the pre-load on the pinion before removing the nut. After replacing the seal, I read about this step and was (am) a little worried about how to tighten the pinion nut without touching the crush sleeve. However, after consulting a local transmission shop (they ended up re-gearing my D30 up front) I am reasonable confident the nut is tight enough without having crushed the crush sleeve any further.

Got the whole thing put back together with the Solid Axle differential cover and thought about making the big step in removing the Dana 35. After all this work, putting the 8.8 in the Jeep was relatively painless. I did have one small problem, that was installing the pinion adapter on my Tom Woods driveshaft. Somehow, in the process of removing one of the caps on the u-joint I think I got 1 needle stuck in the bottom of the cap. When pressing it into place on the pinion adapter, I could not get it to go that last little bit so I could get the clip installed. Figured I had a needle in the wrong place, I removed the u-joint from the pinion adapter, but not before dropping one cap and spilling the needles. I think I found all the needles, but two were broken in half (probably from my pressing them on) and I had to order a replacement u-joint. Well, at least I now have a spare u-joint for either of the TW drive shafts I have (minus one cap of course).

I also took this opportunity to replace my brake line with a braided extended line which uses the original housing on the Jeep. With the BDS lift, they give you an extension bracket that I could now remove. I also had to run my own hard lines as the original ones were damaged. This was not a big deal as I had a tube bender and flare tool that made it much easier. Another tool to recommend is a Motive Brake Bleeder, this makes bleeding your brakes so easy it’s hard to describe. Well worth the money in my opinion.

[Fred007]

Phase 5: Tires and Wheels – July 2008



At the same time I replaced the rear, I also ordered Cragar Soft 8’s in 15x10. I had read a number of posts on this subject and thought I would benefit by having the slightly wider rims. I had 34x12.5x15 TrXus MTs mounted and balanced and put these on the Jeep when the 8.8 was finished. Very nice ride improvement and I was shocked at how little noise these tires make on the highway.