• Notice for iPhone users: DO NOT use the image size reduction option when uploading photos to the forum. This causes portrait images to post as landscape. We have added a warning to the image insert pop-up as well.

Postal going 4.0/AW4

Here's the saga of the tranny shifter. One of the things I loved about the AW4 (other than overdrive) is that it's an electronically controlled tranny. Ultimately, I want to have the manumatic shifter for the AW4 that lets you use full auto or manual shifting, something like this: http://radesignsproducts.com/default.aspx

That said, one of the cool (to me) features of the Alaskan Postals is the floor shifter for the 999. Since the steering wheel is on the wrong side, the standard column shifter wouldn't work without some bizarre linakges/bracketry. I really wanted to try to keep the floor shifter, even if it wouldn't shift into all of the gears (because with the manumatic deal, you just use the real shifter to put it in D, and switch to another shifter/buttons/paddles to actually shift between gears in manual mode)

Floor shifter:
DSC_2859_JPG_800-1.jpg


This is the business end:
DSC_2852_JPG_800-1.jpg


Luckily, the direction that the pivot goes on my floor shifter matches the way the AW4 needs to be shifted. So it's a matter of getting a linkage between the two that's located properly and transmits the force from the shifter in the proper direction to move the tranny shifter arm.

Here's the tranny shifter arm, removed from the tranny.
DSC_2854_JPG_800-1.jpg


I eyeballed the amount of throw needed on the shifter arm to match what I was going to have from the floor shifter and cut a piece of flat stock to add to the arm. Had to remove the stock shifter cable ball and drill a couple holes to fit them up. If I ever get this set up just right, I can come back and weld them together. I forgot to take a picture before it was installed. I've since cut a new extension slightly longer and angled more to the front of the Jeep which works better, but still not perfect.
DSC_2857_JPG_800-1.jpg


I'm using threaded rod which is a perfect replacement for the shifter rod that was used with the 999, so it clamps right into the shifter end of things. On the tranny end, I found a nice ball/socket connector that threads onto the rod. The ball stud is permanently mounted in the socket, all you do is drill a hole in the arm and bolt it in.

DSC_2856_JPG_800-1.jpg


From here it's a matter of playing with the pivot points and rod length to try to match up the tranny shifter positions with the shifter gate. I'm not done trying to work on this (think the tranny ball stud needs to be moved closer to the tranny), but I'm thinking I may have to cut out the gate in my stock shifter cover and make up a new one. I'm thinking some flat plate bolted/JBWelded to the underside of the shifter cover might do the trick. This shifter is utterly simple, with just a spring putting force to the shifter arm to push it to the right. It relies completely on the shifter gate to hold it in place and the gate isn't "deep" enough to really hold it well, so my gate might be a nice improvement.

I also have it where it shifts great from R-N-D-3, but P to R is very difficult because of the angle between the shifter rod and the tranny shifter arm when in P. There's also not enough throw to get it into 1. I need to move the tranny shifter arm ball closer to the tranny so less throw will get it to shift.

so the saga continues...
 
Last edited:
Driveshafts!

The swap moved everything to the rear, so I had to have the rear driveshaft shortened and would have had the front one lengthened, but the price was so close to getting a new heavy-duty shaft made with 2" heavy tube, that I took the plunge.

I also had a second driveshaft sitting on the shelf that matched my rear dshaft in construction, but not in length or in the type of CV flange. I took the spare rear shaft with me to Ann Arbor Driveshaft and had him pull the CV and shorten the remaining part of the shaft to match that part of the rear driveshaft. This way I at least have a spare tube/siding yoke and hopefully I can track down the proper CV joint so I can make up a complete spare rear shaft.

DSC_2860_JPG_800-1.jpg


Rear shaft installed and set for the test drive:
DSC_2861_JPG_800-1.jpg


Here you can see the Hesco VSS on the D300 too.
DSC_2862_JPG_800-1.jpg
 
Random photo: had a random L bracket that worked nicely to secure the air filter to the fender. I also JB Welded the fitting into the filter that allows the PCV tube to connect as if it were stock.

DSC_2858_JPG_800-1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Nice progress, Eric. That stock shifter is cool!
 
Here's the saga of the tranny shifter. One of the things I loved about the AW4 (other than overdrive) is that it's an electronically controlled tranny. Ultimately, I want to have the manumatic shifter for the AW4 that lets you use full auto or manual shifting, something like this: http://radesignsproducts.com/default.aspx

That said, one of the cool (to me) features of the Alaskan Postals is the floor shifter for the 999. Since the steering wheel is on the wrong side, the standard column shifter wouldn't work without some bizarre linakges/bracketry. I really wanted to try to keep the floor shifter, even if it wouldn't shift into all of the gears (because with the manumatic deal, you just use the real shifter to put it in D, and switch to another shifter/buttons/paddles to actually shift between gears in manual mode)

Floor shifter:
DSC_2859_JPG_800-1.jpg


This is the business end:
DSC_2852_JPG_800-1.jpg


Luckily, the direction that the pivot goes on my floor shifter matches the way the AW4 needs to be shifted. So it's a matter of getting a linkage between the two that's located properly and transmits the force from the shifter in the proper direction to move the tranny shifter arm.

Here's the tranny shifter arm, removed from the tranny.
DSC_2854_JPG_800-1.jpg


I eyeballed the amount of throw needed on the shifter arm to match what I was going to have from the floor shifter and cut a piece of flat stock to add to the arm. Had to remove the stock shifter cable ball and drill a couple holes to fit them up. If I ever get this set up just right, I can come back and weld them together. I forgot to take a picture before it was installed. I've since cut a new extension slightly longer and angled more to the front of the Jeep which works better, but still not perfect.
DSC_2857_JPG_800-1.jpg


I'm using threaded rod which is a perfect replacement for the shifter rod that was used with the 999, so it clamps right into the shifter end of things. On the tranny end, I found a nice ball/socket connector that threads onto the rod. The ball stud is permanently mounted in the socket, all you do is drill a hole in the arm and bolt it in.

DSC_2856_JPG_800-1.jpg


From here it's a matter of playing with the pivot points and rod length to try to match up the tranny shifter positions with the shifter gate. I'm not done trying to work on this (think the tranny ball stud needs to be moved closer to the tranny), but I'm thinking I may have to cut out the gate in my stock shifter cover and make up a new one. I'm thinking some flat plate bolted/JBWelded to the underside of the shifter cover might do the trick. This shifter is utterly simple, with just a spring putting force to the shifter arm to push it to the right. It relies completely on the shifter gate to hold it in place and the gate isn't "deep" enough to really hold it well, so my gate might be a nice improvement.

I also have it where it shifts great from R-N-D-3, but P to R is very difficult because of the angle between the shifter rod and the tranny shifter arm when in P. There's also not enough throw to get it into 1. I need to move the tranny shifter arm ball closer to the tranny so less throw will get it to shift.

so the saga continues...

Found all my answers.

What about cutting and rewelding the stock linkage further back? Would that work?

Do you have a link to the Ebay twin stick?
 
Found all my answers.

What about cutting and rewelding the stock linkage further back? Would that work?

Do you have a link to the Ebay twin stick?
I might get into cutting and welding things to get the shifter to work, but I think playing with the ball stud location might get me there as it is now.

ebay link is in your thread.
 
Houston, we have a shifter

It took FOREVER tonight and I wasn't going to stop until I got it nailed... the stock floor shifter (minus the stock gate and with a bootyfab sheetmetal gate in it's place) is working for ALL gear positions! Good night to tackle this because I didn't have anything else I was trying to get to (waiting on parts for exhaust and twin stick) and so I was patient enough to work at it until I got it right.

I hit on an "L" shaped bracket setup on the tranny that solved the issue of it being too hard to move out of Park. Adding the extra leg put the ball stud where the action is all on one side of vertical from the pivot, so there's no need for the ball stud/threaded rod/shifter to "push" the shift lever past vertical (which also meant forcing it up), which is what caused the binding. Now all it does is push and pull through a nice straight line with no up/down movement to speak of.

Here's the side view (have to pull it off to weld it together) you can see all the holes that were used to attach the L, the large ones at the top of the vertical bar were the first locations for the ball stud, but that put the shifter rod in a position where it had to push up on the lever in addition to forward and made it hard to impossible to shift.
final_tranny_shifter_lever_1-1.jpg


Here's the ball stud, spaced off the lever with three washers to get the most alignment possible with the other end at the actual shifter:
final_tranny_shifter_lever_2-1.jpg


It took literally 6 iterations of positions for the extra leg of the L and I even had two holes in that leg for the ball stud, so really it was 12 iterations by the time it finally worked. I'll have to pull it off and weld it up now.

After I got the shifter where it hit all the positions on the tranny while staying inside the stock tranny cover, I marked the locations I needed for the new tranny gate on a paper template. I removed and looked inside the shifter cover at the gate only to find out that it screwed into the main cover housing! WOOT! No cutting! So I unscrewed and removed the gate and started playing with the old standby cardboard for a template.

Trick with this setup is that there's very little meat in the gate between positions. Given my limited supply of tools and equipment, I worked with a piece of sheet metal thin enough to cut with snips. I got the template close and traced it over and started with the snips.

The end result is not very pretty AT ALL, but it seems to get the job done just fine and you don't really see the completely butchered part of it anyway. For now, there's stops between all of the postions, I might end up taking out the ones between D-3-2/1 for ease of shifting (depends on how long it takes to the the manumatic setup I mentioned) because the tranny has some solid positions.

Here's the better view (still pretty fugly) of the gate in and mounted:
new_shifter_gate1-1.jpg


Here's the nasty underside showing how booty fab this really is. Trick was that the holes for the screws that hold the gate in are not flush with the face of the gate, so I had to bend up some ears on the ends to get it to mount in the right location.
new_shifter_gate2-1.jpg


Will have the replacement cat-back and twin stick boot tomorrow, it would be nice if the twin stick showed up too. Toby is sending me the stock front pipe to connect at the header and the cat. I have a plan in my head on getting those to go down the left side (stock XJ crosses over and goes down the right because of the opposite drop on the front axle/231) and then an exhaust shop will only have to mate the front pipe to the cat and the cat to the cat-back and weld in one O2 sensor bung. Fingers crossed that the plan in my head can actually work in some form...
 
Last edited:
I'm sure a cable shifter (assuming it throws the correct way) could be made to work, for that matter you could make the stock XJ shifter and cable work, it's a cable shifter, but the cable is WAY long and I really wanted to keep the stock postal floor shifter.. I'm trying to work with what I have and minimal additional $$$ wherever possible. The ball stud was like $5 and the threaded rod was $3.

I'll get pics up later.
 
It's all shifting...

Got the twin stick setup in and for once something worked just as I'd hoped. The adjustability that's built into this kit was exactly what I needed to hit the stock shifter hole with no bending or modification at all. Action is no more loose than the stock setup, but the twin stick boot I got looks like it will need an "adapter" to cover the hole in the floor properly and to bolt down securely. I may need to fine tune the setup a little to get it to the best spot for the boot to work and the shifter to function.

Here's the shifter kit, you can't tell in this photo, but the rod between the end of the shifters and the adapters that connect to the tcase shift rods have multiple holes drilled in them to allow adjustment on the angle of the shifters when installed. This kit pushes the actual pivot of the shifters about 2.5" forward, which is exactly what I needed with the swap (and actually makes it hard for me to see how these would work on a stock application, I guess you could just bolt the pivot bolt through the hole in the tcase and not use the plates that relocate the pivot)

twinstick_kit-1.jpg


Here's pics with the shifters in (no boot yet until I can mount it better), the tranny crossmember is dropped, so it will sit higher/taller when everything is back together properly after I get the front driveshaft in and make any cuts needed in the crossmember for clearance. (the cutting/bending you see on the stock tranny floor plate at the back of the tcase shifter hole was an attempted trail fix at the dunes when the tcase decided it wouldn't get into 4-HI)

twinstick_installed-1.jpg


I have the fuel pressure regulator to install, need some more 3/8" hose to get it in, mounting and all is already figured out. Also have the cat back sitting here, hopefully get to those tonight. A stock front pipe and cat are on their way as well, so if I can get those both mounted and see what custom fab I need (if I can't make some straight pipe/bends work myself) I'll get the exhaust nailed and just need the O2 sensors.

After that, hopefully it's just wiring up the MIL light and data port. (need a fingers crossed smiley!)
 
Last edited:
Thanks, up close, none of it is all that slick/fancy, but hopefully it will get the job done (nothing like Crash's, Jeff's or Randy's builds! :)). But I'm dying to get this thing out on the road and then the trail!!! Sucks that we're heading out of town this weekend :banghead:

Front pipe/cat got here today (thanks Toby), definitely need to spend some garage time tonight playing with new things :evil:
 
On a side note, are you bracing the steering box? If so, what are you using? RHD CJ HD PAS brackets are hard to come by. Sams offroad used to do the brackets unassembled, but they don't list it any more.
 
On a side note, are you bracing the steering box? If so, what are you using? RHD CJ HD PAS brackets are hard to come by. Sams offroad used to do the brackets unassembled, but they don't list it any more.

I did brace the steering box. It's covered in my overall build thread (well partial build thread, since my accident in 05) here: linky to build thread

What I did was cut and reweld a left-hand drive box brace (goes from opposite frame rail to the box) in the correct orientation to bolt up and then I talked to Mountain Offroad (MORE) and got them to send me an unassembled HD relocation steering box brace (the type that moves the box forward 1" to make room for the D44 tie rod to clear the pitman arm). [Side note: I offered to write up instructions for them so they could sell the unassembled kit to folks with RHD and give instructions with them, but they couldn't get me the LHD instructions in a file I could manage to edit.] I had a welder friend of mine weld it up after I got it all mocked up into position and it works great.

Here's the finished mounting bracket:
attachment.php
 
tonight's progress.

Got the twin stick boot figured out enough for my taste. Was looking at the stock boot and how large an area it covered and I figured I'd try to cut off the flexible top part to see about reusing the base somehow. I cut it at the lowest "crease" and realized that the new boot fit up through the hole that was left almost perfectly. The lowest creases on the new boot hold it in the hole really well and the "base" of the new boot is just the right side to fill up the indentation in the stock boot to seal it up well. I could Shoo Goo them together or something, but I don't think I'll need to bother.

twinstick_boot_fixed-1.jpg


This is with the tranny crossmember mounted, so this is the final locations. Shifters clear fine through the stock hole and everything is bolted back together. This should finish out the shifter saga (oh, other than welding the new tranny lever)

Kate and Laura picked up some 3/8 EFI hose for me today, so I got the pressure regulator in and mounted. Had to modify the mount it came with to shorten/straighten it to bolt to a gas tanks skidder bolt. I forgot to fully tighten the port plugs, so it leaked when I tested it. I'll try again next week when I'm back and work to get the ~50 psi needed at the fuel rail.

Mallory_fuel_pressure_regulator-1.jpg


Tried out the stock front pipe for the exhaust and I don't think there's a way to use it as the first part of a system that goes down the left side, just won't line up properly. I'm thinking that I'll have to have the exhaust shop go from the header, to a cat, to the 4WD catback.

Tried to splice in the tach under the dash on the coil driver wire. We'll see if that works when I start it up next.

Installed the crossmember and front driveshaft, will need to check it at full droop for clearance.

This is probably it until I get back from my folks' place. If I can get the fuel pressure dialed in with no leaks, I guess it's off to the exhaust shop and then to drop in some O2 sensors. Anyone got a cheap converter they want rid of? Shop quoted me $180 for just the cat and they have to put one in since the Jeep came with one. The stock one from the donor has a loose honeycomb dealio and rattles to beat all.
 
...Anyone got a cheap converter they want rid of? Shop quoted me $180 for just the cat and they have to put one in since the Jeep came with one. The stock one from the donor has a loose honeycomb dealio and rattles to beat all.

Does your state have vehicle inspections that would look at the converter? If not, conssider having the shop install the old converter but with clamps, not welded in. Have them also create you a straight piece of pipe that would also fit where the converter fits. Then when you have it home, swap it out.

I put a new converter in mine because I was going to 2 1/4 pipe, but I wouldn't do it again.

Later, Ken
 
Does your state have vehicle inspections that would look at the converter? If not, conssider having the shop install the old converter but with clamps, not welded in. Have them also create you a straight piece of pipe that would also fit where the converter fits. Then when you have it home, swap it out.

I put a new converter in mine because I was going to 2 1/4 pipe, but I wouldn't do it again.

Later, Ken
Yeah Ken, I've gone around and around on this in my head. There are no inspections here in MI at all and I could definitely do away with it. I've tried to research the downstream O2 sensor function on cjofforad, but it's been down for days. I seem to remember that the second sensor isn't part of the OBDII system in terms of setting off check engine lights and that's all that I'd worry about.

What you describe is exactly what I was thinking of doing with the stock cat I got from Toby. I'm wondering though if they'll care that the element inside is loose and therefore decide it's not a functional cat to put in. I was also thinking of hollowing the thing out and just taking that in for them so they could say they put one in, but again, if they were strict on it...

Ultimately, for emissions sake, I'd put one in as long as it was a minimal investment. Basically I figure if I could have put in a monster fuel-sucking 401 with a carb or used an out-of-spec stock setup, I'm already improving things going to the modern EFI with computer and upstream O2, the fact that I don't do a cat is just a small fractional improvement over the major improvement I've already done.
 
Progress

Family stuff, work and a trip for the 4th put a hold on the postal progress until tonight.

I finally got the fuel system tightened up with the regulator in place and got the pressure set using a gauge on the fuel rail.

I installed the 4wd hardware cat-back exhaust for the exhaust shop to connect up to when I take it in.

cjoffroad.com is down AGAIN, but I'd posted on there about a handful of circuits that I wasn't sure about. One of them was K29, the stop/brake switch sense wire. Someone posted that that was needed by the PCM/TCM. According to the FSM for the XJ, it's connected to the brake switch such that it's grounded until the brake is pressed. The CJ brake switch is a 12V+ switch that provides power to the switch sense side when the brake is pressed (to light up the taillights I think). That meant using either an additional switch or a relay. I had an 87a relay sitting around, so I just wired it up to control a ground wire using the feed side of the CJ switch.

Here's the relay schematic (there's a better version of this in my spreadsheet):
attachment.php


85:
-spliced into CJ stop switch feed, pink wire going from stop switch to connector on steering column -controls the relay coil when the brake pedal is pressed, the CJ brake switch connects this to +12V

86:
-ground
-controls the relay coil provides ground to the relay coil for activation when brake is pressed

87 not used

87a:
K29 18WT/PK STOP LAMP SWITCH SENSE
connected to ground until brake pedal is pressed

30:
ground
connected to stop lamp switch sense until brake pedal is pressed

Here's what it ended up looking like (pretty freaking boring, but you can't say I didn't get pics!)
brake_switch_sense_relay-1.jpg

It's mounted up high on the firewall inside the tub.

I'm dying to drive it now (haven't driven it since I got the shifters fixed so I can actually get it into high gear because I didn't have the fuel system buttoned up), but I'll wait until a reasonable hour I guess... :banghead:

Now I think we're down to getting the exhaust in to possibly being truly driveable! Hopefully I can manage to get it to the shop (~15 miles) as it is...
 
Last edited:
Back
Top