47-55.1 49 Chevy Power Wagon 3/4ton hauler build

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by americanmusc1e

Monday I went to the junkyard and measured a bunch of rear ends and picked up a transfer case shifter off of a 2nd gen Ram 1/2-ton. I took the transfer case shifter back and tried to bolt it to my 46re. The holes don't quite line up by about an 1/8" and the shifter geometry looks wrong. I'm still hunting for a transfer case shifting solution.


Wednesday, the wife and I drove 3.5 hours to central Dallas to buy a newer disk brake 14-bolt from a guy. The rear end looked great! In trying to spin the ring gear to determine the gear ratio, something didn't feel right. It was way too tight. I thought it might be the disk brakes dragging so we unbolted both axle shafts. Something didn't look right on one side. Turns out one tube was bent enough that the axle shaft wouldn't bolt back into place. I had to pass up the perfect 4.10, limited slip, disk brake rear end that I drove 7 hours round trip for.

I'm still on the hunt for another 14-bolt before I give up and rebuild this rear Dana 60. This axle is the only thing on the truck that's not road worthy. Once I have an axle and some basic wiring, I can actually drive the truck.

I just figured out why the transfer case shifter isn't "right". The half ton, at least the early ones, were NP231D which is 2wd, 4wd Hi, N, and 4wd Lo pattern. I don't know the pattern on the NP 241HD, but I'm betting it is different and is part of why it won't bolt up.

I know you're familiar with Marty Fletcher and the work he does on our "undesirable" 5.9L Magnum engines, but I'll throw the link up here for anyone else that thinks these engines aren't worth the trouble.

https://www.utawesomeperformance.com/index.html

No matter what the purists may say, this is going to be a great build. Keep up the good work.

-Joe