First off, I just spent over 1 hr typing this up and something crashed and I lost it all ..argh
. now I'm restarting it again lol.
Some back ground. My Truck is 1992 W350 SRW with the Getrag 360 5spd. Last winter I was plowing and something broke in my old 5spd. I was only able to drive home in 4th gear only. With my 3.07 gears 4 low was needed lol.. and I had to smoke the clucth to get going..
I parked the truck last winter and removed a good 5spd and np205 from a parts truck i have. The parts truck trans felt fine and the NP205 feels a lot nicer then my old one. It may have been rebuilt as it had a note under the grease that it was noisy under load, As if it was brought to a shop for rebuild. I guess i will find out. It has signifcantly less back lash then the other NP205. Also my truck has a badly rotted cab. The cab is resting on the frame rails, with both foot wells and cab mounts gone. I plan on a full cab swap and frame sand blast / paint in the spring. I will post pictures in a thread / topic then for the forum. Since my cab is shot I cut the floor out around the trans with a torch. I do have an early first gen removable floor panel I will be using with the new cab. But for now it will be doing duty as my plow truck and some horse mat will be covering the hole lol..
may be a tad chilly till spring.
Ok, in order to do the twin stick NP205 conversion you have to modify the transfercase shift rail. You need to remove the transfercase from the truck inorder to access it. Drain the oil out before removing it... Remove the transfer case shifter from the trans tail housing, and set it aside, we will be modify it later. You need to remove it any how, to unbolt the transfercase. With the Transfercase out ..clean it up. Remove the shift linkage bar from the shift rails. You need to unbolt the trans to transfercase adapter, and the pto cover. The adapter has several bolts inside the adapter. In order to remove these, you have to remove all the other bolts, then use a short swivel socket to access the inside bolts. You may have to loosen the bolts and pull the adapter off at the same time or your socket may become trapped etc. Now the shift rail that we need to remove is the one closest to the input shaft ( or Trans ). This is the rear axle shift rail. The front axle shift rail is the outer shift rail next to the front yoke. The trans adapter had to come off to allow the rail to be pulled out. To remove the shift rail you need to pry out the rubber plug that covers the shift fork roll pin access hole. Also there is a detant ball that has to come out with a magnet. So after those parts are out you line up the shift rail roll pin with the access hole. A flash light helps alot. Drive the roll pin out of the shift fork. The pin will fall down into the case. You can get it from inside the pto port. Keep the punch in the shift fork to prevent the shift fork from pivoting away from the hole. You can reach up between the gears with your hand thru the pto port and try to adjust its position when you are reinstalling the shift rail later. Remove the shift rail from the case. You need to grind it in two spots to allow the 2wd low position. You can purchase new modified shift rails also. I did, but I copied the grinding onto my old rail, so I could use the new shift rails in another project. I got these pictures from the internet.
Now reassemble the transfercase.
I had my "broken" getrag out so I used it as mock up to build the twin stick shifter. It made it ALOT easier building it out of the truck. I had purchased a Jb customs NP205 Twin Stick kit for a chevy. It is made from stainless steel and has 5/16 heim joints. The stainless is hard to cut and drill. It has nice shifters and I bought the aluminum knobs that have the shift pattern milled into them. The chevy kit has the shift levers taller and on a offset. These Shifters wouldn't work with the 5spd getrag. One way the shifters would hit the shifter of the transmission, and the other way the shifter would be blocking a lot of the passenger side area.
I had to cut the levers individually so they were straight / vertical with no offset and with the heim mounting holes facing toward the transfercase. I also had to move the pivot stud back toward the transfercase, to keep the shifter in a good location.
Now the Chevy kit is designed to have the shifter pivot close to the shift rails. It is designed so the heim joints will thread into each other. On the Dodge 5spd the shifter pivot is far away from the rails on the side of the Getrag transmission. First I took the original shifter apart. I unbolted the shifter pivot from the relocation bracket. I kept the relocation bracket in stock position. I cut the pivot stud out of the stock shifter. I left enough of metal around the stud to weld to and to not rub on the shifter levers as they pivot. Then I cut a hole in the relocation bracket in the center of the three mounting holes where the stock shifter pivot and gate had mounted. I welded the pivot stud in place. This location allows the levers to be in close to the stock location, clear the trans shifter in all gears and not hit the dash. For the pivot I cut th estock nylon round spacer in half and used it and several washers to space theshift leavers out correctly. I uded soem nice moly grease on th epivot , washers and levers. I may add a grease fitting to each lever in the future. I also heated up the front axle lever to be straight to clear the trans shifter and make them easy to tell apart. The heim mounts were installed on the shifter rails. The long heim mount for the front axle rail I had to cut down and shorten & drill new hole. I had to then fabricate new shifter rods from some thick wall steel tubing to connect the heim joints. I drilled the tubing out and tapped it for the 5/16th x 24 pitch fine thread of the heim joints. I had to also use some 5/16th x 24 thread rod to go into the female heim joint. I heated the tubing up with a torch to bend it to fit . The front shift rail rod had to have a bend to clear the transmission and the pivot point bracket. The front shift rail rod could be straight. The levers shift the transfer case very easily and surely. you can feel the detents very easily. This is a HUGE improvement over stock.
I eventually plan on adding a NP203 range box to the front of my np205 to make a doubler. Then I would have 3 transfer case levers
. The 203/205 doubler for a 29 spline shaft is tricky. No kit is available and it has to be custom lol..
I have been talking on Pirate 4x4 's web forum about this . Here's the link -http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=839938&highlight=doubler . I already have a Junk yard NP203, which I think is from a dodge???. I have to take it apart and figure it out. My Cousin is a machinist and hopefully I can pay him to help me. When I do this in the spring I plan on a nice dual disk clutch and new drive shafts at the same time.
I also modified the Getrag Shift cover to have a lube fill port and a dip stick. this will alow easy fluid adding and checking. I drilled and tapped the cover for a 1/2 " pipe plug. One 1/2" plug has a 3/8" steel plug that is threaded into it. I plan on welding a long steel rod into it to use as the dip stick. Pictures to follow.
Here are some good links on general np205 twin stick conversion etc:
NP205 Data Info -
http://www.high-impact.net/transmission ... _NP205.htmFrom Ak Fab Shop ..neat info & pictures -
http://www.akfabshop.com/alaskaoffroad/tech_2.htmGood twin stick article -
http://ivanribic.clubfte.com/page2.htmlMore pictures coming,
Thanks,
Deo