It was easy. I did it with one hand.
It was a lot of prep work because of all the brackets.
Here are the pics.

Dave, I would LOVE to have some help putting the front axle in. That will be a bear to do alone. We will be doing the Pinewood Derby thing with the Cub Scouts in the morning on Saturday. I plan to get everything ready before Sunday to give me all day Sunday to wrestle it in there. I will probably try to fit the LSD in there on Friday night.

Can you come Sunday?

What did you do with the stock H233B brake line? Did you have to modify it to clear the leaf springs? What about the parking brake lines? Did you change out the MC?

Scott

quote:

Originally posted by D21:
What did you do with the stock H233B brake line? Did you have to modify it to clear the leaf springs? What about the parking brake lines?

Scott

I had to pull the steel line out of the bracket and bend it down to insure that it wouldn't bind. I plan to get a longer hose and re-mount the line.

I haven't worked out the e-brake cables yet; they are zip-tied to the frame at the moment. I have two obstacles to overcome:
Right-side fuel tank
Center-mounted fresh water tank.
My thought is to run the right side along the RH frame rail where the original cable ran and rig it up. The left cable should be able to route past the water tank and run to a second hand lever. I would lose my change tray, but gain cutting brakes. Just a thought.

The disc brakes work great with the stock MC.

Ooohhh, discs too eh? I take it you're upgrading your gearing as well, possibly the 4.6s?

When I swapped the H233b under my truck, about all I had to do was swap the little block the brake lines run side-to-side from on the axle, bend the hardlines there a little bit, and it fit right up. I have yet to go to a 1-piece shaft, but the 2-piece one I had stock with the C200 bolted straight up to the H233b.

Every mod you make to your truck just makes it that much cooler to me, can't wait to see what you work out with fitting the r200 up front!

I've removed and installed my r200A once and I removed it for the sas by myself. Not that hard. To install the r200a I used 3 shop floor type jacks.

When removing and installing the front axle make sure to remove the mounting bolts and the mounting bolt brackets. Give you more maneuver the axle up aft and down. I recommend having at least 2 floor type shop jacks for install. When I removed my front axle for the sas I just used one jack. A bottle jack is not an option here.

tebecktold- So the pinion flange is the same between the h233b and c200?

Apparently so, it bolted right up.

quote:

Originally posted by Reserector:
Can you come Sunday?

I wont know until tomorrow, wife has larger than normal honeydo list will try though.

tbecktold, you are correct; they are 4.6s.

Here's what I did tonight between thunderstorms:
U-bolt flip and relocated lower shock mounts. I recycled the Pathy mounts that I cut off last Sunday.

apologies Mark, no can do this wknd.

quote:

Originally posted by dvdswan:
apologies Mark, no can do this wknd.

No biggie. I would like to get those driveshafts that you picked up, but that will have to be the next weekend, I suppose.

axle looks good.

After looking at that picture, I see that I need to clean it up under there. I'll have to wait until I get to the store, though. I am out of spring water.

Did some prep work on the new R200A this afternoon. I learned that a C200 LSD will fit just fine, EXCEPT that there is no provision for bolting the short stub shaft in. In the stock axle, there is a tapped hole on the short side. In the C200, there is a slug that floats between the axles.
To remedy the situation, I anealed the slug and chucked it in the lathe. I drilled and tapped it 10MM-1.25 and reassembled the LSD. My plan is to start the bolt and run it in with the impact. It may be a bitch to dissasemble in the future, but I will deal with it at that time. The only other thing I considered was to use a couple of welds to attach the slug to the gear on that side, but I would prefer to avoid welding anything in the LSD.

Tomorrow I will drop the R180 and see if it's stub shafts will work in the R200. If not, I will try plan B; hybrid CV shafts. Plan C is using ALL of the front end from the Pathy. The downside to that is more time involved and no manual hubs to fit the v6 stuff.

I have some pics to post later that show what I am describing.

Plan A was a wash. R180 stubs are smaller than R200 and will not interchange at all.

Plan B is a winner. I have one hybrid shaft assembled already, so I will go that route.

My old axle is out and the new one is ready to install. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I know how to get there.

The clearance issue is no longer a mystery. I did not have to do a "diff drop" because I had already shimmed the left engine mount 3/8" higher to fix an earlier header clearance issue.
Beyond that, I did some measuring to check clearances and merely needed to grind away some of the cast-in gusset. This allowed ample room to clear the oil pan.



The hybrid half-shafts worked out well and it is all back together.
It has a different feel in 4wd, now. With the LSD in the front, it recenters itself and tracks straight with no driver input. It is not hard to steer, either. I think I am going to like this setup once I get time to do add friction discs to the rear LSD. It is a little on the weak side.

I did a little field testing.