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M211 crew cab crusade

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Today was a good day.

Thumper came over and we got the last of the old fire tank mount off the back of the rig.

Within a couple weeks we will get the beast to DMV for a vin inspection and get the title swapped.

Still measuring and doing lots of thinking.

A new plan is simmering a bit and it includes going to a 4L80E tranny with a 4401 Borg warner T case.

This will give us an over drive and a married transfer case.

Only down side is having to install a magic box to run the 80E

Good strong boxes all the way.

This idea is simmering as yet, but may come to pass.


The stand alone tranny controllers are not cheap, but the big GM 4 spd auto is a great box.

The BW T case is pretty herky and should do fine.

Best part will be getting a shorter assembly overall.

All for now.
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Well we had a good wind storm yesterday that made a mess out doors.

We scored a 2004 model 4L80E 4X4 tranny yesterday for $125

Getting ready for a road trip to go fetch it home.

The price is definitely right.

Once we get the mounts and such all squared away and stuff so it all fits the truck we will get our fingers dirty overhauling the 4L80.

Never been into one of those, but done the TH400, TH350, 700R4 and many other boxes in years past.

Gonna be a fun tour through the big GM gooy go.
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Yesterday was a long slog in some nasty weather all the way from Newberg to Lapine (South of Bend Oregon about 30 miles)

Went to pick up the 2004 4L80 tranny.

Everything from torrential rain to snow over the pass.

Left at noon and got back about 10 in the evening with a dinner stop.

Fella with the tranny is an early Bronco buff and was restoring a couple at this time.

He was quite familiar with the M211 as he drove them in the Military
(Vietnam vet)

Tranny needs a freshen up but looks good on the outside.

Got a couple quick piccy's before we loaded it.

Next the plan is to make the needed mods to the cast iron adapter the came on the TH400 and get it to fit the 4L80.

Rumor has it that the only difference is the diameter of the indexing bore on the 4L80 is slightly smaller than the TH400

A quick measurement will tell the story.

Thinking that we will be able to turn the indexing ring on the 400 adapter a tad and BINGO

The bolt pattern is the standard 6 bolt.

Once the adapter fits we are set.

Next comes the NP 203

GOTTA FIND ONE
 

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hendersond

Well-known member
Steel Soldiers Supporter
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Location
Galesville, WI
I'm really interested on the 4L80 to NP203 conversion. Please be generous with the details and pictures. Thank you
Dan
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Conversion to either the 203 or 205 are nearly identical as the (Ford type) bolt circle is a round pattern (usually)

The main differences are ** shift linkage location, with the 205 having a twin plunger type set up and the 203 having two levers in a different location.

The 203 has the interaxle differential located in the rear of the case in the aluminum tail housing whereas the 205 has a shorter tail cone.

203 is a chain drive front output and the 205 is all gears all the way.

Both cases are pretty herky and will handle a lot of abuse.

The input shafts were varied depending on the application.

Ford used 31 spline and GM used the 32 spline in the automatic trans versions

The Dodge saw other spline counts
Stick shift trans versions had varied spline counts 10 was common.

All over the map
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
UPDATE...UPDATE...UPDATE

As is usual with projects that are working on a limited budget and trying to do the impossible with nothing.

A Mcgyver maneuver if you will [thumbzup]

With the 4l80 sitting in the shop, eyes then turned to finding a t case that could be married to the mix.

As I mentioned the plan was sort of leaning towards a 203 case.

Yesterday changed all that.

I had posted a craigs list ad for a 203 Ford case and a fella called me with a 205 from a mid/late 70's Ford that he wanted out of his garage for cheap


????????????????????????? OOOOOOOK


So for $100 we scored a 205.

Same basic procedure to adapt to the 4l80

The aftermarket is full of adapters that will pretty much get anything to fit everything, but this comes at $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

With the 205 came the trans adapter to a 4 speed gear box, which by itself is pretty worthless to us.

We have the adapter that came with the TH400 which also is of little use.

Butttttttttttttttttttttt.

These two adapters can be chopped up and used as jigs to layout and drill the holes in a set of steel plates that will form the major parts of a custom adapter.

THE PLAN.

Cut the two cast iron adapters up to give us a usable fixture to drill a new plate that will bolt to the 205 and a fixture to drill the new plate that will bolt to the 4l80

Between the two will be a section of round heavy wall tubing.

Once the plates are machined to the OD and rough faced they will receive an alignment register on the side opposite the place they bolt to ( t case or tranny)

This will allow the old adapters to slip on and register correctly.

Then the bolt holes and dowel holes (Where applicable) can be drilled accurately.

Sadly we do not own a rotary table for the mill.

So, no worries, we will do it the old fashioned way.
We will transfer the holes using a transfer punch and then center drill them and swap bits while still on location and drill the finished hole to size.

May even drill under size and finish with an end mill to negate any drill bit wander/wobble

Tedious work, but my retired time is less spendy than ordering a store bought adapter.

We still need to replace the 31 spline Ford input shaft with a 32 spline for DA BIG GM BOX.

A bit of creative fab and machine work should result in a bomb proof adapter.

A point to remember

The 4L80 uses all metric threads and the old 205 uses inch size threads.

The rear bolt holes in the 4L80 will allow a 3/8-16 bolt to thread in, buttttttttttttttttttttt its not correct.

These are 10 x 1.5 mm threads (.3937")
The 3/8-16 is (.375")

Close but no cigar

Most domestic stuff is all metric after the early to mid 80's WITH MYRIAD EXCEPTIONS

GM used a lot of mix and match during the transition.

The 6.2/6.5 are all metric EXCEPT the bell housing bolts were still 3/8-16 up until 1996.

So here we go.

With what appears to be some sound parts to work with now we should be able to start building a basic power pack.

The entire engine, tranny and T case will need to be gone through to some degree more or less as time goes on.

The plan now is to get the engine, tranny and t case into one compact unit that will enable us to do a proper fitment into the 211 chassis.

After this is done things can proceed a bit faster me thinks.

Life is good
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
"We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing for the ungrateful.
We have done so much for so long with so little that we are now qualified to do anything with NOTHING"

Great little ditty
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Well, as is usual the plan changes daily

Last night we scored a heavy duty early Ford Bronco C6 to NP203 cast iron adapter.

This thing is really beefy, I mean real herky.

The thing was made for the NP203 but with a small mod to the flange that bolts to the T CASE it will fit the 205

The only real issue is a notch to allow clearance for the shifter rail nearest the input shaft.

The other end has a lovely large round pilot (About 6-1/4") plus a large irregular bolt pattern around the periphery of the casting.

Two huge feet on the bottom are great support for the rear of this assembly.

All that is needed is an aluminum clocking ring that will index to the 4L80 and allow the iron beast adapter to index from the rear and bolt up to the clocking ring.

Quite a bit of a skew from the first plan of building an entirely new adapter, but it was available cheap and it is rugged.

Best part is that machining the clocking ring will be far easier than an entire new adapter.

So with a pile of parts gathering here it looks like we should be able to start getting something moving.

The T case will still need a swap of input shafts.

Got to scare up some aluminum plate to build the clocking ring.

Looking good.
 

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snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Some time on the phone scared up some scrap aluminum at a scrap yard close to here.

Cruised over and took a peek at what they had in alloy.

Turned out to be waaaaaaaay overkill, but the price made up for it

2-1/4 thick x 12 in diameter

Here are some pix

The black traced outline is the Ford adapter outer edges.

The GM adapter went through the band saw to get rid of the unwanted feet and the half that bolted to the T CASE

Now we have a perfect drill fixture for locating the bolt holes to fit the 4L80

At present it looks like one hole of the GM adapter will intersect the gasket surface of the Ford adapter, but the use of flat head Allen head bolts will take care of any issues.

No bolt holes from the GM pattern interfere with the Ford pattern :)

Gonna be a lot of whittling on this hunk of metal for sure.

First thing will be to eliminate as much off the diameter as possible to lighten the beast up.

Several operations to get it done.

Will get pix as we go

The one piccy shows the chopped up GM adapter sitting on the tracing of the Ford adapter.

Not shown is the actual area that's used which is the opposite side.

Just need the thing for a drill jig.

Thinking very strong about pressing 3/8" wheel studs through from the back side to mount the Ford adapter.

This will eliminate the need for threaded holes that are not as strong in the alloy as the studs pulling up on a machined head.

Lots of ideas flowing
 

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snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
A few more goodies showed up yesterday.

The 205 case was missing the shifter linkage toggle bar and pins.

Found the correct one on ebay.

Getting ready to start whittling on the aluminum clocking ring today maybe.

Weather is nasty outside, so an indoor activity is in order for sure.
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Today saw some real action and some chips hit the floor in the shop.

The large aluminum round was going to be a tussle, and I knew it going into this little project.

Getting the ability to hold onto the thing was gonna take some finesse and a bit of improvising.

First I drilled a couple holes in the thing to tie it down on the mill table and then went after it with a 3-1/2" hole saw to get a place to grab it in the 3 jaw chuck on the lathe.

The hole saw would get barely over half way through, so it required cutting from both sides.

Finally after some tedious work we had us a hole.

Next it went in the lathe for a spin and the rough hole was enlarged to 3.750" which is a nice size to grab in the chuck and plenty large for clearance of the output shaft on 4L80

With one side bored nearly to size it was another flip and then bore the other side back.

Flipped it again to get a good concentric bore all the way.

Once we get a tad farther along we will pick one side as the master and then turn the major register on the part.

From this point the register can be held in the chuck and the opposite side can be machined and everything that needs to be concentric will be so.

At this point the center hole is not important other than a clearance for the tranny shaft to poke through.

Tomorrow the billet it heading back into the mill and a big old bunch of aluminum is gonna get cut off to lighten the load a lot.

The plan is to roughly follow the sharpy tracing leaving approx 1/2" outside the tacing line.

We don't have a profiler so we will just cut nice straight cuts and call it good.

After the rough part is a bunch lighter we will toss it back in the lathe and go after the registers, then it's back in the mill to locate and drill the bolt holes.

Time consuming, but far cheaper than buying a ready made or hiring it done.

Far more fun too :D
 

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snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Yesterday I had some time to work on the project and headed down to the shop to make more chips.

Ideally pruning the big chunk of alloy down to a manageable size would have been very easy in a large band saw, but we are fresh out.

Our Jet saw is jut too small to deal with this big of piece.

Sooooooooo

Toss the sucker in the mill and plow a slot through until the extra falls off.

Certainly not my preferred choice, buy it's "Gittenerdone"

At this point a pretty finish is not at all important, just hack the stuff off and move on.

WE have two side slabbed off and it looks like there will be 5 cuts to get this beast closer to reality.

Once the extra material is off it will head back to the lathe for a bunch more turning.

The registers will get cut and then holes drilled.

After the important stuff is finished we can whittle down the exterior more and pretty it up.

We certainly don't need a lot of extra stock hanging off past the C6 adapter.

I am thinking that a nice finish point will be approx 1/4 inch past the cast iron C6 adapter.

All I can say at this point is
"Thank GAWD for a big shop vac"

Up to my butt in chips
 

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Last edited:

Jericho

Well-known member
1,180
69
48
Location
Landaff NH
You have balls. ( and Chips) Just an aside, I used a 3 way adjustable slide table (vice) mounted on the table to do the work of a profiler,Once one gets a little trail plowed thru with a rougher its easy to continue to follow your cut line, Rougher makes quick work of the AL and then I finished up with a finish end mill . I give you credit , I know how much work that is ! Few people would even attempt their own adapters, , I make all my own stuff because every thing is "3 DAYS OUT OF BOSTON " and iam a cheap skate who likes to build my own stuff.
 

snowyrivers

Member
138
1
18
Location
Newberg Oregon
Copy on the cheap skate

All adapters have to be made by somebody.

The popular stuff is readily available and not terribly priced.

The morphodite we are wanting is not made by anyone, at least not readily so.

The style and strength of the finished item is also of concern.

I want it HERKY
 
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