The road to 4wd...

lol not once have I thought about buying the front of a frame of another truck to make mine 4wd, sub'd to see how awesome this goes down.
 
Baby steps. All the wiring is ran, and i have what i can hook up, hooked up. Plan on pulling trans next weekend to swap output shaft and tail housing and install tcase finally. After that as long as it all works right all that will be left is to decide on a lift and install that and the front axle.

Pulled front axle all apart, new outer axle bearings and seals, new pinion seal and crush sleeve. Its ready to go.

Just making sure it all fits lol
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:hng: looks good man!


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Thanks


this makes me want to fix my leaking front dif seals

im getting mine done over Christmas holidays for $360.00

my one buddy used to be a gm tech he said its actually easy so we will see lol

mine, was sure as fuck not easy. i tried the slide hammer method.. had the diff locked into my vice with a strap around it to keep it from moving. beat the fuck out of that big ass slide hammer for an hour with no luck. I read online a guy took the diff apart and got the pin in the carrier moved over just enough to hit the axle shaft from the inside, out. I finally got that pin over far enough, hit the axle a couple good times and it popped right out. the clip holding it in was in about 10 pieces and the outer axle bearing fell apart too. Luckily i had it all apart because there was pieces of that clip all in the ring gear. spent about 20 minutes with a file cleaning the splines up on that axle too from that clip tearing it up coming out.

LMK what method he uses and how it goes.
 
Well we made a ton of progress yesterday. Pulled the trans out, got it stood up. The output shaft i bought was right, but i never found any info on needing any other trans parts. Well we got it apart and noticed the speed sensor tone wheel is different. That is the 2wd name for that piece. I called a local transmission parts place and he gave me the gm part number for what i needed. Of course the only parts dept that had one in stock was Michigan. So my dad took some dimensions and figured up how thick that spacer needed to be and machined the old one. Checked the end play and it was within spec so we rolled with it. Got all the wiring hooked up and stuck the actuator up where i could see it and it all works. put it in 4lo and man thats weird :rof. Ive never had 4wd so 4lo was like :cookoo[1]:. So everything is good to go. All i need to do is buy my front lift kit and it will be a fully functioning 4wd truck.

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Damn man, that's awesome. You gonna go bigger with the lift or try and keep it around the same height?
 
Probably stick with 4-6 cognito. If I do 7-9 I'll want bigger wheels. Bigger tires. Regeared lol. It's big enough for me as is. Still fits in garage height wise. Should still be able to pull a fifth wheel/gooseneck.
 
I wish I would have painted my front diff while I had it out... I cleaned it up real well, just didn't paint it.
 
4wd swap complete. Running the 4-6 fully decranked. flat angles. Removed my 2" block. Rides great. Need different shocks. Need ones with the shock shaft on bottom for more clearance around ntbd bracket. Clears fine as is, but i havent driven it much as far as big bumps drooping out. It hits when jacking it up though.

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Primo!
Really glad you stayed at that height and not bigger.
Is your bilstein a stud mount on top? If not you can flip them, bilsteins are monotubes and orientation doesn't matter like a cheap twin tube.

Oh and if you're worried about it contacting at full droop, you really need to strap it to limit it from causing damage. Cognito probably has straps for that kit.
 
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Like I said on ig, looks awesome and kudos for putting the effort into the swap.


Thanks man


Primo!
Really glad you stayed at that height and not bigger.
Is your bilstein a stud mount on top? If not you can flip them, bilsteins are monotubes and orientation doesn't matter like a cheap twin tube.

Oh and if you're worried about it contacting at full droop, you really need to strap it to limit it from causing damage. Cognito probably has straps for that kit.

I plan on buying the right shocks. It's stem/eye
 
Thanks man




I plan on buying the right shocks. It's stem/eye


Stems suck. What options have you found for inverted with stem?
You can always add a clevis mount from synergy or procomp and do a traditional shock, but it will limit your shock length by about 3/4". That's what I ended up doing.