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Atlas 5.0 install (long w/lots of pics)

#1 User is offline   Joe Dillard 

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Posted 10 August 2006 - 09:28 AM

After chomping at the bit for a while and obviously being anxious to get a new Atlas 5.0 installed in my Jeep, last weekend nailer341 and chef (Erik & Adam) helped me out with install duties. These guys certainly put in a full days work into my Jeep & I certainly appreciate all their help along the way. :scratch: Being an old fart, I’m not sure how I would have tackled this by myself. On to the install.

Things first started out with Erik placing his floor jack under the engine along with a notched wooden block beneath my oil pan for engine support while we prepared to remove the skid plate. One VERY nice thing Erik had which made things a lot easier was air tools. We used them as often as possible.

Once the engine was supported we removed the three bolts which attach the tranny mount to the skid plate. Next thing, since I run a SOA traction bar, was to remove the lower shackle bolt from the traction bar mount which is welded to my reinforced stock skid plate. At that point, the 6 skid plate bolts were ready to be removed. Another item that made things a lot easier which Erik had was a tranny jack. We used it often.

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Once the skid plate is out of the way, this made it easier to get to lots of various things. As a heads-up from Erik, he mentioned it would be a good idea to drain the tranny fluid prior to removing the NP231 transfer case. This way, we don’t have a mini oil spill on our hands in his driveway. :D With that good tid-bit of information - I drained freshly installed Mopar tranny oil I just put in ~2 miles earlier and captured it in a new 7qt container so I could reuse it. No sense it tossing out fresh tranny oil. Next step was to remove the 4 bolts which attach my tranny mount to the AX-15. There’s also a rubber mount incorporated into the tranny mount which in my case attaches to an “L” shaped bracket which is welded to the exhaust system just forwards of the cat converter. We had to beat on it with a BFH to knock it loose. Here’s where the 4 tranny mount bolts attach to the bottom of the tranny & also the “L” shaped bracket.

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Once the bracket was removed – Erik noticed a hairline crack developing. A little cleaning, and removal of the paint in the area where a weld was going to be placed did the trick, then Erik laid a bead with his trusty Lincoln welder. Also, my stock skid plate had a small crack, and a nice bend in it that Erik happily corrected with a 20# sledge and his welder.

Next was to completely remove the front & rear drive shafts. At this point I was uncertain whether either would be reusable, so I completely removed them. It was then that I discovered that both drive shafts had a few loose ujoint strap bolts. Not just that, I found that a couple of the front drive shaft ujoint caps had been spinning, so I’m due for 2 new drive shaft ujoints.

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Here’s the F8.8 with my East County CV drive shaft removed.
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Once the drive shafts were out of the way – we removed the speedo cable (first pic), tcase ventilation tube, vacuum disco connection, stock combo shifter boot (second pic), and the tcase linkage (third pic with me pointing to 2 of the 4 linkage attachment bolts.)

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There are 6 nuts which hold the tcase to the tranny, we removed these next, then dropped the tcase down and slid it out from beneath my Jeep with Eriks tranny jack.

This is the rear of the AX-15. Notice it’s 23 spline output shaft which goes into the NP231’s input shaft. Also notice the rubber plug at the 10 o’clock position with 4 holes which supply vacuum to the stock front axle disco system which is sometime troublesome. In my case, I haven't used the vacuum disco system in ~2 years due to converting to manual hubs.

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Here’s my NP231 removed. While it’s been a 100% faithful tcase, no issues there, and I did an SYE conversion to it ~7.5 years ago, I’ve been long overdue to upgrade to deeper gears and the Atlas was my choice for that since deeper axle gears weren’t going to do the trick in my case.

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When I receive the Atlas, it was almost completely assembled with the exception of a few attaching components. This would be the fluid sight & fill tube, the shifting levers, and the shift mounting hardware.

Here you can see the manner I routed the sight tube. One thing to note is that the top fitting hole is also used to fill the Atlas with fluid. Once filled and installed, you should mark its fill level on the sight tube for reference purposes. In this pic you can also see the breather fitting, speedo cable attachment location, and partial assembly of the shifters.

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Advanced Adapters supplies 6 new threaded studs to screw into the Atlas so you can bolt/attach it to the tranny. These will need to be screwed into the Atlas & takes a bit of time to do so by hand. One of these threaded studs had a burr on the threads which added a bit of time cleaning it up. One of the shifter mount bracket allen head bolts also had a burr on it that we needed to clean up. This ended up being no big deal since Erik had tools on-hand to correct this. In hindsight – I should have taken a closer look at all the hardware before we started the assembly process. That way I could have avoided this slight delay of the install.

One of the options I chose before the Atlas was built, was to have it come flat clocked. To make further clocking adjustments, AA machines the transmission mounting surface of the Atlas with 4 options for screwing the 6 studs into. Here you can see those threaded holes along with the rods the shifter mechanism attaches to.

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Here we are test-fitting things.
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#2 User is offline   Joe Dillard 

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Posted 10 August 2006 - 09:31 AM

Once the threaded stud locations were chosen, we applied Loctite to the threads, threaded in the studs and began installing the Atlas. Once the 6 nuts were tightened down which attach the Atlas to the tranny, we began shifter linkage fitment and assembly.

Here we are testing the threaded shifter linkage lengths, and a look from above where you can see a small 1”x3” trim of the tub that was made so the front axle shifter has proper tub clearance.

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Here’s the shifters all mounted and the heat shrink ready to be heated up to help keep the threaded studs in place and help protect them from the elements.

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Erik figured out what to do for not only the Atlas shifter boot assembly and install, he also figured out what needed to be done to install a new tranny shifter boot I picked up at a local auto parts store. He did one heck of a good job getting this to not only fit right – but to look good too. Regretfully, I didn’t take a pic of this yet.

In the mean time, Adam and I worked mostly from under the Jeep getting things reassembled and buttoned together for the linkage and remaining attaching components like the breather tube and speedo cable.

Once the Atlas was in place and shifters dialed-in, it was simply a matter of reinstalling the tranny mount, refilling the tranny with fluid, checking the Atlas fluid, and reinstalling the rear drive shaft and skid plate.

Again, a BIG THANKS goes out to Erik & Adam. :scratch:

Atlas installed.
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Here's how the shifters came out. Erik did as fine job with this. Well, here's a couple pics I just took. I'll be applying some caulking around the edges and doing some touch-up painting too.

Hopefully I'll be able to take it out this weekend & test it a bit.

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#3 User is offline   Rambo 

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Posted 10 August 2006 - 10:13 AM

very nice work, and write up...


thanks for posting... :beer:
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#4 User is offline   Rollbar 

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Posted 10 August 2006 - 12:02 PM

Very nice, thanks.

? On the heat shrink tubing, is the heat shrink filled w/a glue type substance to seal out the H20, cause if not H20 will get in there & the rod will rust in time. Just a thought.
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#5 User is offline   Joe Dillard 

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Posted 10 August 2006 - 05:52 PM

Thanks guys. :beer:

The heat shrink is your basic type, nothing special about it.

I agree, if water or other contaminents were much of an issue for me, I may have added some silicone sealer or something like that to further help in that area. And....since you mentioned it, I may just add some since it seems like a logically good idea.

I now live back in San Diego, CA. I'm no longer in Boca Raton, FL (my Jeep wasn't with me while I was in FL). I almost never drive my junk on the street or in any mud/muck. It's mostly driven in the SoCal desert, Johnson Valley/Hammers, Moab, NV, NM & Colorado, so it basically sees dusty dirt & rock trails.

#6 User is offline   Jim B 

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  Posted 11 August 2006 - 08:22 AM

Darn Joe, you bring be back memories of when I benched press my Atlas many moons ago. :give: Nice pics, you will be real happy with this toy. :gun: I'm surprised you did not do this sooner. :give:

Have you figured out your crawl ratio, what size gears/tires are you running :give: I see you are still running the trusty AX15, mine has and continues to serve me well. :gun:
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#7 User is offline   Joe Dillard 

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Posted 11 August 2006 - 11:51 AM

Hi Jim, yep - my old AX-15 is still pulling it's weight. :)

Tires are 35" MT/R's, gears are 4.56. IIRC, my crawl ratio is ~86:1 with the Atlas.

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