• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

My NP435/203/205 swap

jmop

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Salem, Oregon
So here is my writeup on the NP435 + doubler swap into my Jeep XJ. Whilst I was at it I also swapped in a NP203/NP205 doubler transfercase setup. For reference my jeep was originally equipped with the AW4 automatic transmission.

To begin with I will start with a list of clutch related parts I used for the swap. I’m going to try and make this list as inclusive as possible but I might miss a thing or two here and there. For some of the parts I’m including part numbers for reference.

This was the hardest part about the whole swap. I researched what parts I would need for some time. It helped that I had helped a buddy of mine put a 435 into his wrangler. We worked out must of the bugs on his swap.

- 3 AN Slave Cylinder Fitting For Jeep 716130F
- 42" Stainless Hose 716130H
- Clutch Hydraulic Slave Cylinder for Jeep Cherokee XJ and CJ 16909.01
- Clutch Fork Boots for Jeep 16918.03
- Master Clutch Kit for Jeep CJ 1976-79, 6 or 8 CYL, 10.50" 16902.07
- Clutch Fork Return Outer Spring For Jeep 16919.14
- Pivot Stud, Bellhousing: 1972-75 CJ with 6 or 8 cylinders 3184913
- Clutch master cylinder for 89 Jeep Cherokee
- Pilot bushing from Novak A6932A
- Flywheel for 89 Jeep Cherokee


NOTE: My bellhousing came with a pivot ball as well as return spring and boot so I didn’t have to purchase those but they will be needed.

Anyways first thing is first, here is some background info on the swap just incase you were wondering.

The T176 bellhousing is drilled and tapped for several different transmissions, one of witch is the large Ford Pattern. The T150 has pilot holes for two of the bolts and nothing for the others but has the material cast into the bellhousing so it can be drilled and tapped to work. I’d recommend going with the T176 bellhousing as it makes things much simpler but a T150 can be made to work.

The NP435 makes a good choice for a tranny swap into a jeep due to the availability of a factory bellhousing for the swap and relatively small length of the NP435. Due to its height though it can be a pain, as the pictures will show later. The Ford NP435 has a 1-1/16" diameter, ten spline input shaft witch is the same as the late 70’s jeeps. Be careful though there are also jeep clutches with the 1-1/8” input so make sure before you buy.

For my setup I decided to go with the 203/205 doubler setup as it gave me the best strength cheapest cost and a 4:1 crawl in the t-cases. It is an extremely heavy setup though. The NP435 weighs about 135lbs and the 203/205 weigh in at close to 250 with adapters. But I get 32spline front and rear outputs as well as triple sticks with some minor modifications to the 205 shift rods.

Well enough with the talk, I know most people probably won’t read a thing and will just look at the pics so here goes.
 
These are the adapters and shafts I got from Jed’s machining. I don’t really have any complaints about the work. There are a few imperfections here and there but it is a stout steel setup. I would recommend them to anyone looking to do a doubler setup.

The 203 to 205 shaft is a new billet shaft and the short 435 main is a cut down and re-splined Dodge main shaft, more on that next.

The black adapter is the shorty NP435 to NP203 adapter.

1000779db6.jpg
 
I’d decided to get the short adapter made up because the factory ford one is about 8” long and this one is 2”. Plus I’m running a GM 203 case with a 32 spline input. Jed had to use a Dodge NP435 shaft and cut it down to get the 32 spline version here.

1000792iu0.jpg


Once I received the shaft form Jed’s I sent it off and had it annealed and case hardened. I went through Stack Metallurgical out of Portland Oregon. They did a top-notch job. The guy was nice enough to talk me through what I would need done and what info he needed to get his job done. It was way cheaper then I expected and they were extremely nice to work with.
 
The tranny and cases I picked up locally. The NP435 and NP205 came out of a 78 Ford. They had at least an inch of mud and oil over everything but they were cheap. The 203 was in better shape but I decided not to chance it and fully rebuilt all the cases including the synchros in the 435. I don’t really have many details on the rebuild. There are several pages online you can reference and there are good manuals for anyone thinking about doing the job themselves. It wasn’t overly difficult just get a good set of snap ring pliers cuz you will use them a lot.

Here is a pic of the drive train cleaned up and assembled. As well as a few pics of the setup next to the AW4/NP203 I pulled out.

1000800vm0.jpg

1000833eo2.jpg

1000836dg9.jpg
 
Unfortunately, after measuring I realized that the heater core was right in the way of the new tranny shift tower so I had to take that out.

1000668st7.jpg


This was a good time though to swap in the clutch and brake peddles. The peddles are attached to a bracket and it makes things much simpler if you just take the whole bracket out. There are dimples on the firewall for the master cylinder and its bolts. I think the hole was 1-1/8” but I’m not sure. There were three dimples, the top and bottom for the boltholes and the middle for the master cylinder its self. I don’t have any pics of this but it is pretty easy once you get into it.
 
To put this tranny into the XJ I would need to modify the bell housing. For one there needs to be a bracket for the CPS. This needs to be located in the same position as the factory otherwise your timing will be off. Also you need to get the correct flywheel for you motor. A remix flywheel will not work in a H.O. motor, nor the other way around.

Here are some pics of my CPS bracket I built. It is a pain but I have to pull the sensor from inside the rig. I pushed up the drivetrain and the sensor is really close to the firewall and there isn’t anyway I can get to it except from the inside.

1000839uo6.jpg

1000840bt5.jpg


Also the spacing from the tip of the CPS to the flywheel is important. I can’t remember where I found the distance but it is pretty close. It took a bit to get the distance correct by test fitting and using a feeler gauge.
 
Another modification to the bellhousing is to drill and tap the existing clutch pivot ball mount so you can add the pivot stud from the 1972-75 CJ. Without adding this stud the clutch fork is too far away from the flywheel to engage the clutch. I’ve read several other write-ups on the NP435 swap and no one mentions this. I’m guessing they are using a different throw out bearing. Anways this is another area where it will have to be fitted. I ended up taking down the pedestal a little to pull the clutch fork back a bit. A friend of mine did the swap before me on a 95 YJ and that’s when we figured out to use the pivot stud.

This modification will allow you to use the throw out bearing that comes with the clutch kit.

1000842bm5.jpg

1000843kg2.jpg
 
Here is an initial cut for the new tranny, this hole will get much larger.

1000830uc5.jpg


I installed and pulled this bellhousing several times fitting everything, as well as figuring out the slave cylinder mount. The slave bolts to the DS side of the bell housing. There is one through hole and one tapped hole. I had to drill a small hole for the fork spring but for the most part it bolts right up.
 
Getting closer. Here I’m test fitting the 203 and checking the angles on the drivetrain. I ended up leveling out the whole thing a bit. The factory position puts the motor tilted back a few degrees. I basically pushed everything level. This was mostly due to the height of the new drivetrain. If I had left the motor tilting down the 205 would have hung down a fair amount, even clocked flat.

1000849bf8.jpg
 
For the transfercase mounts I had to modify my long arm setup. My old setup was like many others where the crossmember bolts to the frame rails and the long arms bolt to the crossmember. With my old setup I had to unbolt the long arms from the cross member and support the front axle any time I wanted to do something to the transmission. This was getting old and I decided to make the cross member a three piece design. The outer pieces would bolt to the frame rails and an inner piece would use bushings and allow me to drop the tranny and transfercases without having to worry about the front axle.

Here is one of the cut brackets bolted to the frame rails

1000848ca8.jpg


Here is a pic of the center piece (primered). I used polly bushings on the ends and you can see the dual transfercase mounts. I don’t think I have any pics from the under side but I will post some up if people are interested.

1000866qq7.jpg


Once the crossmember was done I was able to put the 205 in place and see how it was going to sit.

1000867xl1.jpg
 
At this point I decided to get the driveline parking brake done. The flange I got from Tom Woods had a rotor and caliper. I didn’t like how small the rotor was. The caliper didn’t get a good bite on the rotor so I decided to see if I could find something else that would work. I didn’t want to have a custom laser cut rotor made since it would be difficult to find a replacement part. So I decided to see if I could find a rotor out of a vehicle that would work. I spent a fair amount of time at a pick-a-part and decided that a mid 90’s Acura rotor would probably work. It was about the same thickness as the one I had got from Tom Woods and had a short hat and the hub hole was small enough so I could have it machined out to be the correct size.

I ended up using a carbide bit and a dremel to open up the existing holes to line up with the flange I had got. I also ended up drilling out the holes in the yoke and tapping the ones in the flange since I would not be able to get behind the rotor once it was on the transfer case. This was a big pain in the butt and I would have probably been simpler to just get a laser cut flat rotor cut then to deal with all the other problems I ran into.

Here are some pics of what I mean.

1000860fu6.jpg

1000864sy9.jpg

1000863tf9.jpg


The driveline bolts to the face of the flange into the large 4 bolt patter and the rotor uses the smaller 4 bolt pattern and is bolted to the flange from the back. It turned out pritty good but was a huge pain.
 
For the shift linkage I decided not to go with a cable setup. It probably would have been simpler but it was more expensive. In my case I find that I would actually need to mount the shifters in the back of the 205. I used rod ends and stainless threaded rod from McMaster Carr for the linkage. For the shifters I used my old brake pedal and a brake and clutch pedal from another XJ. I did this mainly because they already had the plastic wear bushings and it was a simple thing to clean them up and make a bracket.

Here is a pic of the linkage

1000873xt0.jpg

1000871ds7.jpg


This was an early set of pics. I put jamb nuts on the linkage later on. The 203 linkage had to be rotated like it is so that when all the levers are forward I'm in High and when they are all back I'm in double low. This is backwards of most shift setups I've seen, due to the linkage attachment being above the pivot point instead of below.
 
Once I had the linkage and parking brake setup It was time to start covering the large hole in the floor. I ended up using some scrap 1” square and some 1x2” rect. Tube. I covered it in 20 gauge sheet metal.

1000881uy3.jpg

1000890jh8.jpg
 
For the area right above the drivers seat I didn’t want to use steel since I would have to make several bends an I couldn’t just weld something on top of it. So I ended up using some of that rubber floor mats you can get at a Farm and Ranch supply store.

You can also see the parking brake lever I used

1000892oq4.jpg


For the parking brake cable I used a Lokar universal parking brake cable. I also picked up some of their wilwood caliper adapters and a clevis. The Lokar cables have a treaded end with set screws so I attached the clevis to the threaded end and that pulls on the mechanical caliper arm and the caliper adapters were drilled out and used on the parking brake lever. The parking brake lever is a military surplus item like an Orscheln model. I’m still fine tuning the setup but it will hold the jeep on a hill and that’s what I wanted.

I’m missing pics of some important details but I guess this should give a gerneral rundown on how I did the swap. I’ve only just finished and only had the jeep out once but I’m very happy with the setup. The granny low on the tranny is really handy as well as the doubler.
 
Wel done, I cannot wait to get started on my 203/205 swap. Wold love to get the detailed info on modding the 205 shift rails.
 
I used these sites when I rebuilt my 205 and did the twin sticks

http://www.okcnetworks.com/bronco/205/np1.htm
http://www.nitpik.com/dan/truck/specs/np205/transfer_case.html
http://www.clubfte.com/users/ivanribic/page2.html

The first link is a step by step tear down and build up of the 205, the second is an exploded diagram of the 205 and the 3rd showes how to do the twin stick.

When I did mine I ground the rails like shown in the pictures and didn't take nearly enough off. That's a good thing though I guess. Its quite a bit harder to put it back on.

Anyways. I found that it was easier to put the shift rail pins back in and look through the holes where the detent balls and springs would go. With a flashlight you can see the detents and by moving the rails back and forth you can get a good feel for how much you need to take off. I'd still recomend taking off a little at at a time. It is easy to go past perfect and get to a point where the transfercase almost goes into high and low at the same time.

I really like how it turned out though. It is cool being able to do front digs and 2wd low.
 
87manche said:
Yea and I just cut a big hole in my floor for the 203 to mate up to the aw-4.
 
ashmanjeepxj said:
Nice and short setup...

Doing front digs is fun... but gets expensive...

Thanks. I've read your build up on PBB a couple times. Thats some nice work.

I might have to copy your design for your front 4 link. I really liked how that turned out. I need to get rid fo the rear leafs before I tackle the front again though.
 
Back
Top