ROCKCRAWLER - EZ Rhino - Casting out Satan

Casting Out Satan
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By, EZ Rhino

EZ Rhino - Casting Out Satan - Part II

Transmission Mounting

Here's a good shot of the old greasy monster before pulling it out.

After the install... Notice the angle difference. Novak's adapter clocked the case about ten degrees upward for better clearance.

I was able to reuse my Jeep's rubber transmission mount. I knew before I started this project that one goal was to increase ground clearance at the transfer case. When positioning the engine, I was able to stuff the transfer case and transmission higher against the body floor. This coupled with the Novak adapter gained me 3.5" over the old setup. The factory stamped steel pan is pretty wimpy. In fact, mine was cracked almost all the way across. A strong tube crossmember/transmission mount/skidplate was in order. After a lot of pondering I had Matt at Factory Tubular Accessories in Salt Lake bend some 1.5" DOM tubing for me and the crossmember was in progress.

3" x 3" angled, 3/16" thick tubing make up the sides of the crossmember. Four bolts per side hold the angled pieces to the frame using the factory captured nuts. The driver's side rear tire is in the background, as Kevin looks on in amazement (whatever!). Also visible, is the side of the recently hammered-in transmission oil pan. A Dana 300 transfer case puts the front driveshaft very close to the pan. Note the hammering it took to gain adequate driveshaft clearance.	Passenger front tire is in the background in this shot. A nice piece of 3/16" thick plate composes the skid plate covering to protect the transfer case. Bending it around the curved tube wasn't easy. I added two sections of 1" dia. tube to triangulate it for stiffness. In retrospect, this was probably unnecessary.

Everything is tucked up out of harm's way. Notice how centered the front differential is. When I swapped the front Dana 44 into place, I elected to save some money and only shorten the long tube, thus putting the front driveshaft too close to the transmission pan. If I had ended up with a more offset differential, I probably wouldn't have had any driveshaft clearance problems.	Not too shabby for an un-clocked case, eh? Note the front tube angling upwards from the front of the skidplate. It serves as a ramp to slide rocks down onto the skidplate and away from the front driveshaft yoke. This photo also shows what happens when other people work on your jeep: you don't get it done the way you want! See how low the exhaust is? I wished that it was run flush with the bottom of the frame. Oh well.

EZ RHINO Here's a great shot of the Scrambler out in the real world. Notice the functional, orange, giraffe paint. This coupled with the transmission setup create wonderful ground clearance in the center. This is a great help with a long-wheelbase CJ.

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