Got a bit done recently.
Mail Call:
Red Rock kit: The swap book and the rear exhaust gear shipped Friday the 18th and arrived on the 24th. The book isn't bad, definitely provides some clarity on the kit items like the steering gear swap and the trans mount mockup. At this point, just waiting for the accumulator bracket and exhaust diagram, but we're getting closer to being done with each other.
Metalcloak: The tub mount tire carrier and license plate relocation kit showed up early this week. While it looks great, it had some issues right off the bat.
One of the 4 bushings was mis-drilled, not allowing the pin to go all the way through from either side.
The kit was missing both brackets for the tire mount portion.
The tubes for the license plate relocation kit didn't fit together, either wrong size pipes or too much powdercoat.
I reached out to Metalcloak the next day, and they overnighted me a return label and replacement parts. Excellent customer service from them.
Nemesis Industries: The replacement corner shipped and should be here this week. Still waiting on the rear flares to ship, but obviously not in a hurry.
PSC: Ordered a bunch of parts from PSC over the last couple of weeks. Got the power steering pump/remote reservoir kit, the big bore steering box, and the dual cooler setup for the transmission and future hydraulic ram. I figured rather than install the Red Rock kit I might as well think ahead for expansion.
Atlas transfer case: Got confirmation from Dave at Dave's Off-road that my transfer case went into building and will ship 1/6. Dave was great and called to verify a bunch of the options/measurements to make sure I got it right. 10/10 service from him.
Savvy: The front Savvy bumper showed up, I got the winch guard, light tabs, and winch plate options. I'm amazed at how light it is compared to the Warn set up that was on there previously. On the next warm day I'll get it prepped and painted in flat/satin black. The rear bumper is on backorder, again no rush on this so all is well. The original estimate was 4-8 weeks, which is why I pulled the trigger early in case it ends up being the latter.
Updates on the build:
Weather has been cold garbage the last couple of weeks. Did get some progress made though.
Transmission: It's done! Together. On the ground and ready to go. I needed the space in the garage and needed to get the final stuff done. So...yay! Fingers crossed I got it right.
I noticed I have one of those cheap Chinese knock off Rubicrawler boxes from "Advace Adapters"
I also messed around with the winters shifter.
@NashvilleTJ I found that the spring loaded ball joint included in the winters kit fit the ball on the oem shift lever just fine. This would allow for the most direct routing of the cable. The issue I see right now is there's little to no adjustment in the cable itself. It doesn't have the typical double nut adjustment you see on the various cable shifter setups for transfer cases. The mounting/securing of the the winters shifter is a u bracket on both ends. What I'm currently thinking is to modify the ram 545rfe bracket with some manner of setback and adjustment to allow it all to work. I'll need to play with it more after I install the shifter and console to figure out if I need a shorter/longer cable and how far I need to push/pull the mounting point.
Steering upgrade: Pulled the intermediate shaft to get it separated. Worked it with a dremel for a solid 45 minutes and got it separated. According to the red rock book, both ends of the steering shaft will need to be ground to varying degrees to fit into the clamp and steering side brackets. On the steering box side, you need to take off the rounded ends to square it up. On the steering wheel side, it's a "grind to fit" scenario, which doesn't appear to need much to fit from my initial test fit.
@Wildman Let me know if Jim includes instructions with your kit. If not, I'll shoot you his info from the book if you like.
Engine swap: Started hacking into the engine mounts. Still need to finish some finer cuts and grind it all down to clean up. I'll get to it this week to finish up. I'll need to also chop off the OEM steering pillow mounting bracket.
Hemi Engine: I had some minor wrap up items to take care of on the motor. Got all the spark plugs and coils installed, as well as some misc sensors I needed to get in. I also put the manifolds on and found some fun items:
#1) As expected, the gaskets that came with the red rock 160 headers were hot garbage. They were mis-aligned and sloppy. Thankfully, I had the gaskets from the engine rebuild kit and used those instead.
#2) The next discovery was silly and I should have realized it earlier. The bolts for the oem ram header mounting points are way thicker than the new headers. They bottomed out with a half inch left. I went ahead and ordered some stage 8 hardware, m8x1.25 with a 25 mm length. Should work great. Part number 8916.
I got the advanced adapters motor mounts attached to the engine, and I think I got them located right. The passenger and driver sides are different, but there's no pics/markings of which is which. The longer one goes on the drivers side. Short one goes on the passenger side.
I went ahead and pulled the oem steering pump and installed the PSC pump. Silly me didn't look at the pulley before mounting. Then I made the discovery...
OEM
PSC
There's no holes for the mounting bolt access! So I went ahead and made one for future sake. Various drill bits later...voila. My ram hemi uses the 7 rib pulley system, not the typical 6 rib that the psc kit comes with. Thankfully, they'll substitute the 7 rib at no charge, but I'd definitely recommend drilling an access hole. I finished with a 3/4" hole that's big enough for my 13mm socket.
Obviously it's much nicer without the reservoir hanging off the side.
One other interesting note is the PSC pump only uses 2 of the 3 mounting holes. The middle hole does not pass through like the top and bottom.
I got the belt mounted and pretty much wrapped up all the loose ends. The intake, egr and fuel rail will need to wait until the motor is nestled into the engine bay, but they're ready to go.
Fuel Tank and skid: I got the tank in, secured, and tidied up. I got the new fuel hose and clip installed, and the sub-harness from my hotwire kit plugged into the pump. I replaced the cracked fill hose. I also got the stripped out stud for mounting tank to the body replaced. It's ready to get lifted into place now.
Genright console: I modified the rear of the top plate to allow for the bluesea power center. I used the cutout template to join/enlarge the 12v mounting holes that came with the console originally. I'll need to grind the plastic bezel to clear the button head bolts that attach the top to the sides of the console. Just waiting on a warm day to repaint the top with black enamel now that everything is cut, drilled, and ready to go.
Before
After
Rear Body: Waiting on the brackets to get here from Nemesis, when those show up I can throw the spacers under the tailgate hinges and properly drill/mount the corners. I'll also take the metalcloak tire mount brackets and get them drilled and installed. Once that's all done, I'll pull everything off again and the corners will go in the paint pile for the next warm day.
Front/Engine bay: I still need to hose down and touch up the firewall, it's just super inconvenient to drag a hose over there. Once that's done, I'll mount the new metalcloak brackets/supports, and test fit the fenders. I'll likely need to trim my rockers to make it all work, and I'll make sure to mark them during the test fit.
I've also ordered a variety of square and round plugs to seal up the firewall. One part I found was a fresh 1.75" grommet for the automatic shifter hole. This will allow me to drill for the winters cable and keep a good seal. Mopar part number 02424864.
It's a short work week this week, so I should cover some good ground in the next 7 days. Stay tuned...