Any advice on a swap from a 98 Cherokee with a 5.9L?

[68GlassBronc]

Ok I am new here on this site, and need some good advice. I own a 68 Bronc with a 351Clev. in it..4spd man. I dont know yet what type of trans or t-case it has..just got it, and too cold to really check it. The drivetrain need a total overhaul (alot of noisy parts). Soooo I also have a 98 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9L (360) that has been rolled. It runs and drives great. Has 4 wheel discs (D44's) with 373's in them. actually that is the rear..I think the front is a D35 or 30 oops. My dream.. I mean my goal is to swap everything but the full time 4wd t-case..I would get a part time one from the junkyard. Has anyone ever done this? Am I dreaming here? I really want a reliable fuel injected motor, and to convert to automatic at the same time.. any help is greatly appreciated..

Jason

 

[Broncobill78]

Well you may not be the very first guy to do this swap, but you'll certainly be the first one *I'VE* ever heard of and I can absolutely guarantee you that each & every part that you'll need (from motor mounts, frame brackets & wiring harness connectors) will have to be fabricated. I hope you're either a really good fabricator or so ridiculously rich that you have nothing better to do with $30K than watch other guys fab parts for this swap. Forget the word "goal" & go back to the word "dream" because this is a project for either a Master Fabricator, a lottery winner or a Wall St. thief. You'd be MUCH better served by swapping in the drivetrain from a late model 302 fuel injected Explorer or F-truck because it will involve a LOT less fabrication and a lot more satisfaction. Install a fuel injected 5.0, an AOD or E4OD transmission & upgade to disk brakes front & rear. Those are all easily obtainable goals and while they aren't cheap they certainly *are* attainable goals.

Also, just how *sure* are you that that you have a Cleveland in there ? You sure it's maybe not a Windsor ?

 

[S_bolt19]

I am going to have to completely agree with BB78 on this one. I will even add some other reasons why not to swap the Jeep running gear into it. The rear axle you have is a Ford 9" and is 2-3x as strong as the Jeep axle. End of story. The front axle is a push because you have a D30 in the Bronco right now, but trying to swap them out will be more pain than what it is worth, especially if you have to change gear sets. The transmission that is currently in there, if it is a 4-speed, is either a T-18 or an NP435. Both which are a couple of the strongest transmissions ever built for offroad vehicles. If the auto is what you want the AOD, C4 or C6 is the route to go because you can then mate your current transfer case up to it. The engine alone will take some modification to almost everything. You will have to transplant the radiator, hook the fuel injection harness for that engine up and all the sensors. Basically what you are looking at is taking the body off of a Jeep and trying to fit an EB around it. It can be done, but what are you going to gain? The old Ford drivetrain is actually stronger than the Jeep equipment. If it were me and I was in your position, I would pull everything off of that Jeep that was still useable and put it on Craigs List and see if you can get yourself a fuel injected 5.0 or 5.8. The headaches you will have in the fab department alone will be enough to make you want to say F**K IT. Unless you are a fabricator by trade. Also forgot to mention that in addition to motor mounts, you are going to have to change transmission/trasfer case mounts, and if you do the axles, you are going to have to change all spring mounts, steering linkages, brake lines, etc. You can get into a Bronco disc brake set up (all 4 wheels) for about $900 - $1300, a D44 front end for fairly cheap because a lot of guys are putting the D60 under their front ends, so you might even be able to pick up the whole axle & disc brake for about $1000. I would make a conservative guess that if you have someone do this conversion work for you, you are looking in the neighborhood of $10-13k.

 

[68GlassBronc]

Wow you guys really turned me around. I knew it would be alot of fabricating, I really do not want to do all of that. I am pretty sure it is a cleveland. I know they are rare. I was told it was and it has the signs of a cleveland..how do I tell for sure? I do know that I can be rolling in second gear barely touch the gas and turn it sideways with 33's on it. (on dry pavement) The motor is a little loud..like an old sewing machine. I have a 90 lincoln LSC with a ford 9inch rear with discs on it..can I use this axle for the rear? Im just gonna do a disc conversion on the front and rebuild it while I am at it. I know I jump around alot, just not very good at putting a paragraph together! Probably just gonna leave the motor thats in it for now..do they make an efi conversion for the cleveland? As far as the trans I am just gonna think about doin the C6... I do not get to go off road much at all due to being wayy to busy..so for now she is mainly gonna be a street truck. So my next question is will a C6 swap right out in place of my 4speed?..plus run the trans cooler lines and all the other stuff associated with the auto. I really appreciate you guys input. This is my 4th EB and I want to try to do this one right. The other 3 were pretty much beaters. This one is a really good one to start with. Thanks in advance for this help and any future help you can give!

Jason

 

[S_bolt19]

Jason, it sounds like you have a lot of thoughts running around as to what you want to do. Personally, I would put rear discs on the axle that you already have. Buy the kit from BC Broncos and be done with it. It is going to cost about $500-600 but it is worth it. Put the Chevy conversion kit on the front. If you do end up going with disc all the way around, I would highly recommend doing a hydroboost brake set up. A manual master cylinder isn't going to give you the pedal you need to stop it. You can check out the write up I did last year on how to do the hydroboost set up here. The trans is going to be a little difficult, but not hard. Reason being is that you have to get a crossmember built for the C6. EBs came with C4s but I am not 100% sure that the cross member for that will work with the C6. Besides, it isn't that difficult to have one made up for you at a local welding shop. You will also have to get the transmisssion/trasfercase adapter for the auto transmission. You might even be able to trade one of the parts warehouses your old parts for some of the new stuff that you want.

An easy way to tell the difference between the Windsor & Cleveland engines is to look at the top radiator hose. On Clevelands the hose goes into the top of the intake manifold like in this picture. In a Windsor engine that hose goes into the front of the intake like this. Another way to tell is that the Cleveland's timing cover is part of the cast block where Windsor engines utilize an aluminum cover. If you are having trouble with it, take a picture of the front of the engine and post it up so we can see it and let you know what you have.

Hope that helps you out some.

 

[Broncobill78]

Well it's good to hear that you aren't locked into the Jeep swap.

The LSC rearend will work but the swap might be more trouble than it's worth, you'll need to get out your tape measure first and compare the two rear axles to see how close they are in width. Assuming the width is close enough to work without cutting axle tubes & buying custom shafts then you'll have to cut off the coil spring/air bag mounts and weld on a set of standard leaf pads (if you carefully grind off the welds from the 9" under there now you can use those otherwise you'll need to buy or fabricate a set since most junkyards won't go thru the hassle of cutting a pair off for you.) Chances are the cheapest & easiest route will be to do exactly what S Bolt said & convert the existing rearend. I'd also convert the front to disks and once again follow S Bolt's advise and swap master cylinders because as he said the manual MC is *not* going to cut it and if you go thru the hassle of swapping to disks then you may as well set yourself up to actually USE them and swap in either a vacuum or hydro boosted master cylinder.

The C6 is a great transmission, it's hard to find anything more rugged & dependable. However, if you're looking to use this primarily as a daily driver then I'd really go with an AOD instead. From a design & engineering standpoint the AOD is the next generation C6. It's basically the same transmission with an overdrive gear added. Unlike the E4OD or AOD-E it's a purely mechanical tranny so it doesn't need a computer to shift correctly, it will work just fine in an EB installation and it's no more difficult to install than a C6. As a daily driver that 4th gear will make a huge difference in your milage and since I don't see fuel prices going down anytime soon I'd really suggest going with an overdrive transmission.

Nobody makes an EFI retro kit for a Cleveland, they're simply too old & too different and there just aren't enough of them since it was only produced for 70' to 74'. If that IS a Cleveland then the next best thing I can suggest would be to retro a Throttle Body Injection system onto it. Something like a Holley Projection system. http://www.holley.com/502-20S.asp They come in both 2bbl & 4bbl configurations and give you the reliability, performance & milage improvements that most people are looking for in an EFI system. There really isn't anything out there for MultiPort EFI, even from the aftermarket vendors because the Cleveland market is so small. It seems like the only real MultiPort work being done is spearheaded by the guys in the Pantera crowd and those guys are pretty much casting up their own one-off intakes. I have a great interest in machinework & casting so I found it *very* interesting, just to get an idea of what's involved in setting up your 351C for multiport take a look at this: http://www.bacomatic.org/irefi/irefi.html Maybe now you can see why it would just be easier to go with the Projection ?

Back to the Cleveland/Windsor question. Ignoring for a moment that you would need custom fabricated motor mounts & modified frame brackets here's another diffrence between the Cleveland & Windsor (and truth be told the Cleveland is really not all that it's hyped up to be, from an engineering standpoint the Windsor is far & away the better engine): Windsor valve covers use 6 bolts and Clevelands use 8. If you DO have a Cleveland in there do everything you can to take care of it since parts are getting *really* scarce and when you can find them expect to pay top dollar, don't bitch about the price just be glad someone had the part.

Just as a bit of trivia, the # of bolts on the valve covers is a good, quick way to ck what type of engine you have:

2 bolts the engine is a: 239/256/272/292/312 (produced from 1954 to 1964)

5 bolts the engine is a: 332/352/360/361/390/391/406/410/427/428/ (FE engine)

6 bolts the engine is a: 221/260/289/302/351W

7 bolts the engine is a: 429/460

8 bolts the engine is a: 351C/351M/400

and as another trivia tidbit the 351M/400 engines were the next design generation of the 351C.