Mitsubishi Transfer Case to Tera Low231 NP231 ...

Update: April 12, 2009 Not much has happened in the last month. Unfortunately, the weather and fate has conspired to keep me from getting much further along than I was last month. Typical unpredictable Colorado spring weather and finding out that at some point I'd cracked the passenger side frame horn and that decided to break a week ago has pretty much put a stop to any work on the doubler/transfer case assembly for a while.

I picked up the new front drive shaft. That is an interesting piece of equipment. Instead of putting the double Cardan CV joint at the carrier bearing, it's at the differential pinion. The front drive shaft looks more like an old style Toyota rear drive shaft than anything you'd normally see on the front of, well, pretty much anything. So far, though, it seems to work. I mocked up everything and tested it out in 4-Hi. There is a vibration at 20-25 MPH but surprisingly there is NO vibration below or above that speed. In fact, at 40 MPH in 4-Hi everything is glass smooth. I still have some tuning to do but so far so good.

I still haven't installed shifters for the doubler and transfer case. After spending a couple days mulling the whole shifter setup around I decided to NOT install the shifter for the transfer case in the factory location in the console. I may re-approach this mount setup in the future but its going to take much more time and effort than I have available right now.

After much pondering and a couple beers I decided that the simplest setup would be to double up the doubler shifter set up (no pun intended) - using one of the shifters for the transfer case. The Tuthill Unidrum can be mounted back to back and the cables configured any number of ways so this is pretty simple to set up. I already have two boots for where the cables will go through the tunnel to the transfer case and doubler. The only thing I still need is a bracket to attach the shifters to that will then mount to the tunnel next to the driver seat. I have that drawn up in my CAD software but haven't sent the diagram to the laser cutters yet. Once that bracket is finished I'll drop it and all the other brackets off for irriditing then - provided the weather behaves - it'll be assembly time.

So, once I decided to go with dual Unidrum shifters I made a quick trip down to the dealership and picked up the console bezel and boot for the 2-wheel drive Sport to replace the original 4-wheel drive bezel and boot. I wasn't too thrilled with leaving a gaping hole in my console where the old transfer case shifter used to be and this was the simplest way to resolve that issue that I could think of. At some point I may get around to dying the bezel the correct color so it matches the rest of the console. Right not it works and that's all I care about.

Now for some good news: The Dakota SGI speedometer adapter is working GREAT! Not so much as a hic cup. The whole adapter/doubler/transfer case assembly seems to be working well, too. At least I haven't had any weird noises or other behavior with the exception of a leak at the drain plug on the adapter that I haven't been able to completely stop.

We'll see how things work out during our spring run out to Moab next week. Hopefully I'll be able to get the frame fixed so there'll be a run. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!