Week #2 involved a lot more disassembly including removing the seats, battery, transmission filter, driveshaft, transfer case and transmission.

I was going to try and leave the transmission in the car but after some thought I figured it would be much easier to work on out of the chassis.  Modification #1 was to make an access hole so I could adjust the line pressure on the valve body without removing the transmission pan.  I found directions and some dimensions on where to drill the hole here: http://www.moparts.com/Tech/Archive/auto/38.html.  You'll want to be careful on how deep you mill the flat portion as the case wall gets really thin near the curve. I don't like the fact that I only have about 3 threads holding the plug in

The next modification involved moving the transmission vent from the tail housing to the top of the case.  The first step was to pull the pump and plug the stock vent hole.  I had filled the stock vent hole with RTV but this time I went with a more permanent solution and tapped the hole for a 1/4" NPT plug. Another option is to weld the hole shut as detailed in this write-up: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6870594#post6865917.

With the pump removed I was able to drill and tap a 1/8" NPT hole in the top of the case.  From what I have read this is a common spot to relocate the vent to, as long as it doesn't puke transmission fluid like the tail housing vent I will be happy.

Next I moved on to the engine to address the PCV valve problem.  Basically when off camber to the passenger side the valve was letting oil into the intake which caused lots of smoke and actually hydro locked my motor at the Hammers.  The picture above shows the PCV valve home in the top of the Supercharger housing and you can see the hole that leads into the intake.  This hole needs to be plugged.

I chose to just fill my PCV valve with some oil resistant RTV, then I re-installed the PCV valve.

Now I needed a new vent for the valve cover so I drilled and tapped the oil fill cap for a 3/8" NPT fitting with a 1/2" hose barb on it.  Shown is a 45" fitting but as it turns out I need a 90 degree fitting to clear the coolant hose that runs above the filler cap. Basically I'll run the 1/2" line over, down, under and back up the side of the motor to create a plumbers trap, then cap the hose off with a small air filter.

With the transmission out of the way the exhaust system was fully exposed so I decided to reconfigure that next. These pictures show the difference between the stock exhaust manifold on the bottom and ported exhaust manifold at the top. looks like my engine runs a bit rich. The new ceramic coated crossover pipe and passenger side manifold went on without too much of a fuss.

Next, I cut the stock flex coupling off of the flange that bolts to the manifold. All of the exhaust gasses merge here at the flange which has a 3" ID.

The problem lies in the fact that the flex joint (shown on the right) chokes the exhaust path down to a 2.125" ID.  On the left you can see I welded a 3" ID tube to the flange which should eliminate the bottleneck. The 3 inch tube fit really well after I ran a 3" hole saw thru the flange to clean up the bore.  

Next I did a test fit on the Flowmaster muffler I had purchased. As you can see it just barely fits.

These shots show the exhaust starting with the flange, a 3" Dia header bend cut down for the turn, a 3" to 2.5" reducer followed by a  Turbonetics V-band clamp,

After the V-band clamp I have a small section of exhaust tubing, then the hard mounted Flowmaster.  I am going to replace the short section of straight tubing with a flex joint as there isn't enough movement in the system by just leaving the muffler inlet connection loose. A layer of high temp paint will be applied down the road to the new exhaust pipes.

I had one box of parts arrive this week, a set of 7/8 rod ends which I ordered from Expert Offroad.  I had planned on replacing most of my 3/4" rod ends so I would have fresh ones under the rejuvenated buggy but after some research I found I could fit some 7/8" rod ends with a few changes to the misalignment spacers. The 7/8" rod ends don't sound like much of an upgrade but placing them side by side to the 3/4" rod ends tells a different story.  I was really after a bigger shank which is the only weak point on my existing 3/4" rod ends but the 55k lb radial load rating (about 15k lbs. higher than the 3/4" rod ends) will be a nice extra peace of mind.  Best of all they ran only $25 each with jam nut, so I paid less for them than I had been for my 3/4" rod ends. I'll detail the parts I need to make these larger rod ends wok in a later update, since they use 3/4" bolts instead of 5/8 I will need some reducers as well as shorter misalignment washers.

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