Official Crawlbox BS thread!

Pull the housing off or carefully remove the seal.

 

Decided to leave it on, greased the couple real good and slide it back on

 

This Honda stuff looks different than I thought it would look like. Cases are back in the truck. Just need to button up the interior and fill the cases tomorrow.

 

Does anyone have any tips on how to separate these two pieces? Looks like i need to reuse the top section on the NWF input shaft, but they are not wanting to separate

 

a bearing splitter should work

 

Thanks, i will have to see if i can rent one at the zone

 

If not, HF I’m sure has one for cheap.

 

is that the input shaft from the awd case? If that is, it doesn’t look like it comes apart? I’ve not had a VF4B apart to see that closely.

 

Yes it is the input from the awd case. Based on the online diagrams and fsm it doesnt look like they come apart, but when you look closely it seems like theyre two pieces and like theres a place to wedge them apart. Heres some closer pics


And heres the new NWF VF4 input that i believe that upper section from my previous post should accept

 

Yes it does look like it could separate. I can’t believe they would machine that as all one piece either so it makes sense. Use a bearing splitter and go slow, keep an eye to see if it starts separating vs. bending.

 

I will keep you posted but it’ll probably be a few months before i get it in the truck. Saving for front and rear regears at the moment.

 

Rent the medium sized 3-jaw puller from AutoZone, get a 3/16" or 1/4" scrap piece of steel to go on the end of the gear to protect it from the screw from the puller, hit it with an impact. That's how I did it, came right off.

 

Anyone figure out a shifter boot/coating for the shifter nub for the crawl box shifter. Little fucker rattles pretty good haha. Tried the tack weld method, but by the time I got it grinded down it was practically the same. The stock t case shifter has that plastic nub. Wondering if there is something like that to add to the new shifter

 

Thanks for the recommendation. Tried a bearing puller today, but the one i got wont work without some modification or longer bolts. Got some jaw pullers on order earlier today, so ill give those a try if they show up tomorrow

 

Just threw this together with some scrap i had laying around. Hopefully it makes the job easier.

 

Spent a couple hours trying to get my shifter rattle quieter. Annnnnnnd it sounds exactly like before I started. I guess I’ll need to learn to live with it.

 

Well, it’s been a busy weekend wrenching. Started out by reassembling the VF4B AWD case which quickly turned into another battle. Got the input swapped in Friday and figured I’d try to test fit the front side of the case. The case would not seat all of the way, so i knew it had to come back apart. Well that went south shortly after when the center diff lock shift fork got pushed from the unlocked to the locked position. This would be like the equivalent of shifting from 2wd to 4wd in a part time case. When this happens and the case is split, there are three keepers and two springs pop out of place and have to get put back in.


So here’s what I was looking at now. At this point I also determined why the case wouldn’t seat all of the way, there were two balls and springs for the shifter that I didn’t remove and they fell down in the shift rail’s slot.



After much deliberation, here’s how the springs and keepers get installed on the VF4B.

And the shift rail retainer has to be flush with the back of the case. When reviewing some pics i took during disassembly this is how i figured out the issue with the shift rail springs & balls.

While i had it apart I swapped in a magnetic drain plug I had.

And a few hrs later finally back in one piece. It was a big victory to get it back together after things literally fell apart lol.


Now onto the fun stuff, gutting a part time 4wd VF2A and building the EcoCrawler







hit a minor set back this morning, figured out why double low wasnt engaging. It turns out the bearing retainer/front cover that seals around the input shaft for the AWD transfer case is too large and is interfering with the gear that engages low and high range on the Ecocrawler



My fix was to pull the auto t-case retainer/cover off the cover and see if it’d fit on the AWD case and it turns out it does, and it also allows double low to engage now. So i’m gonna buy another A/T retainer/cover for the EcoCrawler since it needs one too.


Both cases assembled and functioning


Test fit with the R156F looks great. With the hurst/core shifter, i dont have any interference with reverse and the crawl box high and low. So the real hurdle to overcome with the shifters looks like for the main T-case placing it to the left of the trans shifter. Getting close to my plan for an AWD 2TR-FE. Overall id say the install wasnt too difficult as long as you have the right tools for the job. Jaw pullers and a shop press were needed in my case but other than that just basic hand tools and some quality snap ring pliers

And here’s the goods, R156F < Northwest Fab EcoCrawler < VF4B FJ case

 

ive been thinkin about swapping from a FJ 4wd case to the fj AWD case in my truck behind my inchworm case (already got one). just dont know if i want to fool with it tho.

 

Drained my case since I took it on a good 200 mile trip and was able to do some wheeling with it. Fluid was really silver , but had no metal or anything in it. Figure it’s rtv, So I’m going to start her on a 6 month interval or so at this point.

Wrapped the whole shifter with dynamat and filled the knob full of RTV. Didn’t seem to help with the rattle noise at all. At this point I think I’m going to try a different knob, as it seems like the knob it self decreases the volume of the rattle by 50-60% when I take it off(much more reasonable). So I guess I’ll see what I can find.

open to suggestions.

https://youtube.com/shorts/G0YzjbuCe5M?feature=share

 

Got an e-mail from NWF yesterday asking for details on how I was planning to set up my shifters. Sounds like the next batch might be shipping soon. I ordered Jan 19, so we right at about the 8 week mark.