My Cummins/Allison 1000 Freightliner MT45 Step Van Build

[John906]

I'm back; My mom passed away in NY in January and I've been busy being the executor of her estate. You never know how the end of life thing is going to work out; but the feisty lady left on her own terms before the assisted care/nursing home thing ever appeared leaving my sister and I with a modest inheritance. As a tribute to her, I'm bringing some contract help to get this project moving as soon as the family homestead is sold. I'm counting on TJ Lassila of Roam Automotive in Wetmore, MI to be a big help. Also many in the local off-road community have offered their assistance. hopefully by this fall or early next spring we will be in the 4x4 mode.



The good news is my tone rings are done; I have not pressed them all the way down yet but you get the idea.

Hopefully I'll be back soon - John

 

[John906]

Preliminary measurements indicate about a six inch lift by going to a straight front axle from the stock dropped I-beam unit

 

[java]

Sorry to hear about your mom, but glad to see it coming together again!

 

[mk216v]

Ditto--sorry to hear about your mom, but amen to the tribute to her with this project!

 

[18000 Lbs.]

Maybe I missed it earlier, but are you going to use a divorced xfer case or married? Manual shift or electric?

 

[DzlToy]

The transfer case will be a GM NP-261XHD manual shift rebuilt by Midwest Transmissions. They will install an aftermarket slip yoke eliminator by Canada’s Northwest Fab along with an oil pump shield to protect the case.

Good case, as long as you fix the pump rub issue. 261 is manual, 263 is electric shift. This is the OEM case that came with the LCT1000 (Allison)

 

[b dkw1]

Any updates? This thing is going to be awesome. I have similar thoughts on building one.

 

[tgreening]

MIA going on 3 months now.

 

[John906]

Update 11/10/2016

:elkgrin:
Still working away, drivetrain components are about ready to be installed. Front axle is 100% rebuilt, and the rear axle is about 99% of the way there. Transfer case has already been delivered, a new process 261 married to the Allison 1000 with manual shift. Another unforeseen issue is that the 2 Wheel Dr. version of the Allison has a different output shaft splined count than the four-wheel-drive version of the Allison. Extra parts are one thing, having to drop the transmission for rebuild with the new output shaft is the bummer.
:elkgrin:
Steering his last engineering issue to resolve with the drivetrain. Freightliner had some rack and pinion units that I looked into; but they all were a little too wide to work with the Dana 60 front axle. So, plans right now are to go with the standard Ford at 550 steering box, and figure out the steering shaft issues as we go. Getting very excited about taking this puppy for a test drive in four-wheel-drive!
:elkgrin:
The boys from Roam automotive were invaluable in setting up these axles; very confident that these axles will perform well on my retirement journeys!

 

[java]

Glad to see its still moving along!!

 

[workerdrone]

You could also check with Earthroamer in CO for wheels - when I was looking into a DRW to SRW conversion on my F550 based camper, they had some good deals on used wheels and tires from customer upgrades.

 

[DzlToy]

Those will likely be baby 10 lug in the Ford metric pattern. May not fit on an MT-45, which I believe is built by Freightliner.

 

[battleborn]

Great subject for a build. Hope this project makes it to completion. GL thanks for sharing.

 

[guidolyons]

Pretty cool. :sombrero:

 

[Coldbrew]

Hey , love this build. Have you finished it? I would like to see pics.