My Dodge Dakota, the "Comvee"

[Nick02]

nick, how easily does your hood open with your bumper

Easily, like stock. The latch is located in the opening is in the passside middle upper "cross" of the grille. I do have some dual pusher E fans behind the grille tho, the air conditioning condenser radiator has bad-flow in stock form. the fans did wonders helping with cooling it and making the A/C ice cold in the hot humid monsoon weather we get down here. I wired them to come on when the A/C compressor is engaged, or when the engine gets above 210deg, the truck stays around 200-210 in normal phoenix stop-N-Go traffic on the hottest of days.. overheating is a major concern with me.... being aluminum.. the 4.7 doesn't like to overheat: so I run the stock mechanical fan, the stock "puller" e-fan and the two pushers, I had to cut the grille to get them to fit.. but it came out nice. I enjoy having the truck "over cooled".

 

[Nick02]

Nice SAE Baja truck. I was a Formula guy in college (Iowa State), but our shops were combined so we got along reasonable well - we let them drive the car around during the summer months, they let us play around in the snow every now and then, it was a win-win.

That's cool, I wish we had a relationship with our FSAE guys like that lol! We have a bad relationship with formulia in the past... kinda, it's moreso the old SAE president who was on their side.. from what I understand, he was a power hungry...and nothing "physical" got done with the formulia car the past ~2yrs... they failed their brake test at the last comp they went to ~some odd years ago and everyone abandoned the car. But the new SAE and FSAE president is actually a really, nice guy! we're all looking forward to this year!



My PT day job is formula-related LOL. I get to build SCCA F1000 race cars for a living... all my swap $$ is generated by it.. im just scared of speed... http://www.phoenixracecars.com/

 

[Nick02]

Went to the yard and got a "45rfe" 4x4 cross-member our of a 4x4 drango with the 45rfe! and 4.7L yay! the 5.2/5.9/v6 4x4 dakota's and durango's use a completely different cross-member from the 4.7L dakota's which makes them extremely rare to find!



(yes I have the bushing in the wrong spot here lol!) im only missing one part now, its the little metal piece that bolts up to the transmission-transfercase coupler/adapter and bolts to the top of the bushing.... none of the yards have it (since the 45rfe was on 2000-2004 daks, they hoard all of them and sell the trannys/cases for big $$$) .... none of the sellers want to sell it to me, so I think im gonna make one,

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A pic of my XJ, dakota and durango drive-shaft collection LOL! I have more not shown.... I spent about $80 bux for all my shafts... im addicted to the local junkyards... buying the shafts saves me $$ so I can have spares.... they will be cut down and re-tubed for my application.. most "one piece" steel stock 4x4 dakota and durango shafts use 1330 yokes re-using the yokes saves me $$ at the drive-shaft shop and enables me to "make my own" trail spares... the intermediate is an cut down 1310 series XJ rear .... the rear will be a modified 1330series to mate to the rear 9.25". It will use a highly modified 2003 1330 series 2003 durango 4x4 steel rear driveshaft (modified with a slip in it) the front is yet undecided.... but it'll be 1330 series shaft with slip in it too

And here's a nice refrence pic of the NP231 and tranny adapter/ intermediate driveshaft...before I cut it in half lol!

I made a little solidwerks thing of the input side of the case before I cut it in half to see what it would look like... this is the first "major" thing in solid-works I made without goofing around lol!

need I say more?

There's two separate pieces of aluminum here, that will split with the case; the "seam" is perfect..lol you cant see through it!

I found the New Process tag makes a great washer!

The flange seam is so perfect a piece of paper cant fit through it it splits in half like the original case does..

here I took out the bolts, split the case, and broke the weld seam, the sucker was soooooo hot! it fits together perfectly!

I forgot about the oil pump filter location... it was cutoff with the front output so I made this!

Never heard of this getting covered on pirate lol! I consider it pretty important..?! I mean the way the jeep np231 oil pump works, it picks up the "filtered" oil from the lowest point of the case and the pump pumps it into the main shaft (through holes inside the shaft) which then squirts it into the planetary set... there's been a guy on pirate that's done this before... but nobody has addressed this issue...lol!

I first cut the stock pickup line to make it shorter

I mocked it up

then I cut one side of the pickup flange and made an "arm" to hold it down in the case
I booger welded it to the case to support the filter! its going nowhere

After my boss left.... My co-worker, Booth, taught me how to TIG, here's some of my first welds! LOL! (his example on left, my goobers on right) I must say, it's much more awesome then using MIG lol! I fell like I could get the hang of this! gotta start from somewhere...

 

[Nick02]

Because of school<---big concern, work, girlfriend stuff, home and SAE Baja.. I cant/dont have the time to do any real "actual" work on the truck until winter break.. or next summer:yikes:; but im working... so the time to buy brackets and stuff is now lol!

ruffstuff has a new three link "kit" out that's way within my price range.. substituting the ballistic "coil/shock mount combo" brackets for the lower link

called up ruffstuff; absolutely amazing, answered all my questions... gave me a 15% off "moveing" discount, and subtracted the axle side lower link brackets... because im going with ballistic on those.... ~$460.20 out the door; with shipping :drool: so they are on the way!
wanted $560 plus shipping on the website...


I cant wait for them to come in! I am once again... a poor, broke, 19 yr old, sophmore, college student still living with my mom LOL! but free rent, food, and inter-webs I consider myself blessed LOL

and a current picture with my removable mud-flaps (thanks AZ DPS!) and doors back on (I still have to paint the passenger side... but no time LOL)

My lovely girlfriend waiting for us (in the shade lol) to get done cleaning mud off ourselves after takeing an "SAE baja" vacaton in Douglas, Arizona! a beautiful place it was....

My friend Igor (deserttaco on here) covered in mud lol!

 

[winkosmosis]

Flash your 45RFE to 545RFE so you get the top gear

 

[Nick02]

Flash your 45RFE to 545RFE so you get the top gear

Yes, I have known about this on my old forum...
I've never knew of re-flashing it, can to dealer do it?

On my old forum guys used a jeep GC 545rfe TCM, and got the extra fifth gear.
Some guys liked it... but some guys didn't like the extra fifth for it "bogs" down and searches for gears shifting in/out of OD Ex: uphill on the highway.

I would like to try the mod, with a re-flash would I have a way "back" if I didn't like it? I dont go over 80mph anyways lol!

 

[Nick02]

some cool stuff decided to show up today!

Upper link tower

1.25" heat & cryo treated chromoly rod end, jam nut, misalignment spacers and weld bung.

frame side panhard mount with 7/8" heat & cryo treated rod end

 

[blkjak]

nice stuff nick:wings:blkjak

 

[winkosmosis]

Easily, like stock. The latch is located in the opening is in the passside middle upper "cross" of the grille. I do have some dual pusher E fans behind the grille tho, the air conditioning condenser radiator has bad-flow in stock form. the fans did wonders helping with cooling it and making the A/C ice cold in the hot humid monsoon weather we get down here. I wired them to come on when the A/C compressor is engaged, or when the engine gets above 210deg, the truck stays around 200-210 in normal phoenix stop-N-Go traffic on the hottest of days.. overheating is a major concern with me.... being aluminum.. the 4.7 doesn't like to overheat: so I run the stock mechanical fan, the stock "puller" e-fan and the two pushers, I had to cut the grille to get them to fit.. but it came out nice. I enjoy having the truck "over cooled".

I put a 10" pusher fan in front of the radiator in my XJ and it helps cooling a little, but what it seems to really affect is AC-- it's much colder now.

Your pic makes me want to add a 2nd fan

 

[Nick02]

nice stuff nick:wings:blkjak

Thanks blkjak!

I put a 10" pusher fan in front of the radiator in my XJ and it helps cooling a little, but what it seems to really affect is AC-- it's much colder now.

Your pic makes me want to add a 2nd fan

lol! It would be nicer if they weren't so loud! I just bought some crappy ebay fans... but yeah, x2 the AC struggled before... and now it kicks butt!

 

[Nick02]

had a big storm....
I was at work in the dakota at the time and got hit by mini gumball sized hail.... the paint stood up just fine! :victory: no dents or scratches... or anything!!

But I left my DD, a 1998 Mitsubishi montero sport, at home; I usually dont drive the dakota to work, but I needed to refill some argon for the welder.

Needless to say; I was happy I didn't drive the Mitsubishi, like I usually do!:Wow1::Wow1:

I came home, to the house in shambles; mom and sister freaked out... the hail knocked in four windows, I had to board them up.... hail the size of golfballs. destroyed our windows, trees, stucco, roof.... etc

I can only afford state minimum liability on both vehicles... so my car is going to stay like it is... until I can afford some turn signals...
The golf-ball sized hail took out the Mitsubishi's front/rear turn signals and cracked the front window... and well....the poor thing looks plain screwed up...

The pop up coleman camper

the roof

all of our double pane windows on the east side of the home were broken, I spent the day boarding them all up, so the AC could work..

Tree trunk with hail marks, a cactus beat in too! all the leaves in the background were "blown" off by the hail.. or wind... I dunno.. but the trees/bushes in the yard look like sticks now.. gonna go outside and spend all day cleaning that up!

 

[bftank]

montero - next solid axle swap victim:costumed-smiley-007

 

[redthies]

Sad to see your stuff so messed up! I was in a hail storm like that in Sidney Australia qute a few years ago. The whole city got worked over. There were lots of people trying to scam insurance companies by putting golf balls in socks and beating on their cars. I guess if you had full coverage insurance they were writing off cars because of all the roof damage. Somehow the insurance investigators could tell who had been hit by hail, and who was a victim of "socking it" to themselves. Pretty funny to see the dumba$$ people screw up their cars and get nothing!:sombrero:

 

[Nick02]

montero - next solid axle swap victim:costumed-smiley-007

I know, right? no more respect of body damage, it is fully boxed, the frame looks much stronger then the Dakota's....
but it makes such a nice DD; 18mpg with comfy room for four passengers plus a lot of cargo room.... It's a great vehicle and I plan on driving it for indefinite mileage.

Sad to see your stuff so messed up! I was in a hail storm like that in Sidney Australia qute a few years ago. The whole city got worked over. There were lots of people trying to scam insurance companies by putting golf balls in socks and beating on their cars. I guess if you had full coverage insurance they were writing off cars because of all the roof damage. Somehow the insurance investigators could tell who had been hit by hail, and who was a victim of "socking it" to themselves. Pretty funny to see the dumba$$ people screw up their cars and get nothing!:sombrero:

It's ok, I still drive it, and love it. The SUV is ~11 yrs old: I think the dents make it more arrow-dynamic, like a golfball

I'am glad the insurance company caught the bad guys!
According to our Claims adjusters, The house received ~11K of damage; we have a bunch of people coming soon to fix it, so all is well.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------
anyways... back to the comvee...

I got tired of my "clamped" exhaust system, it seemed "cheap" to me, so I got rid of restrictions, added a header dump and TIG'ed everything up myself .

Took me 2-10pm yesterday, no breaks or dinner LOL! I dropped the entire system past the cats. I had to start the engine with only the headers on to move the tires so I could access each side and vice versa.... and man the 4.7 sounds mean with only the headers connected...


Anyways, I wanted to make everything "easy" to connect up for the future so I added three bolt flanges at the old cat connection, and before the rear muffler. The header dump is for those days I am full of teenage hormones and want the truck to be loud; otherwise it'll stay shut and go to the stock muffler and shuddup.

When I link the truck I have to move the exhaust over to the drivers side, but in the mean time, this setup looks to work nicely...

 

[Nick02]

Got some cool rims; Hutchinson 16"x8" Bead-locks

Modeled up the front frame and angled the coil-buckets down; I am scrapping this and have a good idea for a coil/shock mount combo but this helps me picture stuff.

Also got a new job. Worked my first "full week" last week it's hard work but it's fun and enjoyable; I took some cool pics on lunch.
Here's a pic of my junk next to what I help build.

Last night I was up till 3AM helping my co-worker fabricate sliders for his 82' yota. I did all the welding and other stuff, my welds are almost ready the swap..