Yes, I have crawled out from under and back on top of my rock! But it came with a price...and I'm looking at swapping an NV4500(4550) into the YJ this fall/winter. Advice on adapters, surprises, tips, tricks, etc. all welcome.

Oh...2.5L 4 banger with a crippled AX5 as of right now.

Wholly crap DtheM is back break out the DOT 3

Dennis,

I helped a buddy do his swap, but I don't remember the details of clutch and slave cylider and such. I do recall that he got one brand new from Advance Adapters, and it bolted right up to his 6 cyl. I shot him an email with a link to this thread to see if he'd respond, but he's getting ready to move and is pretty busy right now. We did beat our heads against the wall trying to get the tranny on initially until we figured out the bronze bushing in the clutch was a few thousands of an inch to tight for the tranny shaft to fit through. Easy after that was clearanced.

Yep, I'm baaaaack!

Finally got the AX5 out from under the YJ today and disassembled. Found three teeth missing from the cluster gear. (And we only found two of the three chunks in the bottom of the tranny ) So for now, I'm looking at around $400 in parts alone. So I'm looking into an upgrade.
Thanks for forwarding the thread Squid!

Are you doing an NV4500 or an NV3550. There is a big difference. The 4500 comes out of a Dodge or Chevy diesel. The 3550 from a dodge or a jeep.

If your doing the 3550. It was pretty straight forword, other then the bushing giving us a problem.

I got everything from advance adapters. It was a good kit. Took us 2 days if I remember right, to get it complete.

I had it in for a 1 year and half. Noplblems whats so ever.

Thanks guys. I think for now I'm going to put another AX5 back in it. I need to get it back on the road ASAP since it's also my daily driver right now. Then save up for an Atlas II!

I've done the 4500 swap. I bought the tranny from JB Conversions and John there helped me with the parts I needed for the tranny.(essentially an input shaft and tail housing to mate it to a Dana 300) AA supplied the bell housing and alternate slave cylinder. It wasn't too hard. I did have to make a new skidplate to clear the extra size of the 4500. And at the time I did the swap, no one had a bolt up slave cylinder/clutch arm. So I had to fab a couple small parts there. I run 5.38 gears and my rpms are only a few hundred higher than stock was at highway speeds with 35"s. The 4500 has an extremely wide ratio gearset. If I had to do it all over again, I would of used the $2K for an injected small block and auto combo. Because even though my engine isn't turning too fast, my driveshafts are hummin'. I definately know when my u-joints are going bad.