Merrill's 4G64 DOHC.

Great news! The rear link kit for the Ford sway bar has cleared installation R&D on 3 trucks and is now ready for individual sale. I will wait until after Christmas to post them, but if anyone is interested in a kit shown above, PM me and we will get one to you.

Im trying to out this front sway bar fitment to bed already, but I keep running into stupid little fitment issues every which way I look. The S10 bars are really close, and they would fit on the MM, but the moment the suspension travel was not "ideal" (as in perfectly symmetrical), the bar would shift and hit the frame in one way or another. Rather than "pocketing" the frame up front to clear it, I am trying to find a different bar that fits with less issues, or with the least amount of modification for gain. Obviously anyone can hack the shit out of their truck and slap a 33mm bar on and hit the races.... That's not what I am after for the purpose of research here.

I am getting very annoyed with this as it is, so I may end up taking a break. I'm about 6 seconds away from bending a sway bar from scratch to fit on this truck. Option B is I finish my front suspension mods and get this rolling.

I am taking advantage of the holidays right now and have scheduled 2 weeks off (since business gets slow right around this time) to do the RHD swap. Looks like I'll be on the other side of the truck sooner than I thought!

More updates as I get them....

RHD swap starts on Sunday!

I'm in a crunch to get everything finished and prepped before hand... I've rebuilt the new trans that I am swapping to, ordered a new clutch master and slave for the new trans, reassembled the dash, and bought new brake lines. Hopefully this will only take a week or less to swap over.

I will have my current LHD black dyed dash with gauge pods (that I did 6 months ago), all of the LHD HVAC components (blower, evaporator, ducting, etc), wiring harness, and 2wd wide block trans for sale. If anyone wants any of it, stake your claim now.

Do you drink a lot of coffee?

PM'd you about your dash

I limit my coffee intake... used to live on it lol. Why?

Merrill is a Truck Building Machine, he don't need no coffee, well maybe a little. :hammerdrill:

These kits...are they universal with the 1st gen also, including the sway bar swaps using S10's & F150's?
I maybe interest on a rear kit if I can somehow swap the front bar to a thicker one using an S10 bar from our wrecking yard.

The rear kit look good Merrill, nice work..

It should bolt up 100%. All you need to do is drill holes to mount the kit, and source the sway bar (both very easy to do). I need to confirm minimum and maximum dimensions for fitment confirmation, but the frames are similar between 1G and 2G, so it should be exactly the same.

The S 10 bars are still in R&D. I can build a full kit to adapt one to the front, but it will take many months of work to design and build the system. The problem on the 2G MM is the S 10 bar will hit the frame when distorted under a hard corner. The blazer bars are a little wider as well as the Astro Van models. The only problem with them is they are very thick. There will be a lot of modding to fit one to a stock MM, and it still isn't guaranteed to fit and work well enough (to my satisfaction).

Let's kick off the Right Hand Drive Swap shall we?

I tossed a couple small pics up on the Facebook group with some great results, and a few people requested more info on the swap. Well, here it is in the best way I know how to deliver it.

It has been 2.5 days and I am 80% finished. I am limited on time and have missed a few pics but do have a bunch to show the bulk of what is needed to do the swap. Any questions? Post up! I'll be happy to answer them.

To make works very easy, I stripped the whole truck. This literally took 3.5 hours from start to finish. Engine, transmission, complete interior, and harnesses came out. Here's the thing.... The engine does NOT have to come out, but think of it this way - 30 minutes to pull it vs. 3 hours of lost time trying to work around it.

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My transmission is being swapped as well. I am using a 5 speed wideblock HYDRAULIC clutch trans from a Montero Sport. Aside from the hydraulic clutch, the tail housing places the shifter 2 inches further back. When I swap my engine, I will mount it more forward. With the Montero Sport tail housing, the shifter will be in the same place even though the engine and transmission have moved forward (just a little info for you readers). Since I am not doing the engine swap right now, but do need the hydraulic clutch right now, I will swap the tail housing out for the MM trans.

I guess the first place to start (at least the place I started) is the interior. Since the dash frame work is bolt-on to either LHD or RHD, I started on the steering column mount. One side bolts to the frame while the other side bolts to the body of the truck. This bracket had to be pulled from the left and transplanted to the right. Simply drill the spot welds out, and weld it to the other side.

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Next is the clutch master and brake master cylinders. This takes nothing more than a few precise measurements and a drill. The big holes are cut with a hole saw, the small holes with a drill bit. Very simple. After making the holes, mount it up.

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This is what you end up with when you do not have RHD pedal assemblies.... I'll fix these later.

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Now we get to the fun stuff. The steering hole needs to be transplanted to the right. This isn't terribly difficult to do, but is easy to screw up if you don't take your time. You dont need any special kind of shape to cut it out, but the simpler the shape (like a rectangle), the easier it is to cut and fit to the opposite side. Remember to measure the placement of the steering gear box in relation to the opening. I used the same parts of the firewall that are mirrored on both sides as reference points for placement of the steering hole.

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If you have looked closely at your truck you may have noticed the firewall is reinforced around the brake booster and steering hole. Since this truck was originally LHD, the right side must have reinforcements added to it. If this step is ever omitted, every component will likely tear itself out of the firewall like the cable clutches often do. This is nothing more than adding some sheet metal plating like so...

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That's all I can toss up for now. I'll update when I have more time later....

Here is a test fit from night #1

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fantastic work and great attention to detail - you make it look so easy...

It's easy enough that the truck is finished today lol. 5 day RHD swap (personal best). I still need an alignment, but no biggie.

I'll finish updating the last few days later on.

Whoa Merrill slow down bud, lol.

Very interesting to see this being done and thanks for the collection of great photos. I'm sure that has got to be a strange thing to drive a vehicle from the other side, especially re-training your legs to do the right thing . If it don't work out you can always go into the mail delivery service with a right hand drive truck, lol. The Jeep Cherokee has conversion kits for the same thing your doing. Though they are really strange with a rope tide like a fan belt to the other side of the vehicles steering column.

http://www.postalthings.com/Right-ha.../rhd-kits.html

I promise I'll get more pics and stuff up later. My intentions were to update every night, but it was intense work and I became exhausted. I have only a 5 day window to do this so I had to focus and get it done.

Total work time is 36 hours. This is the easiest RHD swap I've ever done over the years mostly because I didn't have to swap the firewall out completely. Since the firewall is mirrored, all I had to do was cut and paste. It was so easy to do. Welding and fabrication is my profession, so it comes out looking really easy to do. Truth be told, anyone with basic skills can duplicate the work I have done. This swap is really that simple.

Ok so I will have to bring this back up to speed real quick.... probably a 2 post update or so...

After driving around for just one night and this morning, I have been stopped by other drivers all over to ask about the truck and what it's like to drive a RHD. The funniest part is I was at a light being asked about the "first time" I drove my truck like this only 2 minutes after I got in it the first time :lol: I told the guy "Thisis my first time. I just finished the swap 15 minutes ago..."

Driving a RHD isnt strange to me at all. I've built and driven many over the years and I am kind of used to it in a way. Sitting on the other side, shifting with my left, and getting in on what would normally be the passenger door is not awkward to me. What is awkward is that it is my truck that is the RHD lol. I've never owned or driven for a lengthy period of time a RHD that I had previously been used to as a LHD. The very basics like feel and position as you take a corner, or knowing what "fast" feels like all completely washes away with a new feel as you control the truck from the other side.

I still do habitual things like grab for the seat belt over my left shoulder and automatically let my right hand off the wheel during accelerating to shift, but I think that will stick around for a bit lol.

Enough chatter.... update!

After the reinforcements were added, it was time to patch up the holes on the left side. Absolutely NOTHING about this is rocket science, or extremely complicated. Simply cut out the sheet metal to the same dimensions as the hole - weld it.

I was multitasking while patching all this stuff up, so this whole "process" of patching up the firewall is basically left out. However, as I stated before, its not rocket science. If i were to actually step by step this procedure, all you would see is the same piece of metal with more welds on it in each pic :lol: The subsequent pics will show the completed patch work.

Here are the holes (before)
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As many owners and members have experienced the dreaded firewall failure around the clutch cable, mine was no different. The only thing about mine is that I didn't experience the issue when it happened, but I must deal with the result. The previous owners obviously experienced the issue and gave the repair a good 'ol college try. This was basically a piece of 1/8" HR plate steel welded and silicone'd to the firewall.

Here is what I started with
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There really is no "fixing it" to make it less visible, nor was there a way to blend it in with the rest of the firewall. You simply cant leave it there and try to "play it off" as some other functional piece. If you look at the inside pic posted just above, you will see just how torn up the firewall is. This kind of presents a huge challenge to fix. All of the torn sections around the patch are on the raised/stamped section of the firewall.

Its not as simple to just cut the shape out and patch it up. Maybe I'm just too picky about my work, but I know I could just patch it how ever it will work and slap some body filler in to hide it. I don't like that. I want to limit the amount of body filler on this bay as much as possible. I firmly believe that body filler is there to help finely smooth over pieces that can not be made smooth with skill and craftsmanship - OR - to fix minor details like hammer marks or waves from warping. Body filler, to me, is NOT for hiding work. This may sound silly to some, but i am proud to say that I have this metal close enough to factory spec without body filler beneath the primer.

Here is how the patch work went

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And here is the finished product.
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Obviously any one can look at the inside and know that this was a swap seeing the weld marks, but I'm not really hiding that fact :lol:

Now for the pedal reinforcements. Reinforcing the pedals is important. The pedal reinforcements work in conjunction with the firewall reinforcements to reduce flex in the sheet metal which can cause a failure over time. I did go just a wee bit overboard with my metal of choice, but the firmness in the pedals is something I could not have achieved if I used a lesser metal.

In theory, I could easily just weld the reinforcements to the truck. I do believe that is a little tacky/cheap/quickie mod that can easily be avoided. The reason why is dis-assembly.... "What if you ever had to take the pedal brackets out for ANY reason?" They would be stuck there if you welded them. The other side of this is metal fatigue resulting from welding. The factory sheet metal is paper thin. MIG welding this would require one to build a puddle on the reinforcement piece and let it fall on to the sheet metal. That creates a lot of heat. TIG welding would be the better choice because you can finely control the amount of heat.

Simply put, once you heat up the metal, it will become more brittle and prone to failure at some point in time. All the flexing and pulling of the metal every time you step on the clutch or brake will fatigue that heat affected zone even further. I don't ever want to go back and fix it at any point.

So what is a mechanical mounting solution that allows easy removal AND involves not heat? THe answer is my favorite piece of hardware - RivNuts.

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Notice the position of the clutch pedal? That's what I have to fix next along with the brake and accelerator since I don't have RHD pedal assemblies.

looks awesome! so for clutch to hydro you need to fill in the clutch cable hole and then drill and reinforce the firewall to the left of the booster? and what gauge did you use?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Redneckmoparman

looks awesome! so for clutch to hydro you need to fill in the clutch cable hole and then drill and reinforce the firewall to the left of the booster? and what gauge did you use?

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I will have the whole list up shortly with all the info on it about swapping to hydro trans. Yes it installs to the left of the BMC/Booster on either LHD or RHD setups. If you look at either one you will see the recess in the firewall for the location.

awesome! so how about a teaser completed shot?

SCROLL UP IF YOU CLICKED STRAIGHT TO HERE FOR THE OTHER UPDATES




Fixing the pedals was actually a bit tough for me. On one hand, this is great because I get to put them wherever the hell I want which is awesome for ultimate comfort and convenience. On the other hand, I kind of want them to look as OEM as possible and be really clean.


I don't have many pics of the job because it required a lot of undivided attention to do, but here is what I can show.


Modifying the brake and clutch was a breeze. It was nothing more than heating up and bending. A few sections were cut and TIG welded back together followed by a coat of paint.

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Now for the accelerator. I did get caught up on this one... Not sure if it was a brain fart, creative block, or what. I tried to find a pic of a factory RHD setup with no success. At the end, I just said screw it and made my own. The biggest problem was finding a way to mount the pedal on the flat spot of the wheel well (presumably where it is supposed to be) while maintaining full range of motion. This was tricky, but here it is.

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I didn't get a finished shot of it all bolted down, but it is bolted down using the RivNuts lol.

With the pedals out of the way - the interior is nearly finished! All I really had to do was fit all of the HVAC components. Starting with the blower motor, there needs to be a hole cut out for outside air. If you look closely at your truck, you will notice it is stamped into the sheet metal - just not cut out. Cutting it out will allow you to have outside air.

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To fasten the blower assembly to the firewall, just drill out the spot welds on the factory hangers and transplant them to the left just as they were on the right.

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Once all that was done, I welded up the unused holes from all the spot welds, primed the firewall, and slapped the dash back in.

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Steering is pretty simple to solve. You do need the RHD steering gear, but not the idler arm. The RHD steering gear bolts right up as if it was meant to be there and the angles measure exactly the same as the LHD box when measured. Simply install it.

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The idler arm is tricky. There is only one hole to line it up and the angle must be exact. This means you must measure the LHD setup BEFORE you remove it. Your angle measurement may be different because you may have your truck jacked up differently. The main point is - WHATEVER ANGLE YOU MEASURED FIRST = THE ANGLE YOU MUST HAVE ON THE OTHER SIDE. My measured angle was 53 degrees on the LHD assembly. The idler arm bracket is simply flipped around and installed to the one hole it lines up with at the correct angle. Once the angle is achieved, drill the hole for the second bolt. The end result should look something like this

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To help you gain an idea of which hole was added, and which hole was already there - the bolt on the left was the hole I had to drill for. Simple.

Next is the brake lines. Of course you can just stretch some lines over and stick them together some way or another. I chose to keep them low and kind of hidden. To minimize the amount of hard lines stretching from one side to the other, I did some clever bending and rearranging. Only two lines stretch to the other side.

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Now it's just a matter of getting the engine and trans back in. That will be on the next update (ran out of time again).

awesome!!!!!!!

Rivnuts are most definitely The Shit.

Let's cap this swap off!!

So I left off with the brake lines. Well you may have looked at the pics and discovered that everything was done under the hood. Since the interior was done, that means only the engine and trans need to go back in for me to roll!

Amazingly, this build suffered only ONE bolt casualty during dis-assembly that required my attention - the exhaust manifold stud.

Final assembly was on Christmas eve. There was no place to find a new or used exhaust manifold, and there was no way in hell the rest of the broken stud was coming out. Solution - weld a new stud on...

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Problem solved...

Next is the engine.... simple enough to do...

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Finally - the trans. This one seemed to be a pretty big hit on Facebook, so here is the list

How to Build a Hydraulic Hybrid Transmission


If you noticed before, I have swapped to a hydraulic setup. This is what you need to make it happen.


97+ Montero Sport 2.4 2WD 5 speed transmission
97+ Montero Sport clutch pedal assembly with bracket
97+ Montero Sport Slave cylinbder, hard line, and rubber line (or you could bend your own)
Mighty Max 4x4 Clutch master cylinder


This is not rocket science at all. Simply remove the tail housing from the MM, and mate it to the MS transmission.


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Here is one issue you will have to fix. There is an accessory casting for a bracket, or some option for the MS. It will hit the tunnel of the MM when installed. Just trim it off.


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I am sorry about the darkness of the first pic - my flash wasnt working... Look closely and you will see the trans parts making contact with the trans tunnel.

The tab for the hard line to rubber line is already on the truck. Just use it as it is meant to be used.


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And there you have it. I highly recommend getting a damn good alignment after you are finished with the swap. You'll be doing yourself a huge favor with that...

I must make one thing very clear about all of this. Everything I have written and updated here is NOT by any means intended to be a write-up so you can go do it yourself. This job is for the professionals. I don't want to sound rude, but if you "need" a picture perfect write up on how to do a right hand drive swap - you have no business doing it.

Please do not attempt this swap if you have no professional experience in this field.

If you have any questions or comments - Post up of PM me!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrill

I must make one thing very clear about all of this. Everything I have written and updated here is NOT by any means intended to be a write-up so you can go do it yourself. This job is for the professionals. I don't want to sound rude, but if you "need" a picture perfect write up on how to do a right hand drive swap - you have no business doing it.

Please do not attempt this swap if you have no professional experience in this field.

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Coming correct with warnings about attempting a Stage 3 RHD swap here on MightyRam50.net. Someone could get hurt going through the toll booth the wrong way.

you shouldve posted asking for a mani i have mine just sitting in the garage and it wouldve only been 2 days to ship it to vegas but the swap looks great! and the engine bay looks cleaner now that youve purged half of the overspray!

I made the post about the swap because this day and age, people suddenly become master mechanics and fabricators after watching a 2 minute instructional video made by some random so-and-so who claims to have a name. I firmly believe that if you don't know what you are doing, you need to learn. Learning takes years - not minutes. I know it's the common thing to search a "how-to" make/fix/mod something, but I don't want to be that somebody that made an unqualified individual take out a family of five out for a Sunday stroll because they read how I did a job thinking I posted everything I've been trained to do. I hope that makes sense....


The manifold fix took 2 minutes. I only had the 5 day window to do this swap and while I appreciate it, I couldn't wait. If it ever fails on me, or I get annoyed at a stud being welded (rather than OEM), I will absolutely ask you first.

Your warning about this or any other major work of this type is not only refreshing, but absolutely necessary in this day and age of unthinking people doing things way over their ability because they read about it online. No amount of reading can replace training and experience of a professional. I am not saying it's impossible for someone to attempt this kind of work, but you also need the experience to recognize if it is right and safe. I have seen far too many hacked up unsafe vehicles at cruises and shows that have scared me to the point of seeing which way they leave so I am not going the same way. I can fabricate small pieces, but nothing to this scale - I have friends I trust to do that. Keep up the great work!!!

I was taking the piss, guys. Relax. Everyone can see it's professional workmanship, like everything else on this truck.