inaJeep

This part of the swap is not turning out exactly as I had originally hoped it would...I was hoping I could get away with not having to do a split front driveshaft OR split steering shaft..but in the process of moving the motor over so far to the drivers side, it has caused a situation in which I'm most likely going to be forced to do a split (intermediate) steering shaft setup to get from the steering column around the motor headers down to the steering box.  Here are a few pictures of the situation I'm looking at....I am planning on trying to call the folks at Flaming River or Borgeson Steering Products to see if they can help me fabricate something up, because I DO have an idea of something that may work, but need their input.  Here's my thought:

Here's another view of my thoughts on what I could do...

and finally...

I tried explaining this to one of the guys at boregeson and wasn't sure they were getting what I was saying... So hopefully next time I get on the phone with them I will be able to work with them and show them this page so they know what I'm trying to do... and maybe I can have them fabricate up a "extension" so that I could essentially still have a 1 piece steering shaft, it would just be a little shorter than the stock shaft was.  By fabricating the "extension" (in my mind, would be similar to a socket wrench extension... so the top side would be a female 1" 48 spline "coupler" welded to a stick of 1" steel bar that is about 8-10 inches in length, and then on the other end would be a 48 spline round shaft that the steering shaft U-joint would mount to (which was originally connected directly to the column shaft).  Hopefully that makes sense...if anyone else has better thoughts, let me know... if this doesn't work out, then I'm going to have to re-do the whole thing and set it up like a Ford Mustang, where it has basically 2 steering shafts and 3 u-joints, and a carrier support bearing on the lower side to hold it steady.

I'm still working on this part of things, as of 8-7-11.  MORE to come!!!