thanks for the quick reply. I read some of those posts and it looks like some transmissions require moving the cross member and some require grinding the tcase down depending on what year your truck is... now i have the frame of a 1980 but the cab of a 1982. im trying to figure out what options this leaves me with.

 

Yeah that's why I ended up with the L52. I didn't want to move or weld anything. Just a slight grinding to the floor board to accommodate the 5th gear and that was all. You're in a much different position with the body/frame being different. Pretty sure you'll have to go with the best fit for the frame and just grind out the cab a bit. Good luck!

 

i dont understand how people are putting a l52 in their truck that previously had a l43... my cab with the l43 is very different from the 82 i picked up. the floorboard on my new cab is raised up higher and with the old 43 transmission in right now the base of the transfer stick doesnt reach the floorboard there is a space inbetween. the l43 is a side shifter and the hole is in a completely different place then the hole of my 1982 cab. people were saying they had to trim the floorboard in order to get into 5th gear but it looks to me if i were to put a l52 into my old cab i would have to trim the floorboard to go into 1st and second rather than 5th...

 

so i picked up a new radiator and hooked it up and finally fired up the engine this morning. im getting a strangle whistling sound on and off that sounds like its comming from the transfer case or the transmission.. other than that i think its over heating. after idling for the while the upper radiator hose squirted some coolant. I havent hooked up the temperature guages yet so i dont have any numbers.

 

anyone know what this is?

 

cant get this damn temperature gauge to work


only response i can get is the needle maxing out when i connect the wire from the fusebox to the +

 

You hook +12V to the +, Ground to ground. Now on the sensor that measures the water temp what connections does it have? More than likely it will have a +12V and then a signal out and possibly a ground. The signal out goes to the S on your gauge. Is this what you had wired up? Next thing is to check what the range of the sensor is against the range of the gauge.

 

you talking about the thing that has a spark plug looking wire coming off of it?

its your coil. it sends spark to the distributor.

 

nah i meant the loose wire in my hand its pretty long to just be a ground, I dont know where it goes...

i dont know about the gauge ive tried all combinations of those wires in the background which are the ones i pulled it off of when the wiring harness was in the previous cab. something is probly unplugged somewhere in the middle i guess... thanks for the responses

im a little worried about a sound ive been hearing while the engine is running. its high pitched and sounds like its coming from the transfer case or transmission sounds like something metal is rubbing as it spins. its high pitched and fast. squeeks about 4 times a second

 

Looks like a wire that goes to an Rpm gauge.

 

you are the man

 

oh hahaha. my bad. i thought you were using the wire to point to the coil.

"this guy is doing a cab swap but doesnt know what a coil is?" <---this crossed my mind and i almost didnt respond because it didnt make sense

 

its all good i realize that was a very vague post though

 

havent been workin on the truck much but still having trouble with the temperature gauge. I put a volt reader on the pink wire that goes to the fusebox and its geting 12 volts. but when i connect it the temperature just goes all the way to max as soon as power is applied. im thinkin the sender might be messed up but it was functioning fine even after the roll.

 

drove the truck to the gas station need to bolt the seats up get the e brake hooked up and some other small stuff and it will be streetable soon.

 

finally swaped the e brake cable out with the one from my old cab... temp gauge is now working... the truck was overheating so i bought a new thermostat, when that didnt work i went ahead and replaced the gauge, water pump,sending unit and fan clutch. turns out they sold me a bad thermostat... anyway the thing runs but the transmission is squeeking with the clutch engaged, feels like the clutch also isnt fully engaging. sometimes it is hard to get into gear. My next project will be replacing the transmission with a 5 speed. I currently have a L43 side shifter POS that doesnt fill out my now 1982 cab.

 

the PO swapped a w56-e (and a huge hole to get it to shift) in to my 82, I get a high pitched squeak (sounds like a piece of heavy metal is getting rubbed on by thin metal, best way to describe it.) too BUT i kinda think its a sync cuz its only done it in reverse when there's a sort of bind in the driveline. AND i need to figure out why my tach isn't working...

 

If you can spend the extra cash it takes, an L52 with g-series bearings is a great upgrade.
I think the bearing diameter went up from the L series by about 30% when they rolled out the G transmissions, and it makes for a smoother shifting, quieter ride.

 

It is a green wire.

Presumably, the other end of it is the one connected to the coil. Ditto on the potential for tach signal wire.

 

so the truck wasnt actually overheating. Turns out the sending unit i had wasn't compatible with the gauge. its strange though because it would just slowly rise in temperature normally as it was heating up then just continue past 200. but if i drove it on the freeway i could keep it under. The whole time i was just getting a false reading...

Got the clutch fixed. Did a leak down test. Got the truck smogged, Registered and have been driving it around legally Finally. thanks to everyone for advice. when i got into this i knew almost nothing and I have learned a ton.

The next step is to fix the inner axle seals. I have a pair of marlin crawler seals ive been meaning to put in but i am sort of fascinated with the idea of getting a wider stance. any opinions on dana swap vs wheel spacers? From what ive heard wheel spacers can be unreliable and put unnecessary stress on other components of the axle.