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The Trail Tough Rock Block with Bill Johnston
You want to go really slow in the rocks, but you don’t want to lose the ability to drive on the highway. You like the idea of additional transfer case, but you don’t want to lengthen your drive train which will shorten your rear drive shaft. Yada yada yada… what a dilemma.
Trail Tough has just started shipping their new ‘Rock Block’, an intermediate gear reduction box that replaces the short drive shaft between the transmission and the transfer case.
This installation took a couple of hours to do, but that included straightening a couple bashed parts and stopping to take pictures, so ‘your mileage may vary’.
The Rock Block comes with a unique cross member that replace the regular rear transmission mount and makes the room needed to mount the new reduction box. It holds the transmission and the Rock Block with ‘captured’ rubber mounts that absorb vibrations like the stock tranny mount. The mounting yoke in the top-right of the photo on the right will be mounted to the transmission where the old mount normally would be. 
We started by removing the intermediate drive shaft (jack shaft) and the stock rear transmission mount. 
Next we removed the front mount for the long transfer case arm. Taking a closer look at the condition of the crossmember showed that it had seen its share of rock bashing. This had deformed the ‘channel’ that will be used to cradle the new crossmember. We had to straighten this piece out with the help of ‘Mr. Sledge’ and a good pair of vicegrips. 
Here you can see how the new crossmember fits nicely into the newly reformed channel in the old crossmember. In the picture on the left, you can see the mounting holes for the passenger side of the crossmember. The hole on the right is where the front mount for the transfer case goes. We temporarily replaced the rubber mount to secure the new crossmember while we prepared to drill the new mounting bolt holes.
08/11/2010
