The Price of Transaxles - Why are Transaxles Expensive?

[BruceA]

The R&P is usually part of the idler shaft on transaxles. Some of the Hewland and VW boxes use a removable pinion crown gear, but if strength is desired, usually a splined shaft with changable gear sets is used that incorporates the pinion gear as an integral part of that shaft.

Are you talking about using a set of drop gears to adjust final ratio with the splined gear on the end of the "secondary shaft"? Drop gears, while very easy to incorporate in a standard box by splitting the main shaft, are rather difficult in transaxles. Usually a third shaft is required.

I think there is a bit of lingo confusion as to the labeling of shafts. Secondary shaft as I mentioned would be the output shaft, the one with the pinion gear on it.
Yes, it would be very easy to do this but if you had a 3rd shaft with an intermediate gear on it, you would wind up with 5 reverse gears and 1 forward gear. (if it was a 5 speed box)

The idea of the 'drop gears' is very easy, on the input/primary/firstmotion shaft, the end is splined - onto which say a 1:1 gear is placed. The other connecting end of this gear is placed on the output/secondary shaft below it.
This idea would only work on what one may consider 'conventional, non transaxle gearboxes that have the 'layshaft' type of gear setup so the gearset can revolve freely around the secondary/output shaft.
This would make a very short transaxle, that also would have 'quickchange' ratios available as well AND using most any sort of hipo gear box that is available.

 

[Eric]

Wanni speaks the truth. You cant have cake and eat it too.

A small volume run of casing, R&P, or any other component carries a huge initial cost. There is no way around this.

A gearbox is a component that sees very high load and temperature, and must have ultra tight tolerances throughout of every component. Design and manufacture have no room for error.

Making it overbuilt and robust is one way to help this, but if you are talking about sportscar and racing boxes, it must be weight optimized, this costs more time and money to be right, and it must be right.

In professional racing currently, no component is harder to develop and more critical than the gearbox.

the prices of boxes available for the component car market are certainly tough to swallow, but its an absolutely necessary evil.

Some guys are always convinced there is a way around it, and end up with broken parts time after time.

cheers
eric


.

 

[Jac Mac]

With reference to post#69 when I raised this very point with Wanni, he raised some side issues that are relevant to this discussion.
1. He ( Wanni ) stated that he has around seven or eight clients who may each purchase anything from ten to twentyfive units ( Transaxles) per annum. This means his annual production could be anything from 70 to 200 , and as he has around five different models if not more the actual volume of parts is relatively small.

2. In that #69 post if I read it correctly he made the offer to anyone to purchase the rights to one of the obsolete models should they wish to produce it.

3. He states that he doesnt wish to do so himself for the simple reason he doesnt need phone calls from all corners of the globe because Jimi Whatsit has fitted this trans to his 1959 Goggomobile & decided in his wisdom to use recycled sperm whale oil & cannot get second on a quick downshift.--sorry, but I am sure you know what I mean.

While Eric states that current purpose built transaxles are expensive due to the limited numbers, this gets away from the point of building a transaxle using currently available off the shelf components from volume produced gearbox & or rear axle assys. There is or should be no need to even consider getting special R&P sets cut or machined. At most all that is need is a couple of shafts and a set of housings in which to install the parts. This is not going to be a demon lightweight /just strong enough to do the job/ specialist reqd to assemble type effort-- It would be a tough-simple-4 or 5 speed H pattern shift trans based on USA basics. Why use Porsche or other semi exotics as a basis when the core prices are so high & indeed if you have to buy new parts to overhaul them its often less expensive to buy another SH trans & hope its OK. I believe this would satisfy 80/90% of replica builders of GT40 & T70 type cars. The guys who want sequential/paddle shift etc would just have to pay the extra for their dreams.

 

[Howard Jones]

High demand in relation to supply = high cost. Read this. When the Tulip Bubble Burst

 

[Joseph Geisler]

Read all of these posts... Burped it all down! Rested. I have a 6000 sq. ft. shop. Am a retired engineer. Have had my Replicas on hold for most of 12 -15 years now. The hang up... transaxles. I'm retired. I own my own shop. Fooled with hp cars all my life. Except exotics. Some there too but very little in the scheme of things. If there were enough concerned people seems like we could solve this delima. This might be the time to solve this problem. Transaxles cases should not cost over $1600.00 period!!!!!!!!!$2000.00 tops with todays technology. We need a consortium of retired, connected, dedicated people. Willing to put up time, material, connections, and solve this problem. I do not have enough life to wait a lot longer until it happens. 64. Jay Lino has a unique machine or so I have gleaned. With which we could scan develop a prototype.
We should use someones gears and bearings already made for a heavy duty transaxle. use the Ford 9" differential. Redesign the case to fit what we need. Mfg. the new cases. Racing trans are not guarenteed. Never are in the IMSA racing I was part of. Nor the drag racing until recently by Gearstar. This is just a post from a silly old man but... ?

 

[Randy V]

We need a consortium of retired, connected, dedicated people. Willing to put up time, material, connections, and solve this problem.

Read these threads::
http://www.gt40s.com/forum/gt40-tec...es/30014-american-transaxles-cheapskates.html

http://www.gt40s.com/forum/gt40-tec...s/29691-want-all-most-american-transaxle.html

There are others - these just came to mind...

I do not have enough life to wait a lot longer until it happens. 64.
.............. This is just a post from a silly old man but... ?

You're not the Lone Ranger here... Most of us (old enough to afford / build an exotic) are in our mid-40's to late 60's...

 

[Jac Mac]

Read all of these posts... Burped it all down! Rested. I have a 6000 sq. ft. shop. Am a retired engineer. Have had my Replicas on hold for most of 12 -15 years now. The hang up... transaxles. I'm retired. I own my own shop. Fooled with hp cars all my life. Except exotics. Some there too but very little in the scheme of things. If there were enough concerned people seems like we could solve this delima. This might be the time to solve this problem. Transaxles cases should not cost over $1600.00 period!!!!!!!!!$2000.00 tops with todays technology. We need a consortium of retired, connected, dedicated people. Willing to put up time, material, connections, and solve this problem. I do not have enough life to wait a lot longer until it happens. 64. Jay Lino has a unique machine or so I have gleaned. With which we could scan develop a prototype.
We should use someones gears and bearings already made for a heavy duty transaxle. use the Ford 9" differential. Redesign the case to fit what we need. Mfg. the new cases. Racing trans are not guarenteed. Never are in the IMSA racing I was part of. Nor the drag racing until recently by Gearstar. This is just a post from a silly old man but... ?

From one silly old man to another....If I was in your position I would love your pricing, but you see I have spent more than a few hours of my 60 years getting this far ( see attached pic ) & I wonder who is going to pay for the design time of castings, housings and how many would you have to sell in order to spread those design costs down at that level?
Also have an observation, In the time Ive been doing this nobody has waved a magic wand & made it happen at the price you indicate...yet. Others have re-created the ZF ( ZFQ ) by using a similar concept to what you outline, but I suspect your a bit like me and want the 'buy at any american speed shop' availibility of the internals for your transaxle.

Edit, hmm , maybe if I had read your intro post first... If your cars are Lambo concept/ based then take a leaf out of the Lambo book, you dont need a transaxle at all, simply turn a conventional motor/trans around , put the trans down the center, fit a set of helical QC gears on the tail housing ( Yep, you might actually have to design/build that new tailhousing once you get a handle on the amount of pain its going to endure ) & run a shaft back to your IRS of choice,( Vette or 8.8 Ford ). all done & dusted & the shifter will be right where you want it!

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

This has probably already been mentioned, but didn't FoMoCo do exactly that in the sixties when they put 427s into GT40s? They used the NASCAR four-speed and rear axle components and put them into a case they designed, and that was the T44. Not elegant, but durable and easy to repair. Of course, now they cost a mint, but back then it was off the shelf bits.

 

[Pete T]

Jimbo has a good idea there. There was another that was something like what he described. Some time ago there was a kit car company (I don't remember the name but have info somewhere) that made a kit for the GM turbo 400. What this was, was a housing that bolted in place of the tail housing and housed quick change gears. It extended to one side of the trans and had an output shaft and yoke facing the bellhousing. They then mounted the engine backwards with the trans facing forwards. Then they used a Vette diff. The rear part of the turbo 400 would sit between the seats something like the transmission in a Countach does.

So if someone were to make an adapter housing like this to fit one of the later 5 speeds used in Mustangs or Camaros (T5 for instance) the same thing could be done. You could also use the factory bellhousing and clutch.

 

[Doug S.]

I once looked at a Fiberfab Valkyrie that used a weird Mopar automatic transmission to which a sort of "transfer case" for lack of a better term was connected, no tailshaft, a cobbled-up looking affair. Didn't buy it, the engine hadn't been started for years and I was not just about to part with the kind of $$ the guy wanted without guarantees that everything worked, but it was the only mid-engined "automatic" transaxle I've ever seen (not that they don't exist......do they?).

Doug

 

[egoman/ Shawn Wedge]

The trans from the chrysler intrepid lends itself to mid engined configuration. If you dont believe me I am building one now on www.locostusa.com.

 

[Randy V]

The trans from the chrysler intrepid lends itself to mid engined configuration. If you dont believe me I am building one now on www.locostusa.com.

Your link doesn't seem to take you to a page that shows your car/build..

I was not aware that there was a manual transmission available in the Intrepid. Or are you doing the Automatic / Auto-Stick transmission?

 

[Bob Putnam]

Back in the 70s, Caddy (and maybe Oldsmobile) had a transaxle that sat below and to the side of the oil pan, driven by a chain (or maybe a belt, it's been a long time) from the flywheel. It was a system not unlike SAAB 99s and 900s. A couple of the Chrysler mid-sized cars used a similar layout. The axle centerline was actually under the engine, and I believe the axle intermediate shaft passed through the oil pan.

I remember going into a Chrysler dealership and harassing a salesman touting the "advanced design" to a potential customer, explaining to them that SAAB had used the layout since 1968.

 

[egoman/ Shawn Wedge]

Your link doesn't seem to take you to a page that shows your car/build..

I was not aware that there was a manual transmission available in the Intrepid. Or are you doing the Automatic / Auto-Stick transmission?

I dont know how to do links but if you go to forums, find the non traditional build logs, then look for locost formula for a slalom /track car.
Egomans build.

 

[egoman/ Shawn Wedge]

Back in the 70s, Caddy (and maybe Oldsmobile) had a transaxle that sat below and to the side of the oil pan, driven by a chain (or maybe a belt, it's been a long time) from the flywheel. It was a system not unlike SAAB 99s and 900s. A couple of the Chrysler mid-sized cars used a similar layout. The axle centerline was actually under the engine, and I believe the axle intermediate shaft passed through the oil pan.

I remember going into a Chrysler dealership and harassing a salesman touting the "advanced design" to a potential customer, explaining to them that SAAB had used the layout since 1968.

The chrysler design is nothing like the Caddy system. It actually is a fairly normal appearing transaxle.

 

[Scott Calabro]

The Chrysler 42LE automatic transmission (transaxle)

 

[Clive H-D]

I have a Used Gearfox Transaxle for sale but cant seem to get a Advert going in the for sale section ??? It's the 900 version and I only need $7700 for it...
But would like to know why It wont let me advertise it for a start ??

 

[Jac Mac]

Might be related to your low number of posts (5), check the rules out or PM a mod to clarify.

 

[Clive H-D]

Just checked yes I need 10 post's.....

Thanks only need 4 more now.....

 

[Ron Earp]

Just checked yes I need 10 post's.....

Thanks only need 4 more now.....

The point isn't to make sure folks have X posts.....

The point of the ten post rule before folks start selling is to prevent folks from just "using" the forum to sell their wares and then disappearing.

If you're just interested in selling the transaxle I'd suggest For Sale: race & performance cars, engines, engine parts, trailers and the Ultima forums. To my knowledge there are no GT40 replicas that have employed a Gearfox transaxle.