I have some pics of the basic casting moulds and how they will go together. I end up with 4.5 " shaft centre from spigot to pinion shaft, there is 1" pinion height on the crown wheel and I have a 3.5" crank shaft to axle line height. This will give the car a 3.5" ride height with a level axle line on 26" tyres, Have a look at the pics and see what you think. Cheers Leon.
Custom transaxle
- Thread starter leonmac
- Start date
Nice work Leon.
The input shaft are you just going to slide up the inside of a made shaft.
I gather you are just coupling onto the pinion with your 3rd shaft.
Your output shaft have you cut it down or is this another 4wd box.
Good work
Jim
The input shaft are you just going to slide up the inside of a made shaft.
I gather you are just coupling onto the pinion with your 3rd shaft.
Your output shaft have you cut it down or is this another 4wd box.
Good work
Jim
Hi Jim, yes it is another 4x4 box, they are cheap and strong. I will have a costom pigot shaft extension made and the same for the pinion shaft. I will cut the thread off the end of the pinion shaft and slide an extension over the spline and pin it together. the load on the pinion under exceleration is back so the pins won't have to carry that load just the deceleretion and bearing preload. the prototype will just be to see if it works together and if it does then better shafts etc will come. Cheers Leon
Jim, There would be no reason you couldn,t put a "Toploader" in there. Or any box that has the ability to have the 3rd shaft housing bolt to the top of the casing. I thought about a Muncie but they don't have the reverse gear packaged in the case so it makes it hard for that reason also the pinion shaft is harder to package. Continuing to work on the Diff section, hoping to get the moulds finished this week so I can get them away to the foundry while I'm at work for the next month.
Cheers Leon.
Cheers Leon.
Hi Dave, for the prototype I will use the cast iron box mainly to save on machine work, once it's tested I would like to make that section from alloy as well. The good thing with this is I can sort out all the operations such as selectors which I have been working on today. It will have a single shaft operated side shifter the same as the LG Hewlands, I have completed the reverse and 1st/2nd actuators today and hope to have the 3rd/4th gear done tomorrow. I was going to fab the mount on the side but after looking at it just now I'm going to make it as part of the casting for the top shaft, it will look better and be more sturdy. Thanks for the interest guys, I'm real happy with how its looking and think I might have a working unit by the Newyear.
Cheers leon.
Cheers leon.
Did some more work on the selectors today, a bit of triming here and there and they will work well and have good clearance from the pinion shaft. In 2 of the pics you can see the shaft with the actuator I'm holding. In the second pic is how much I have to add to it to get the shaft out side the box but it will work well and have the same shift pattern as the orginal LG 500. I have added some ribs and started to finish the rear QC cover. Cheers Leon,
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That is where I'm in a bit of a cunundrim. As I have 4.5'' shaft centre's I can't just use Winters QC gears which would be the easy way and I also need to turn the pinion and main shaft in the same direction because of the C/P I'm using. So I have 2 ways to go 1) gears with an Idler (winters) 2) chain drive. The gears with an Idler would be straight cut as that is what is availible easily. The draw back is it will be harder to package in the rear cover I'm making. Chain drive is easier to package and may be the way to go. It has been used in transmissions for years and can handle big HP if you use the right gear. To answer your question, I'm not too concerned about the noise as I'm building this for a Race car application. If This thing works well and people show interest in it as a sellable item then I will look at Helical cut gears if the chain drive isn't suitable. I wan't to get it all set up and then I will decide on the final set up. Cheers Leon
Can you swap the R&P for a conventional rear axle set?
Reason I ask is you 'might' be able to find a set of gears with 4.5" centers.
One possibility is the gears out of a Nissan 3.0 liter front wheel drive auto, I have a set here, small helix angle, will check c to c dim on that later this week..
Another way might be to get two sets of winters gears of one of the lower ratio combinations [ eg something with a tooth count like 20/34 ] and if the pitch dia of the the larger gear was 4.5" use the two large gears.
mind you, there is nothing wrong with the 'morse hi-vo' type chain/sprocket setup used in a lot of 4wd transfer cases... also the gears from a range rover transfer case might be around the right dia..
Have you checked out the shaft center distances for some of the truck stuff like road ranger etc, might be something you could use there as well..
Reason I ask is you 'might' be able to find a set of gears with 4.5" centers.
One possibility is the gears out of a Nissan 3.0 liter front wheel drive auto, I have a set here, small helix angle, will check c to c dim on that later this week..
Another way might be to get two sets of winters gears of one of the lower ratio combinations [ eg something with a tooth count like 20/34 ] and if the pitch dia of the the larger gear was 4.5" use the two large gears.
mind you, there is nothing wrong with the 'morse hi-vo' type chain/sprocket setup used in a lot of 4wd transfer cases... also the gears from a range rover transfer case might be around the right dia..
Have you checked out the shaft center distances for some of the truck stuff like road ranger etc, might be something you could use there as well..
Good to hear from you Jac Mac, and as always good advice. I have thought I will mount the pinion shaft dead centre so I could just swap out to a rear C/P set as the Nissan C/Ps are the same front or rear as far as size and pinion height are concerned and they fit the same carrier.
I need to go for a QC ratio that will take my 4.1 C/P to around 3.0 to 3.4 so around a .75 overdrive. I had thought about the Winters gears as you surgest but talking to the Winters guys a while back thay told me you can't mix and match the gear sets.
To be honest I hadn't thought about using some thing from a truck box or as you say an auto box etc. I did think about just using the gears from another 4x4 Nissan box but the one I have now is 84mm centre's and the bigger GQ box was 100mm.
Now you have me thinking and I will have a look at using say 1st and 2nd gears rather that using the main and ley shaft gears so that would give me a bigger spead on the shaft's. Thanks for getting my thinking out of the box again. BTW I have you to thank for the final design so to speak. I hunted down your old thread and was looking at the photo of your wooden mock up then looked at the T44 case, if you look at my side profile you can sort of see a little T44 influence in it. Any way I'm going down stairs to drag thos gears out and see what it will give me for shaft centre's. Cheers Leon.
I need to go for a QC ratio that will take my 4.1 C/P to around 3.0 to 3.4 so around a .75 overdrive. I had thought about the Winters gears as you surgest but talking to the Winters guys a while back thay told me you can't mix and match the gear sets.
To be honest I hadn't thought about using some thing from a truck box or as you say an auto box etc. I did think about just using the gears from another 4x4 Nissan box but the one I have now is 84mm centre's and the bigger GQ box was 100mm.
Now you have me thinking and I will have a look at using say 1st and 2nd gears rather that using the main and ley shaft gears so that would give me a bigger spead on the shaft's. Thanks for getting my thinking out of the box again. BTW I have you to thank for the final design so to speak. I hunted down your old thread and was looking at the photo of your wooden mock up then looked at the T44 case, if you look at my side profile you can sort of see a little T44 influence in it. Any way I'm going down stairs to drag thos gears out and see what it will give me for shaft centre's. Cheers Leon.
Hi jackmac, remembered that I had thought of it before and then remembered why I couldn't use just main shaft gears DUH!! so I'm still keen on the chain or using Winters gears and have a couple of idlers made, it would require 2 as they will need to be quite small and 1 wouldn't hack it. Anyway dropped the wheels, B/Housing, the rear cover and top shaft moulds to the foundry on Friday so will have them done by the time I get home in a month so there will be lots of maching to do. I will then do the shafts. 2 to be made and one to be turned and splined to take a gear/sprocket. Then I just have to finish the pattern for the diff housing and we are starting to have something that looks like a transaxle. Cheers Leon
Hi Delynn, Nice transaxle you have produced,I hpoe you are getting some return for your efforts now. As for splines and ratios ? not decided on slines as yet because I was going to use Winters Gears, so I would have just used their 10 sline configuration and if I go the chain way I will just continue the sline that is already on the shafts which is 31 spline which is the Nissan axle sline as I'm using a short side axle for the pinion shaft. I still have to decide the best way to connect the pinion to it. I will how ever keep your offer in mind. As said earlier this is deffinitly a prototype to get the design, function and casing's sorted, refining the shafts and final drives may come as testing shows up the weak points. Thanks Leon.
Hi all
Leon go for the transaxle.
One mistake you are making is rinning the crown wheen in reverse. Won't last long and been there. A few years ago and yes was a kit car Did one 20 years ago and failed with in 15,000 Km.
You got to run the crown when and ponion in the correct direction.
Other modification to do is to turn the Gear box on its side and this will bring the top now top in line with the crown wheel
Gear shift, I know that you done some work to move it to the side. As the box is on its side the change will need to come out of the top. I will post the idea of doing this tomorrow with photos.
Leon go for the transaxle.
One mistake you are making is rinning the crown wheen in reverse. Won't last long and been there. A few years ago and yes was a kit car Did one 20 years ago and failed with in 15,000 Km.
You got to run the crown when and ponion in the correct direction.
Other modification to do is to turn the Gear box on its side and this will bring the top now top in line with the crown wheel
Gear shift, I know that you done some work to move it to the side. As the box is on its side the change will need to come out of the top. I will post the idea of doing this tomorrow with photos.
Hi Dopple..
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Please check our forum rules here: GT40s.com - FAQ. Paying close attention to rule 2 about your user name. That would be very much appreciated!
Thank you.
Hi Doppel, The crown wheel is a front from a Nissan Patrol so it is running in the right direction, they are reverse cut. There is a good reason for running the shifter out to the right hand side, the car its going in has a right hand gearshift and its a lot harder to to wind the rod shift around the motor than it is to run it to the side (as per LG Hewland) I had looked at lying the box on its side as you suggest and it does make it easy for the shifter as you can use the orginal set up but it makes packaging the pinion shaft and QC gears harder as doing it the way I have it looks nicer and is easy to bolt to the top of the main case. Its always good to get feed back and appreciate your input, look forward to seeing your pictures of you transaxle. Cheers Leon.
Hey guys had a slight change of direction for the diff, I have purchaced a GTR diff this helps with a couple of things, 1) I dont need to run an idler gear or chain drive so I can sort something with the winters gears as it is a 3.2:1 ratio so I can run 1:1 in the QC. 2) it has the stub axles for the the drive axles so I don't need to custom make them. Now I'm trying to get some axles. this is the BIG diff and uses the 6 bolt axles which are a little harder to find, the ones with the diff had already been sold. What I have been reading these diffs have a 9" crown wheel and can handle 800+hp in thr RWD skylines and I've seen over 1000hp in GTRs so should fit the bill.
More coming soon as I get home. Cheers Leon.
More coming soon as I get home. Cheers Leon.
I think that will be same axle assy as the 300zx 91>>, if so they are easy finds on T-Me, got a couple here, they have long/shot half shaft for respective sides...one thing to check for...if it has a torsen type diff similar to tru-trac or quaifemake sure you use the correct rotation for your application-torsen-tru/trac quaife etc dont work correctly in reverse, need gears swapped side for side.
Hi Jac Mac, I have arrived home and My diff was here so stripped it out of the housing to get a good look at it, This is the R230 Diff, found in the GTR and the 300zx TT. the non Turbo 300zx use the R200 The number is the Crown wheel size in mm. I was pretty impressed at the stoutness of this thing, I have a Patrol front diff here and this thing is way bigger in the bearings both side and pinion, the axles are the same 1.25"x31 spline and the crownwheel on the Patrol is 9 bolts compared to the R230 at 12 bolts the same size and it is the Viscous LSD. I think it will be the ticket. Cheers Leon.
