The Frankenprotege rallycar worklog

[808]

I'm hoping to find a car to ride in for Mt. Hood...

[jay]

Heh... well if'n my codriver can make it or not, that event is on the go-to list. I've heard good things about those roads. Here's where we left it yesterday. Can't really tell what it's hanging up on but didn't have any time to look. With any luck, John got it buttoned up after I left...

Oh and BTW, when dealing with this gearbox, you want to make sure the shifter on the box doesn't get to move. At all. I thought we were doing OK watching that, but one way or another the linkage is now separated from the rods. So once we get it all bolted up, we "get" to take the linkage out and manually realign the &^%ing shift rods. No, I am not surprised in the least that this happened. It is perfectly in line with the way this project is going. Fighting, every step of the way...

[808]

Hood is a damn good race. I almost lost my lunch at the end of Fir Mountain (16miles with my shoe melting against the rx7 trans/exhaust), but it was quite the road.

[jay]

You know how some people exist only to serve as a warning to others? I am now that person.
I'm writing this to try and save the next turkey who thinks "why not put a toyota box in a mazda?" and actually tries it. Cuz there are a few details that I have yet to see mentioned elsewhere. Foibles, really, of the toyletta gt4 gearbox, that, if you know about them ahead of time, will save you much pain and agony.
They tell you that you have to remove the xfer case, in order to get the gearbox on the car. Furthermore, they tell you that this, as well as reinstalling the case, is not that difficult. What they DON'T tell you is to never, ever *ever* move the shift linkage. Just don't, not till it's in the car and attached to the cables. You know how if you rotate a Mazda gearbox without stub axles in the diff, the spider gears fall out of place, and you're screwed? Well, this thing will overextend the shift actuator if you so much as breathe on it, making you take the side cover off to get to the shift rods so you can move them into place so you can remove the shift mechanism so you can realign the forks so you can get neutral so you can reassemble the sonofabitch. And if you have a fresh rebuilt box, you can get a synchro ring sticking enough that despite your best efforts to put the thing in neutral, it will still be in gear.
And the xfer case Will Not allow itself to be reinstalled if the trans is in gear.
They also don't tell you (almost anywhere) that it is quite possible, easy really, when trying to figure that mess out, to put the gearbox into more than one gear at the same time. This makes it even more fun. But the thing talks, and eventually we learned to listen, when it said "hey dummy, I won't go back together till you get my guts un-knotted" and we did, and now the engine, trans, and xfer case are all one unit. Now maybe we can start in on motor mounts.

[808]

So when its time to swap my rally car I should call you? How much harder will it be in a bf ya think?

[jay]

No idea. ASSuming both cars have the same engine bay dimensions, it shouldn't be any harder.

[bomdoutscort]

Lift the car up over the engine and tranny with the xfer bolted to it. Could that be a solution?

[jay]

Oh yes, this is the program. The car is on a lift, the drivetrain will be on a dolly, and we will drop the car down onto it and then suspend it from the strut towers, then make parts to fit. I was thinking this was going to be the hard part but I bet it'll go easier than what we've been fighting. This'll just be straight fabrication...

[therieldeal]

i did run into that shift linkage problem the night i installed my LSD, but may have forgotten to mention it on the forum... part of the linkage swung down out of place, and we had to open it back up in order to get it realigned. i'm assuming this is the problem you had?? luckily we noticed prior to reinstalling 5th gear and all that fun stuff, so it wasnt a huge delay

[jay]

yeah that was part of the problms, anyhow...

[SgtRauksauff]

*making a note....*

--sarge

[808]

The more I think about it the more appealing a PAR gearset is... Have you had any issues with the box itself like the B6T trans does?

[therieldeal]

who is that directed at, and which box do you speak of?

[808]

Mostly Jay.. the b6t awd box has some flex issues as well as crap gears so when it flexes it makes the crappy gears really stand out/shatter/crack/strip...

[jay]

I think there have been a few folks that have busted the case on the bpt trans. The PAR gearset doesn't address the fact that the centerdiff is too small and too weak either. It's pissin me off the effort this swap is taking but it'd piss me off even more to spend bank on a PAR gearset and have the centerdiff frag and take the gearset with it. It just doesn't look like there's an easy way to get there from here, but with any luck this car will hold together enough to make it all worthwhile!
Today we took the box/case back off so we could make threads in the main block hole and the unthreaded matching hole in the adapter plate on the intake side. That way we can make a bracket that ties into that hole, the plate, and 2 holes and 1 stud on the xfer case, thus increasing the number of places that will hold things in place. This gives me the warmnfuzzies.