Ruby Scoo’s epic build, ten years and counting...

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El_Freddo
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Post by El_Freddo » Sat Feb 14, 2015 3:18 pm

taza wrote:Looks great mate. With my syncro hub we found that 4mm wasnt enough after taking that much off.. must of been to fit on this later model shaft. Non then less it went on without having to grind down the circlip holding it on so it was a firm fit.
I think I asked for 4.2mm. From reading the FSM I think there are different thickness clips for this exact reason. I used one that was the tightest fit without an issue.
taza wrote:Still going to keep using the OBX front LSD? Does it have stubs 25 spline? Or did you go 23 spine to suit L series shafts?
Absolutely! It came 25 spline. The MPFI and MPFI turbo L's use the 25 spline shafts so off the shelf units are readily available. It works well and I would not build up a gearbox without a front LSD!
NachaLuva wrote:Nice work. I know its frustrating its going to take so long but it will be worth it!

$20 to machine the synchro, sounds pretty good
I'm getting more frustrated about it as time goes on. I'll have to make sure I slow down while doing the work to get it right the first time.

I was stoked with $20. Thought it would be more than that!
pezimm wrote:Ohhh, I was hoping we were going to organise a trip for that long weekend?!?! Robe????
If I could do a trip over the long weekend I'm not sure I'd want to do Robe - too much time wasted in driving there and back with little time for offroading.

A Wombat/Lerderderg or Cobaw or Mt Cole would be good though. Hopefully I'll have 3 days in a shed working on the my offroader!

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by El_Freddo » Wed May 27, 2015 9:15 pm

Holy crap, I can't believe it's been this long since an update! Apologies!

So the build has taken a turn. All was going well, I got the cases bolted together without issue until something told me to check that all gears could be selected and could be turned over.
All good until I tried reverse - it wouldn't select reverse properly. So I pulled it apart, everything checked out, put it back together and same issue. I did this again with the L series reverse slider gear and I still had the problem.

More in investigation and it seems that I need to use the L series slider gear and have the reverse drive gear shaved by about 1mm. I didn't go down this route.

New plan has been to swap everything into the SG cases. That's stalled on the account of lack of time. No happy with how it's progressed but I'm hoping to get sometime to play with it in the very near future, even though I've now got a Brumby engine to sort out too, and work load is about to dramatically increase :(

Can't wait to get Ruby Scoo going though! I need some bush/camping therapy once again! It's been too long since getting out there...

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by NachaLuva » Thu May 28, 2015 11:27 am

Thats a bugger! I think the SG box is the way to go though.
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Post by taza » Thu May 28, 2015 6:40 pm

Use a later SG gearsrt if you can get hold of one. Or a gen 4 outback box is the same.
SG 05-07
Gen 4 OB 04-08
The outback has a slightly shorter 5th than the SG one by 200rpm at 100kmhr.

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Post by El_Freddo » Fri Jun 12, 2015 11:38 pm

taza wrote:Use a later SG gearsrt if you can get hold of one.
That's what I'm using. That's what caused all of my issues. There's a difference in the reverse slider gear and the reverse drive gear that makes this combination not fit in the phase 1 gearbox cases without major mods to gears that I wasn't happy to do.

So now I've turned my efforts to the SG phase 2 cases to fit my gears into. Last real piece of the puzzle was sorted this week - the change of the bearing on the input shaft with an interference bush to fit to the L series low range input shaft.

Now it's just down to time in the shed to sort out the diff and I have to add my low range oil feeders too. Then it's game on.

And painting - lots of painting to the underside of Ruby Scoo while the gearbox is out. I'm hoping that next weekend (20th) I'll get a couple of coats on in the red oxide, week after a couple in a black kill rust final coat stuff. Then the gearbox and everything can go back in :twisted:

Game plan is by the end of the school holidays Ruby Scoo will be rolling again. Oh, and I've got to pay the bloody rego too :evil:

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by taza » Sat Jun 13, 2015 10:41 pm

Fun fun!
Ive got 4 rego's to pay! Biggest problem with multiple cars :(

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Post by El_Freddo » Tue Jun 30, 2015 2:16 am

I've seen some progress today! Hopefully I'll see more tomorrow and will have a "pic update" soon :D

I learnt a few things about putting the rear centre diff housing back together, little things like put the dog clutch in before you mount the diff and rear plate of the gearbox...

The L's low range custom bearing/bearing with a bush setup dropped straight into the larger phase II input shaft housing without an issue.

Got a few small things to do tomorrow before I can hopefully get the gearbox back to one piece :mrgreen:

Shed time = good times at the moment! :twisted:

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by NachaLuva » Tue Jun 30, 2015 10:36 am

Great that Ruby Scoo is getting closer to being back on the tracks :)
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Post by El_Freddo » Tue Jun 30, 2015 8:37 pm

So here it is. The big step forward yesterday was the setting up of the front diff. Made much easier by only putting in the diff and pinion shaft and lower gearset in, leaving the input shaft on the bench allowed me to see this:

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I also got another coat of paint on the important places under the belly and up the trans tunnel. Got another one or two to go before I can install the gearbox when it's back in one piece.

Today I got the low range oil feeders sorted on the SG cases:

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^ I love this vice!

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And now I realise that I didn't get a pic of the thread tapping stage. There is one issue with how I've done this - I'll talk about that more later when I have a pic to share that show it.

I also noticed that I had to shave part of the dedent ball casting to fit the L low range selector fork, so I thought a dremel would be a good way to get rid of it, but Vin had a better and much more impressive tool:

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The finished result:

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Very happy with it and came up 100 times better than it could've ever been with a dremel!

Next was to drill out the barb fittings to be a proper 1/4 inch diameter to fit the copper pipe:

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^ While a little fuzzy you can see the lip from drilling this barb out to 1/4 inch. After this the copper tubing was soldiered into the barbs and I called it a day from here.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the barbs and low range sorted, swap the gear selector rods back into the SG cases, fit the input and pinion shafts then possibly have the front cases back together. Once this is done I'll double check the diff oil seals as they've proven to be a right royal pain in the arse with the spring tension ring. They keep coming off unless I remove the bearing carriers after the diff is installed.

I'm really looking forward to this gearbox being back together and being in a position of having it reinstalled into Ruby Scoo.

And then I've got to pay rego before I can drive her :evil:

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by Tweety » Tue Jun 30, 2015 10:08 pm

Great work. Must be school holidays eh.... :) Good to get some solid hours in.
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Post by El_Freddo » Tue Jun 30, 2015 10:12 pm

Yeah mate it is. Already a quarter of it gone and it's only going to keep disappearing much to my disgust!

Another week tacked on would be tops :twisted:

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by Silverbullet » Wed Jul 01, 2015 6:31 am

Well done mate, absolutely solid effort :) Not many (if any!) people on here have gone to the lengths you have of modifying a gearbox so. Or if they have they haven't posted about it. Really impressed!

I can only look and dream about going to such lengths one day with my wagon project, but one look at a gearbox exploded view in a book scares me sufficiently enough to not even contemplate it.
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Post by El_Freddo » Wed Jul 01, 2015 5:15 pm

It's all Lego SB, for some of it a puller and press could be handy!

Generally it's pretty straight forward unless you're doing something that isn't a factory option (eg L series low range).

I gotta get back to it. My day hasn't gone how I hoped - nothing gearbox related ;)

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by El_Freddo » Wed Jul 08, 2015 1:04 am

Silverbullet wrote:Well done mate, absolutely solid effort :) Not many (if any!) people on here have gone to the lengths you have of modifying a gearbox so. Or if they have they haven't posted about it. Really impressed!
I was thinking about this the other day - I'm not the first to do this! I'm following in the footsteps of the guy who first built my gearbox, and having mates and mate's family that can help out with bits and pieces has seen this done cheaper and sometimes quicker/neater than I could have on my own!

Gearbox update:

Ok, so I left you off with the building of the oil feeders. During install and shaping in the gearbox one of them broke - which was a good thing as frustrating as it was at the time!

To fit the front one I had to do some shaving as you can see here:

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Shaved so that the barb's thread can mate neatly with the tapped thread in the gearbox case:

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L series Low Range side or transfer gears:

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Oil feeders installed and shaped to clear the spinning gears while still pointing oil in the direction it's needed (double checked with the input and top shaft installed):

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I had to swap the L series Low Range Input Shaft into the bearing and housing of the SG gearbox. I followed Phizinza's guide from his forum here.

Here are the input shafts for the low range, on the left the SG 1.19:1, on the right the L series 1.59:1:

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On the top the SG, bottom is the L:

Image

I had to swap the selector rods and forks back into the SG cases, more annoying than anything, at least I didn't have to nut it out again:

Image


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Post by El_Freddo » Wed Jul 08, 2015 1:06 am

Then the rest of the good gear could go in:

Image

When putting the input shaft in, you have to make sure you've got the synchro hub setup on the upper shaft (input gearsets) with the three little tabs inside the hub held in place properly by two circlip like springs. Once you've got these in you have to install the synchro ring.

Here you can see the gold synchro ring and one of the little tabs in the hub (difficult to see in this pic as you can only see the end of it):

Image

In this pic you should be able to make out the little tab better, the bottom edge of the selector fork is in line with the end of the tab:

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It's very important that these little tabs are lined up with their slot in the gold synchro ring, otherwise it either won't work or one or more of the tabs could fall out:

Image

This is a mock up of the gearbox together after I snapped the soldering on one of the low range oil feeders - I'm glad I did this as I learnt a few things about putting it together and I also realised over night that I forgot to fit the little arm piece on the selector arm that keeps the arm in the selector fork pieces (if that makes sense) to select gears. Anyway, gearbox:

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Once I actually got the box back together properly with silicone and bolts etc it was time to put it back under Ruby Scoo. I did this with some jack stands and the aid of a motorcycle jack:

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This took a bit of effort to get it in the right spot and on the right angle on the jack, but once it worked all went well. I also found that I had two dowels on one side - one in the engine and one in the gearbox... So I fixed that. I also made sure I had the clutch fork and throw out bearing fitted!

Gearbox going in on the motorcycle jack:

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All went relatively well after this. I've still got a couple of things to do but she runs and did a ~160km "shake down" run today. And making friends already:

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A couple of things about the new box:

- the ratios seem closer together than the last box (I believe it ran the RX turbo ratios)
- speedo reading is about 4km/h UNDER your actual speed, going to see if I can mess around with the cluster to make it more accurate or show a little bit over actual speed
- the 5th ratio I've chosen rev's higher than I calculated, will see what happens there, I *might* swap it back, but it's a lot of work!
- I forgot to add a stud for the lower starter motor mounting bolt, so I've just got one bolt holding it in - I'm not fussed on this as I've run like this before without issue

I forgot how tall Ruby Scoo is! It's awesome to be back in her but she seems to lack that bark I remember her to have. Will have to check out the induction noise through the snorkel as I haven't checked that out yet - too cold to run with the window down!

I've also lost that annoying vibration I had at about the 3000rpm mark - I think it was due to one of those little tabs in the synchro hub falling out in the old box (found it after an oil change!).

Overall I'm pretty happy with it. Ruby Scoo rolled over to 492,000km on the shake down too.

Now to hook up the low range lever and hit some tracks!! When will be the question...

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by El_Freddo » Wed Jul 08, 2015 1:15 am

I should also add that I had issues with the diff seals, the spring ring on the back of them kept popping off. So after the gearbox was together I counted the turns, removed the bearing loaders (for the want of a better name as they're not really carriers) and checked the seals/replaced the little ring.

Then I recounted the turns and locked them in place. I'm very happy with how the diff has been setup. Time will tell on this, but I'm not suspecting any issues.

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by NachaLuva » Wed Jul 08, 2015 11:22 am

Awesome effort, I bet you're so glad to have her going again! :cool:

Nice job on the oil feeders. I've been speaking to a few people who don't have them yet & their LR is already worn. On a built gearbox I would say they're essential. But yours is the 1st AFAIK to have that pipe feeding it directly onto the gearset :twisted:
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Post by El_Freddo » Thu Jul 09, 2015 1:34 am

NL, I've just copied what Rick did. So now I've got a set of phase one front cases with oil feeders as well for a possible future project.

If you don't have that directing tube there's really no point in dropping oil in with just a barb tapped into the case.

So I e put about 500 km on her already and it's great. I'm still debating my choice of fifth ratio... Even so with no cruise to use Ruby Scoo returned 10.7L/100km tonight with 95% on a freeway/highway.

Also noted that there's about 250-300rpm difference between 100 and 110km/h.

NL, I'm keen to know what revs you're pulling at 100 and 110 being that you've got a stock 2L 5th ratio in your gearbox.

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by NachaLuva » Thu Jul 09, 2015 10:42 am

It does just under 3000rpm at 100kph with stock tyres. I'd like it to be about 2500rpm...
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Post by El_Freddo » Thu Jul 09, 2015 3:26 pm

NachaLuva wrote:It does just under 3000rpm at 100kph with stock tyres. I'd like it to be about 2500rpm...
Hmmm. Will have to investigate the 5th ratio I used a little more then. I'm 99% sure I've written it in here somewhere!

As for your desire for lower revs you'll find 2500rpm too low and won't even be good for low gradient changes at speed. I was aiming for ~2850 at 100km/h and have clearly missed that mark. Down changing on hills will most likely eat the economy gains from cruising on flats with those revs. Just something to consider ;)

Also with my last fuel usage figure I forgot to correct the distance travelled so the usage comes down to 10.2L/100km. Not bad but I reckon I could get better with the right 5th ratio. Now that I know what's involved with swapping it I might spend some time playing around to work out the best one to use for my setup. Will be painful but worth it I reckon.

Cheers

Bennie
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