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

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taza
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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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El_Freddo
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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:

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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):

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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:

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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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Post by NachaLuva » Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:36 pm

Thats what I thought too but then I looked at Mum's Jazz, it does 2200rpm at 100kph & its only a little 1.5L.

With the bigger muddies on mine does 2800rpm at 100kph (GPS) & I got a bit over 8L/100km on the freeway even though those are really heavy
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Post by El_Freddo » Thu Jul 09, 2015 11:26 pm

Chalk and cheese! 2wd, most likely lighter and a much newer engine management system etc.

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Post by El_Freddo » Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:05 pm

And gearbox (again), probably less than 1000k's on it:

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At least nothing is broken this time. Last weekend I was headed out for a day trip in the Cobaws with some mates. I hooked up my low range lever only to find that I couldn't for the life of me select low range, or just get it out of high range for that matter.

So a strip down was done and I believe the issue was this little tab sitting out of place like this:

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When it should be sitting more like this:

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This now leads me to believe that I've either placed it in high range during assembly past the dedent ball or that it's been allowed past the dedent ball's locating position. Note that the selector hub above is hard up against the low range drive gear. This seems to uncover too much of those tabs and allows them to move from where they should be located. I believe it should sit more like this:

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So now some work has gone into creating a mechanical lock out that stops the selector hub from moving too far forward AND a relocation of the dedent ball positions. This work is all thanks to my Uncle who provided the handy work on the braising required.

No pics of that work yet. Next will be to test the movement of the selector fork in the cases without anything else in position - if there's too much friction there I'll easily be able to check it out and rectify it. If it moves freely we're sweet.

Update later! I'll be busy building then hopefully offroading for a couple of days ;)

Cheers

Bennie
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Post by tambox » Mon Sep 28, 2015 9:19 pm

Yep, when playing with different casings/gears, that little plate with the detent holes often has to be re-drilled/extended.

Another common way to pop those tabs out is when the input shaft slips forward and the shafts are pushed back together, during assembly, can cause that.

Got an oil feed for the low range??
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Post by El_Freddo » Sat Oct 17, 2015 7:41 pm

So the long awaited update is here!

So after modifying the L series low range selector fork with new dedent balls and a mechanical lock out so that the selector hub can't go too far when in high range.

New dedent ball positions:

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Mechanical lock out - is only used if the selector hub tries to go further than it should:

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One of the reasons for this mod was because I thought the tabs trying to come out was why the gearbox was stuck in high range, the other, after pulling the gearbox apart was because I didn't think the dedent ball and spring could hold the selector hub where it needed to be and could go further due to the input shaft having a larger gap between the synchro hub and the low range synchro:

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^ note the gap between the synchro (gold) and synchro hub (grey) on the RHS of the selctor hub (centre of pic), compare this to the other side. The gap on the right is larger than the left. This is AFTER the shim on the input shaft bearing's housing was removed. It was WAAAAYYY too big for my liking with the shim.
I don't know how I didn't notice that when I first put the gearbox back together.

The other thing was that none of this was actually the issue in the end - I found out that the cause of the whole locked issue was a little washer. The rest of the work can therefore be put down to refinement ;)

You can see the little washer in this pic, just out of focus in the top right (from the previous post):

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With that sucker removed and the cases together it all works smooth as silk!

I also threw in some new front diff bearings and seals too:

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Sooo shiny! The old ones had a definite track in them, plus Paul (RSR555) put a bit of doubt in my mind when he saw them. Throw in a whirring noise at speed and I thought it best to swap them. For the ~$90 it was worth it even though I've still got the whirring noise - probably due to either the tyres being misaligned or the new Nolathane radius rod bushes I've installed.

I really wanted to do something about my speedo being out by 4km/h, over from what was indicated - easiest way to get a ticket in Vic. My mini collection of speedo drive gears was in Shepp and I was doing the build in Cobaw. I managed to find one gear - a 27 tooth unit. I counted what I had (stock SG 4.11:1 speedo drive gear) and found this unit had 28 teeth.

From what I can remember the 27 toothed unit came from a 3.7 gen 1 or gen 2 liberty - it was so long ago I don't really remember. The 28 tooth and fitted 27 tooth drive gear:

Image

So it was time for the finally assembly:


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