gearbox adapter plate

[gaz_moose]

i keep blowing up gearboxes on my track car as the standard one is to weak. most people buy an uprated gear set but they cost about £3000 excluding any bearings etc.. i dont have that kind of money to chuck at it so was considering fitting a stronger gearbox off a different car. ive seen people do it and a company in america sell a conversion plate but its $800 and made out of 1 inch alloy so you have to machine the bellhousing aswell so that the input shaft has enough purchase in the spigot bearing etc..

i was thinking of making my own plate out of 5 or 6mm steel like the guy has done below. his plate looks to be 10mm

although i was thinking to use countersunk bolts and weld the ones that the gearbox mounts to. the plate would be about 16" by 16".

what kind of money do you think it would cost to get someone to cut it out if i gave them a template (i was going to use perspex) i could drill the holes and do the welding myself. i guess i could make a slack dozen so i would have a spare and i could 'give' some to others who bust gearboxes aswell

(sorry for the long read)

 

[GrahamGKD]

If I understand it correctly the 'profile' of the thing does not need to be particularly accurate, in which case it should be a fairly easy job with a plasma cutter (and then clean up with an angle grinder). Do you know anyone who has a decent plasma machine close to you? Not sure how much it would cost to have it done commercially as a one off - sorry. If you were to use a hand held plasma torch you would need a template (could be MDF or similar) something like 4mm under size (depending on the torch).

 

[john224]

Hi What engine is it ?? looks like V6 or V8 from pic and what gearbox are you going to use ??
Weve used a gas cutter to cut the center out as dont have to be perfect
as long as its got clearance its ok ,,
You will be ok with 1/4" = 6mm plate then you shouldnt have any probbs with main shaft from the gearbox going in the thrust bearing,,
We have used 3MM plate before to make some but this is hard,,,,

 

[scott0031]

If this is any help to you there is a bit of a running commentary of one i made a few years back now. It should give you some insight to the process used to get things correctly lined up, which is the bit that a lot of people get wrong using half guess work.

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/album.php?albumid=951&page=2


Kind regards,


Scott

 

[welshpug]

hmm, Lexus V8 in a nissan eh.

 

[oz.]

PhilM has done some for himself. He may have some tips for you

 

[Pete.]

You don't need a template, you need to spend a couple of evenings learning basic CAD and make a CAD drawing of your part, then send it to a waterjetter who will cut the profile along with all the holes for the bolts etc. Then all you need to do is countersink the holes for the bolt heads and fit it up.

 

[john224]

As Before What engine and box is it as made a couple phone calls and have rounded up several different addapters so might be able to help you out with full Template!!

 

[Baloo]

well that looks like a ls 400 lexus engine to me. toyota supra box is what most folk follow it with,
that would be an easy one bolts are all on the same pcd arnt they ??

 

[Baloo]

eee gods 2000 dollars no wonder you want to make your own, make 25 and bung em on ebay

http://www.rodshop.com.au/trans_conversions/bh/bh-106a.htm

 

[Baloo]

perhaps a better picture as its a flat plate adapter instead of a casting
http://www.rodshop.com.au/trans_conversions/ap/ap096.htm

 

[Normsthename]

You don't need a template, you need to spend a couple of evenings learning basic CAD and make a CAD drawing of your part, then send it to a waterjetter who will cut the profile along with all the holes for the bolts etc.

After drawing the plate out you can also print out several overlapping A4 sheets at 1:1 scale to check that all the holes and cutouts are correct.
Even easier if you have access to a A3 printer

Andy

 

[Chipper]

Lexus 4.0 and R154 box don't bolt up unfortunately. The Castlemaine Rod Shop ones are supposed to be better than Dellow. When I looked it was about £650 for the kit like 5 years ago, looks like the exchange rate has caned that, now about a grand. Someone in the UK was doing a kit but it was around £1500 all in.
I did have a CAD drawing of each bolt pattern but that PC dies last year, it came from some Lex or Supra website I think so should be out there still.

 

[Chipper]

Found it http://v-eight.com/tech_forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=759
Hope this is the relevant combo! Sorry if not. Seem to recall there was something not perfect about the files, but it's talked about on that forum if I recall.

 

[ford34/2]

laser cutting service, may be of interest

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[gaz_moose]

sorry for starting a thread and vanishing my mate roped me into welding up his transit van.

so 6mm plate sounds ok?

my thinking of using 6mm plate was based on the fact that the engine backing plate was 2mm thick so another 4mm wont hurt......using perspex as a template would make it real simple to mark out the holes. i was thinking of drilling a central hole for the input shaft that the perspex would fit snugly on and using that as a datum point.

think i will just chop the first one out with a grinder.

 

[Henrik]

How do you accurately line up the input shaft, though? And what kind of accuracy is needed?

 

[Baloo]

well it needs to be fairly accurate other wise you will be come very good at changing first motion shaft bearings but its easy to do with clear perspex l have done several,
the way l do it is to stand the gearbox up right with the bell housing upwards, use a vernier to measure the dia of the shaft the clutch plate slides on to, say for example 25mm then machine into the middle of a 2' sq of perspex an accurate 25mm hole, accurate being important ie not done with a hole saw this will then slide down over the first motion shaft and sit on the bell housing mounting face with no free play, you can then spot through for the bell housing bolt holes or if you want to do it accurately make some dowls in the lath that will tap into the bolt holes that have a point on the end, just tapping the px down on these sharp points will give you your hole centres, now you need to measure the back of the crank where the spigot bush is, if it 20mm make a bar that is a good fit in the bush and then steps back up to 25mm, knock this into the back of the crank and slide the px over, repeat as before, you now have all the holes you want on one sheet, either copy in 10mm steel plate or get it drawn up saved as a dxf file and emailed to a lazer cutters and the jobs a good un

 

[gaz_moose]

you described pretty much how i was going to do it. but without the laser cutting (for now). one thing i was concerned with was if i weld countersunk bolts to protrude through the plate to mount the gearbox onto will it make it a real pain to fit the gearbox?

i was curious as to how much it would cost to get cut out but i guess without an example of what i want it would be a guesstimate not an estimate!

 

[Baloo]

l think the laser cutters l use charge £60 an hour for stuff on the laser, an adapter plate would take a couple of minutes to cut out, they would probally charge as 15mins though £15, but they would probally still charge £15 for cutting half a dozen out
about the same as buying a few cutting discs ?

l will ask when l am in there on tues

Andy