a budget offroad gearbox build and BIG tyres.

So all is good now? Awesome! I hope it stays this way for you for a VERY LONG TIME!

All the gearbox best ;)

Bennie
 
There is one thing in my forester wich is giving my a headache... My tranny
A long story short. We went to spain for an offroad tour/vacation, a 1300km drive before we got there. Halfway a u joint in the driveshaft from the tranny to the reardiff got stuck. Never knew that this was possible. Thanks to facebook page foztrek and offroadsubaru i could buy an used one, with one big disadventage: the part wich you stick in the tranny was badly rusted. I removed the rust as good as i could do and mounted the axle on a camping site.
I was able to drive again, drove the 4x4 tour had a great time, amongst landcruisers and LR discoveries who never thought that a forester could do the things they did but my gear box was leaking badly. Nearly a liter a day. I filled her up every day but it seem that it ran with too low of oil and after my vacation my tranny was slowly starting to make noise. I still drive it but soon it will be taken apart.. again

Now i saw an advertisement of somebody who offer an EA82T tranny, the one with the locking centre diff, full time awd, and if i am right 1.59 low gear.

What do i have to do to make that locking centre diff fit in my phase 1, 4 bolt tranny?

On facebook somebody wrote that it is a bolt on but the house of the centerdiff is shorter then the phase 1 centerdiff house. If so then i need a longer driveshaft do i? Does a legacy
driveshaft solve this problem? Thnx in advance for your answers.
 
Some others on here might be able to give more details of what's involved in that conversion. Are you sure it's full time AWD? If so that would be a good conversion.

Or you could just use the centre diff on your existing gearbox...
 
The h/l reduction in the Ea82T seems to be 1.192. That isn't better then the h/l reduction in a stock SF gearbox. So the best option would be using the gearbox from my SF, with the 4.444 end reduction and the locking centerdiff from the EA82T gearbox.
What i have not figured out is what would i do with the tail piece. Best would be using the SF one because of the needed 1>1 end reduction in the tailpiece. But does these part fit on each other ????.
 
I got your PM Casper. I hope you don't mind me replying here - thought it best to share the info. My build thread on www.ausubaru.com has the same details from post #536 with the story of the build...

You can build your 4.44:1 diff into a box with the L series locking centre diff. There's a fair bit of customisation that's not for the faint of heart!

What you need:
L series AWD locking centre diff and matching rear housing.
L series AWD pinion shaft
EJ pinion and ring gear set of desired diff ratio (final ratio)
Any AWD EJ gearsets/cases (phase one or two).

*if you don't have the long L series AWD pinion shaft the centre locking diff is less than useless*

What you need to do:
Measure length of L pinion shaft.
"Mash" EJ pinion shaft with the L pinion shaft creating it the same length as the original L pinion shaft - AND straight. Place this new hybrid pinion shaft into the EJ AWD lower gearsets, using all of the L series flat bearings, washers and the spacer tube, torquing up to 80 ftlb. Once torqued up ensure the pinion shaft can spin freely with a little bit of friction.

If there's excessive friction, you need to *carefully* shave the spacer tube that passes through the centre of the locking centre diff (mounted on the pinion shaft).

Then it's basically the same as building any other Subaru gearbox...

You will most likely need modified/custom gear shift linkages, tail shaft and gearbox crossmember.

To tell if you're looking at an AWD locking box, the lever that locks the centre diff on the vehicle's right hand side has the pivot low down with the lever arm facing up. The PT4WD single range box has the same sort of lever arm on the same side, but it pivots from high on the side of the box with the lever arm pointing down.

I'm 99% sure the rear output shaft to the tail shaft hasn't changed size or spline count since the L series (or MY for that matter!).

I hope that all makes sense!

Cheers

Bennie
 
El_Freddo said:
I'm 99% sure the rear output shaft to the tail shaft hasn't changed size or spline count since the L series (or MY for that matter!)
Click to expand...

Your probably 100% right, subarus are like lego cars a little hunting and some experimenting and parts from most fit on others!
 
Thanks Bennie, I'd suggested he PM you as someone who could tell him what's involved.

Why did Venom need a custom tailshaft? I thought the AWD locking centre diff housing may have been a different length
 
Thnx Bennie for your answer! I gonna talk with the gearbox builder what this will cost me. Here in Holland i got the advice to search further for a dccd. Bit more expensive to buy, but with the right parts a lot easier to instal.

@Matt the centrediff housing from a L series is 2 cm shorter then my forester gearbox.
One of the reasons why Venom has lengthened the driveshaft when he installed the locker. Later he mounted a dccd set up instead of the fulllock, I didn't find out why he did that.
 
I'll sure make a modification to give the h/l parts more oil, like venom and dedman did.
There is a bearing there which made noise last time, and i'am thinking i'm hearing it again.

Those sombody has an advice what kind of electricpump i have to use for this mod?

It would be so nice if my gearbox would stay in one piece for next several years.
 
Maybe another easier way to have a 1,59:1 is to find a 1.6 or 1.8 '93-'96 Impreza. Differentials are 3,9 so you just need to swap the front to 4,11. Gearing is the same except 5th.
 
^ I'm pretty sure that's a myth. No one has actually found one even if they've been written or referenced in a wsm.

Casper, use the link in my above post. It will show you how to put in the low range oil feeders and fit the L series 1.59:1 low range. The only thing it doesn't have is a description or pics of shaving the ring gear to clear the low range gears as that was done previously.

Since you're using the phase one box you'll need to weld/tig two littl plates in for the oil feeders so there's some metal for the barb's thread to bite into and hold ;)

Venom swapped to the dccd as he miss understood the correct use of the centre locker and ran it open in the sand. As soon as you're off bitumen or hard packed dirt, lock it!

Dccd is easier to come by and has the advantage of still providing an LSD effect on road. The open centre locking diff acts just like any other open diff - it'll transfer power to the path of least resistance. Without my front LSD I could easily spin up the front inner wheel on a turn at an intersection. Dccd wouldn't do this!

Cheers

Bennie
 
casperfromholland said:
One of the reasons why Venom has lengthened the driveshaft when he installed the locker. Later he mounted a dccd set up instead of the fulllock, I didn't find out why he did that.
Click to expand...

El_Freddo said:
Venom swapped to the dccd as he miss understood the correct use of the centre locker and ran it open in the sand. As soon as you're off bitumen or hard packed dirt, lock it!
Click to expand...

Yes, this is the one disadvantage of the locking AWD centre, if it's not locked on a loose surface, it wears out the diff housing, which is what happened with Venom. I'm sure some clever person could find a way to repair it, but atm it's a throw away job when that happens.

Dccd is easier to come by and has the advantage of still providing an LSD effect on road. The open centre locking diff acts just like any other open diff - it'll transfer power to the path of least resistance. Without my front LSD I could easily spin up the front inner wheel on a turn at an intersection. Dccd wouldn't do this!
Click to expand...

A good point! The DCCD is also rear biased 35/65 when unlocked so makes it more driver friendly :biggrin:
 
El_Freddo said:
Dccd is easier to come by and has the advantage of still providing an LSD effect on road. The open centre locking diff acts just like any other open diff - it'll transfer power to the path of least resistance. Without my front LSD I could easily spin up the front inner wheel on a turn at an intersection. Dccd wouldn't do this!
Click to expand...
I believe this is only true if coupled with a DCCD Pro controller or manually engaged with the the scroll wheel on the more basic controller. Without any power going to the coil it acts as an open diff on road, the difference being that more of the torque is sent to the rear. From what I understand the 6 speed DCCD unit has viscous LSD unit built in where as the 5 speed does not.
 
Last edited:
Dedman said:
I believe this is only true if coupled with a DCCD Pro controller or manually engaged with the the scroll wheel on the more basic controller. Without any power going to the coil it acts as an open diff on road, the difference being that more of the torque is sent to the rear. From what I understand the 6 speed DCCD unit has viscous LSD unit built in where as the 5 speed does not.
Click to expand...

Depends on which 6 speed. I am told the later 6 speeds (ADM MY06 on) incorporate a plated LSD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top