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Well, the 2012 saga begins.
Pulled everything out of my garage (which is now 4 stalls smaller than it used to be) and cleaned the floor, and put stuff away neat and tidy:
Washed the Protege up for the first time in about 7 months:
Got the bikes put aside for now, and pulled her in for the "surgery"
Not a bad shine for a 10 year old car?
The teardown will start this week. Trans is coming apart, and there may be a surprise planned to replace it. Have to wait and see!
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Registered User
Well, there's your problem!
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Registered User
Tapered roller bearings are good at two things. They handle axial loads, as well as thrust loads. (The gears coming apart, and the tendency of the gears to also push "up" under high loads.)
Ball bearings, and straight roller bearings that matter are not designed for high thrust loads. This video illustrates what happens with helical gears when a high amount of resistance is applied. FF to 1:40
I've rebuilt more than half a dozen motorcycle transmissions, all use ball bearings. However, all also have straight cut gears. I'm not about to buy a full $7000 PAR gearbox, nor do I want to simply "drop in" say 3rd and 4th gear. I want to come up with a reliable, affordable solution to this damn transmission. Some are quick to point the finger at the actual integrity of the metal that makes up the gears. I disagree with this, Focus even did a hardness test on stock and GTX gears back in the day. The GTX gears were harder, but its not like either were made of spaghetti.
No, the problem lies with the fact that when stuffing 3-4 times the designed horsepower through the transmission, the design simply can't handle it, and that's what I've set out to remedy. I've decided that I WILL NOT RUN straight cut gears. Some may scoff at this, but this is not a "stripped down" race car. I want to keep my A/C, have a stereo, power steering, and a comfortable interior so I can take my family on a sunday drive through the mountains without my ears ringing. I guess you can say my tastes have "matured" somewhat, and I value an ounce of practicality along with performance.
The main issue here (C6 Z06 guys struggle with this too) is that the damn gears pull apart under that much load. The trick now is to come up with a fix for it. The PAR reinforcement cups in my opinion don't do much. They reinforce the area directly around the bearing race, but they don't add much to the case itself as far as structural rigidity. I came across this one piece plate that looks like it does a much better job:
Might look into something like this. Then again, what do you do about the other side of the shafts? The output shaft is pretty well supported, but I'd like to reinforce that pinion shaft somehow. The research continues...
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dammit, I hate catching up to the "end" of a cool thread...and realizing it's still a work in progress.
Like when I watched the first season, then half of the second season of The Wire. then I had to wait for a whole fucking week for every episode after that.
heh.
Registered User
Rebuilding my truck right now instead. You can follow it. Search for "project white lightning"
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