Mating rocklobster to Vit gearbox - how to route gear lever?

Undiplomatic · Just got MTs Joined: 10 May 2010 Odometer: 483

I'm mating a rocklobster to the gearbox on my Vitara, having removed the original Vitara tbox.

The two boxes are rigidly mated together, and joined using an effectively solid propshaft. The bracket design is loosely based on the Wolferines one that used to be sold in Germany.

I'm hoping to fit it into a Vit that has zero body lift. I'll need to cut out part of the floor under the drivers seat to make this happen and then box in the rocklobster.

I need to figure out the route for the tbox gear lever as that will effect where I weld in the cross members on the bracket. But my car us inaccessible at the moment, so I don't have the means to figure out which way the gear lever needs to go to get through the original hole in the Vitara cockpit.

Has someone done this before and have any hints?

The picture looks like I'm only putting in three cross members. There are in fact five. Two are underneath. They are made of 6mm bar, so should be strong enough.

The studding is simply to hold the plates in alignment while I weld. I've aligned the boxes to be parallel, and with coincident axis etc.

To explain what's going on... I've made three oversized plates. One is attached to the end section of the Vit gearbox. Two are attached to the rocklobster (one at the top, one at the bottom). The plates are temporarily held together with studding to align the boxes while I weld in cross members. Once the cross members are in then the studding is removed, and the plates are cut down to their final size.

If the project works then I'll get the bracket measured up with a Faro arm and can have more manufactured if anyone wants one.

jerry h · Just got MTs Joined: 08 Sep 2011 Odometer: 224

Rockwatt.

vitara_mad · Posted: Mon May 06, 2013 3:05 pm Post subject:

i don't see how you could do the lever without fitting the box first

suzukivit1 · Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 11:40 am Post subject: .

rockwatt · Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 7:29 pm Post subject:

Umm where to start ??
the hole in the vit floor where the transfer lever goes will be roughly where the word rocklobster is in the pic.

attempting to solidly mount the cases that close without being 100% true will end in premature bearing failure. Also mounting the case that far forward in the chassis with a low rear output will also require the crossmember to removed or modified (and if its for the road will then fall foul to iva)

mounting the box inline also results in the box sitting flat and it really needs the lean back 4deg in order to have the front prop in bridge and rear prop in Z configuration. Again resulting in prop vibs due to the rear prop running in 2 planes causing again premature bearing failure.