Awd 6 speed subaru gears install(hot garbage)

[shermer-high]

Bruce I'm pretty sure your the one who told me how to set up my transmission on Samba thanks for that. I'll also add that using the backlash plastic tool doesn't give the same backlash as when the tool is not installed on a tightened pinion bolt. Also to confirm for others here I have .30 shims. When checking gears I never got long sweeping marks on the ring gear like I've seen on other types of gears in pictures.

[vw1970]

so as far as the R&P goes, Ive decided to run it with no shims and with the gears meshing as they were setup by my local performance transmission shop being as Todd from Subaru gears told me to kick rocks when i suggested his parts were dimentionally different than the OEM ring and pinion(confirmed by local machine shop on a DMM), making it impossible to setup the gears properly. needless to say, I haven't heard back from him... So much for accountability.

I've finally gotten back into the the back half of the transmission and have encountered nothing but problems with the "syncro AWD kit" that is supposed to correct the rotation of the driveshaft for the front differential. It does this by deleting the transfer gears and replacing the transfer gear housing with a billet part. A seemingly great idea for me as it drops the output shaft location by 4" or so and i wont have to flip the front diff to achieve proper rotation for the front tires. The execution by SG has been extremely poor and what i have found is as follows;

Prob#0- No instructions for this kit exist anywhere on the internet and no were suggested by Todd leaving me feeling even more like I was scammed.
Prob #1- The retaining bolts for the housing don't line up to the center diff housing. the fix being over sizing the holes to match the OEM hole diameter. Feels great drilling out a BILLET $1000 part.
Prob #2- My kit didn't come with a seal for the output shaft. Come to find out it's a cv axle seal for a 5spd subi trans which i had to purchase separately and fit well.
Prob #3- My billet cover for a 6spd cable shift transmission($1000) has a huge hole machined in it for a shift rod to pass through... For a 5spd trans. there is the remnants of a shift rod there but it is simply not used to engage shift forks like on the linkage shifted 5spd trans. There is no cover included in the kit and no seal, just a giant open to the world hole. No sure what I'm going to do here yet.
Prob#4- There is a flanged bearing that needs to be removed from the old transfer gears and placed onto the new output shaft. I had to press off the OEM one after removing a retaining c-clip. I went to install it on the new shaft and it simply dropped onto the shaft and the race spins freely on it, loosey goosey. The machined groove for the C-clip is also to low and is hidden by the bearing completely. Again, not sure what to do here.

I will post pictures of these problems next time I have to parts infront of me.

[Bruce2]

I think you are right about the SG pinion shaft having an error in one of the dimensions. I've done 6 conversions so far now, working on my 7th. Every one required significantly less shim thickness for the pinion depth than what Subaru supplied. On top of the 6 I've done, everyone else I've communicated with saw the same.
I'm seeing that the SG pinion takes .2 to .5mm less shim than what Subaru used.
I read your message last week and have thought about it a few times ever since. An easy way to correct the error is to install a shim onto the pinion shaft before sliding the tube over it. In the case where Subaru supplied a thin shim, it is conceivable that going with no shim for the SG pinion might not be enough. By installing a shim at the pinion head, a thicker shim pack will result at the double pinion bearing. Then the pinion will be able to be moved closer to the ring gear.
In your case where you are going with no shims, you won't know if no shims is the ideal position because you can't go less than zero thickness.
I think I'll get some shims made up.

[vw1970]

thanks for the words of conformation with the pinion setup Bruce2. I like your idea and even considered it myself but couldn't find a part from Subaru to address this problem. Guess they didn't expect the parts to be this far out? lol
I have sealed up the trans with the lash setting the trans shop setup(0shims) and will likely break back into it after a few miles run time to see how the parts are fairing. If you do make up some shims I'd love to get some from you!

here you can see the three transfer gear types together. The 5 speed Subaru on the left, the 6speed in the middle and the SG on the right.
IMG_20211012_131839 by Travis L, on Flickr

and here you can see that the oem 6speed gear and the SG replacement have a different height at the shoulder where the main output support bearing rides. Note the absence of a gear on the SG part.
IMG_20211012_131902 by Travis L, on Flickr

the 6speed and 5 speed transfer gear take a bearing with a depth of 17mm. In this photo you can see why where the discrepincy is on the 6speed replacement shaft.
IMG_20211013_211059 by Travis L, on Flickr

[vw1970]

So the saga continues with the poor quality on the Subaru gears parts. I finally got him to send me another output shaft even though he wouldn't admit the the part being all together machined wrong. The best part is that the new one had obviously been modified to correct for the error lol
IMG_20220317_183453 by Travis L, on Flickr
you can see where the shoulder has been re-machined to proper dimension. But at least i didnt have to do the machining like the rest of the faulty parts like the inner bore of the shaft no being precision ground post hardening like the OEM part which meant that the tail end of the pinion shaft would not slip into the needle bearings inside the output shaft. you can see the needle bearings in the oem shaft and the new shaft in this pic:
IMG_20220408_141327 by Travis L, on Flickr
and the needle bearings in this parts photo with part numbers. The bearing in the cable shift 6 speed support the tail end of the pinion shaft as it runs through the center diff unlike the 5 speed trans where it's much shorter and dosent interface with the transfer gears at all.
rear housing snip by Travis L, on Flickr

[vw1970]

So after calling many prescion grinding companies, no one wanted to take on my one off part modification so I had to figure it out on my own like the rest of this entire project.
I started by buying the proper measuring equipment. I then verified the part tapered about .006" from the bottom of the hole for the needle bearings to the front which meant that the shaft would fit nicely with just the deeper bearing installed bot not both as it would interfere outer most bearing and since everything is tight tolerence and hardened here there was no forcing it.
Here you can see my rough setup on the lathe along with the final fit of the old non reveresed pinion.
IMG_20220511_123335 by Travis L, on Flickr
I was able to get a very nice fit and finish with a little hand finishing to a mirror polish.

the next thing i ran into was the flange bearing(not supplied) not fitting into the bore in the "CNCed" rear housing. This bore was also under by 0.010" which Ihad to pay a shop to bore out for me to get the bearing slip in tightly like OEM. Then i notice the mounting flange ears needed grinding down to miss the "CNCed" housing as there was improper clearance there as well
IMG_20220517_143940 by Travis L, on Flickr
you can see where is was contacting the housing in this pic
IMG_20220317_183520 by Travis L, on Flickr
Once that fit I then had to harvest the hardware from the OEM housing and cut them down as there was no hardware supplied ans the holes where much shallower.
rear housing snip 2 by Travis L, on Flickr

[vw1970]

So the hard parts now all fit in the housing after lots of hours modifying a $1000 part.....
The last thing left was to figure out how to plug the gaping hole in the housing open to the inner case/fluid that supposedly there was a "supplied" cap for. There is no mention of it on the website and i was never sent one even after bringing it up in emails multiple times.
You can see in the first pic the ass end of the shifter fork poking through the housing which in the 5speed would be the shift linkage coupler but not the 6 speed. In the second picture you can see my solution. I highly recomend Loctite 680 relaxed fit bearing retainer for instances like this. poop is serious and sets up super fast.
IMG_20220515_110420 by Travis L, on Flickr
IMG_20220515_110557 by Travis L, on Flickr
IMG_20220515_130907 by Travis L, on Flickr

[vw1970]

It seems this nightmare is finally over and I have the Trans sealed up and mounted in the chassis 3yrs later and lots of emails back and forth with Subarugears and little to no help.
Here is a fun pic of what was supplied to me in the AWD kit vs what should be supplied. This doesn't include a lot of equipment needed to correct faults in the parts or lots of resources and man hours.
IMG_20220317_183423 by Travis L, on Flickr
IMG_20220317_183717 by Travis L, on Flickr

Here's a pic of the trans done and a reversed shift cable mount made
IMG_20220523_190630 by Travis L, on Flickr