Hey everyone,
Quick update for why I was MIA for so long. Family surgeries family deaths... Not the best start to the year or the way I wanted to end the weekend I planned to work on it. Anyway life seemed to settle down now... Although in the process of selling the house so... I dont have a shop right now. (Not related, but if your following the project and want to help work on it with me... I'm in the magnolia area, looking for shops in the shoreline/Seattle area) Enough of pity help.
If you didn't want to read that... READ STARTING HERE for no sob stories. Lets talk!
First off I want to talk about why I would weld the half shaft. Post #101 has this graph
You can see the half shaft goes straight through the central diff/ Transfer case. Refer to post #97 for more of my in depth research on how the transfer case works in newer awd Toyota. After that day I saw this quote somewhere
"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it" -Bill Gates
Although me and 2jz differ on the option of welding the halfshaft and intermediate shaft together I want to show the pros and cons of it.
First off I will list the cons
1). You will need to find a half shaft that is strong enough to hold the torque.(more on this later in the post)
2). You will need a stig/tig welder to weld the half shaft to the intermediate shaft along with welding experience.
3). If you dont have a lsd then if the right wheel slips all other three wheels wont spin
4). Put little more stress on the transmission.
Now lets talk about the pros
1). Easier way to mount the transfer case and have it work.
2). Always Awd as long as passenger side spins.
3). If you have a LSD you will have full time AWD
4). Less hassle to install.
5). Easier to remove after install (wont need to drop transmission just remove halfshaft and unmounted transfer case)
6).100% drive to all the wheels well... pretty close to 100% no split.
7).Limits the possibility of breaking the transmission.
Anyway lets not talk about this too much because this is uncharted territory and we cant really compare pros and cons without doing it.
I want to explain why I want to do this though...
First off from looking at the rx300 half shaft it looks like its solid. Which usually can handle a lot more torque than a hollow half shaft. Second I dont want to weld the half shaft to the transfer case that would cause lots of different problems and is just plain dumb, but if I take the intermediate shaft that is supposed to be on the transmission transfer case side and flip it on the open end side. I could weld it to the half shaft Effectively welding it in place like this
I have already confirmed it will fit on the other side of the transfer case
Also still fits into the transfer case differential so it would work correct?
Well let me talk a little about why it may not work. First the oil in the transfer case needs to be held in there so a silicone cap/ O-Ring would need to be custom made, but on the other hand that is by far something easy any of us could do. So I feel comfortable welding the intermediate shaft onto the passenger half shaft. I mean after all if I really think about what could break I think about the half shaft snapping... Which I'm sure that anyone of us would say that's a way easier fix that having to fix a transmission. I'm sure alot of people would differ on this and they can I just would like to have a working AWD Celica rather than not having one. I mean easier mounting easier maintenance whats the huge downside here please let me know if I am overthinking and mission something here.
Last off I will try to continue to work on the project. I am looking for a cheap enough garage/ shop (Really hard in Seattle)
