new drive shaft

golden wagon

does anyone know how expensive it is to remove the viscous coupling in the rt4wd and put in a new drive shaft to make it awd? i have an 89 wagon and i really want to do this if its feasible

kleancut

someone give the man an answer, i wana know too!

golden wagon

come on people!

davens

To my knowledge, no one here has done it, but its been discussed a few times.

Doing the actual swap is very feasible...custom driveshaft shops create this kinda stuff all the time. The two big unknowns are:
1. Will a stock rt4wd transfer case, that is designed to occasionally transfer power to the rwd assembly, be happy running nonstop before it wears out completely?
2. The same applies to the rear differential...it wasn't designed to deliver mile after mile but short bursts as conditions needed.

I'd start with some high end tranny and diff fluid, already having spares lined up, and saying a little prayer.

Haydz

Hondawagonsts has done it and autocrosses his wagon.

golden wagon

there we go now we're getting somewhere haha

golden wagon

has anyone heard of a beefed up transfer case and/or rear diff?

shenrie

When I was looking for someone to biuld me a custom driveshaft I ran into a common problem. Might not be a big issue in larger cities, but here nobody had a way to build a custom drivline that had a joint in it and nobody wanted to dick with the coupler in the D-series driveline.

Everybody told me that it would be cheaper to jsut replace it with a different used one or new not understanding my situation. I got a few quotes to have what I needed built but all were in excess of 500 bucks, the most expensive being 950.

I think that if you wanted to have a custom driveline built, one without a coupler that you might be able to do this. BUT, your going to have to find some kind of slipjoint and universal joints to match up to your stock setup.

Davens has some good points, but reading how the awd stuff works, I dont think they will be an issue, plus I dont think your going to get the disired effect going by what the article says anyway. It states that the rear output is driven by a hydrolic pump that only sends power to the rear wheels if it sees the front wheels are slipping. So unless your front wheels are slipping your not going to get power to the rears to have the fulltime awd effect your looking for.

Im by no means saying it wont work, but more research is needed for sure. And if you can find me a breakdown of how these trannies are put together, please let me know!!

golden wagon

hmmm this seems more difficult than i thought haha im still going to look for stuff though. in the sticky for rt4wd it said that you could just weld the vicious coupling together does anyone think this would work?

D

shenrie wrote:

And if you can find me a breakdown of how these trannies are put together, please let me know!!

What exactly do you want to know?

I have manuals for the early 84-87 6 speed (and 2 of them sitting in the garage), and the CRV manual 5 speed (and one of those in the garage).

AFAIK, all the realtime/early 4x4 units have twin ring gears on the diff, the auxiliary used to drive the transfer section. The 6 speed also has auxiliary shaft used for the SL gear. It's generally a lightly modified version of the honda manual transmissions. I'll be tearing into the CRV unit eventually to confirm gear ratios.

D

turbo_teg

ive always wanted to know if u did say get a solid (no more viscous coupler) driveline made then removed your front axles but leave your half shaft in, inner part of your pasenger axle, and your axle ends still in so your tranny didnt leak all its fluid and so your wheel bearings wouldnt get torn up would it work as a rear wheel drive?

shenrie

turbo_teg wrote:

ive always wanted to know if u did say get a solid (no more viscous coupler) driveline made then removed your front axles but leave your half shaft in, inner part of your pasenger axle, and your axle ends still in so your tranny didnt leak all its fluid and so your wheel bearings wouldnt get torn up would it work as a rear wheel drive?

Im trying to find out an answer to this as we speak. If anything else, Im going to try it this summer. Got plenty of broken axles laying around to give it a try.

turbo_teg

i think my axles are starting to go so i may just dismantle them if this worx. there is a drive shaft place about an hour from where i live im going to see if they can help me out.

shenrie

After geting a little more info on how the crv stuff works, Im not so sure this will work for me. At least it wont work like I want it too anyway. More research needed.