when turning the prop flanges, my quaife reverse box is silky smooth in 'normal' mode, but when the reverse is engaged and the prop is rotated, it makes a clunky gear teeth noise and isnt particularly smooth as it turns.

i havent fitted it to the car and tested it for real yet, just wondering if thats normal for these?.

its currently got 250 ml of redline shockproof gearbox oil in.

cheers

i was thinking about putting a reverse on my car may i ask how much its cost you for all the bits and bobs that go with it

the quaife reverse box itsself is usually £700 , and you'll need 2 propshafts instead of one larger one.

theres cheaper options available, but i dont know how well they work.

My box sounds very similar to yours.

I recently took it out to fit a breather pipe onto the outlet (otherwise you get a fine mist spraying all down your trans tunnel and loss of oil over time).

With it on the coffee table (looks lovely, eh?) i did the same as you - spin it in normal - lovely, spin it in reverse- bit clunky and scrapey. Nothing horrendous, just not as nice as in forwards.

This is then the same as when it's in the car, driving normally, hardly notice it's there unless you change gear clumsily, or drive at low speeds it's slightly more shunty then you'd expect, but otherwise nothing bad. In reverse it whines and clunks a bit.

Therefore i'd say it's pretty normal.

Hope that helps,
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cheers adam, thats good to know!

yep, its a work of art alright!

i heard someone joke that they were tempted to put a perspex window on their tunnel to see it, just because 'its a shame to hide something so nice'

ive heard about them chucking oil, but was led to believe it was because they are usually overfilled. was their anything special about your breather mod? did you cannibalise the standard cap?

cheers

When I drained it there was definitely less than 250ml came out.

I didn't use the cap, I bought a couple of fittings from Lister & Sons motorsports in west bromwich, about £15-20, to convert the unusual thread (5/8" bsp or something like that I think) down to a more normal 8mm hose pushfit nozzle.

Then I could route a length of hose up to a high place under the bonnet to let it breathe when necessary, but then just drip back in.

It's kept the underside & back end of my car & even the garage floor cleaner already!

Adam.

there is probably a dog clutch connecting the input and output shafts when in "forwards" which will be smooth. then in reverse, the dog clutch will engage a gear that does the reversing. It is probably the teeth of the gear meshing as it is turned that you can feel. It may be a straight cut gear, which will be more notchy than a spiral cut gear.

Yep, they basically work "straight through" when in forwards mode so the props are locked togehter. When in reverse the two sides are seperated and the drive is put through idler gears or chains etc, hence the reason you cant use a reverse box to reverse the output of an engine that rotates the wrong way, cos it will disintegrate very quickly.

Hi there – you need to install a vent tube. The standard vent, as fitted to mine, allows the oil to be pumped out. There appears to be a spinning thing right under the vent it throws the oil out! If you have a closed tunnel you’ll notice the oil on the floor if not you will not notice the oil level falling. I spoke to Quafe about this and they said that as long as there is sufficient oil to lube the bearings there should not be a problem. But I don’t know how long it would take to pump the box dry. Mine lost quite a lot, six CC’s, in 25 miles! It may be that it never looses any more but by the same token it may continue. The thread that the vent screws into is a standard, I found a brass adapter thread one end 12mm pipe the other, it came off a Yanmar marine engine. Any machine shop could make one from a bolt of the correct thread. I routed the pipe up and along the underside of the scuttle before turning down into a vent tank located at the left of the scuttle. The oil rises some six to eight inches up the pipe when running then falls back into the box after use, this way I don’t loose any oil! The race boys don’t seem to have a problem but this is probably because they have to have a vent pipe and catch tank.


Regards,

PK