Fs5r30a (rb30) gearbox rebuild.

[mudnut]

G,day, all. I have recently killed my Old Trol's gearbox and transfer case. If all goes well, they will be replaced, with second hand units, by a good mechanic, next week. I will then have to make a decision whether to rebuild the old gearbox, and transfer case, or let them sit in the shed as the exchange units to send away, if I wreck the newly installed ones. For a fully reconditioned box I have been quoted $2550, with an upgraded main shaft. Has anyone successfully rebuilt, and/or upgraded their gearbox? How much did it cost? Was it a difficult job? How hard is it to reco a transfer case? Is it viable or aren't they worth rebuilding?
Thanks, Mudnut.

[NissanGQ4.2]

Sorry mate can't help you on the manual boxes as I have never owned a manual but have with the help of my old man rebuilt a RE4R03A auto box

http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/showthread.php?5942-RE4R03A-Gearbox-Rebuild

Tough call, You will have to suss out how much a rebuild kit will cost you and compare it 2 a reco box. Would you save much???? Reco box should come with some sort of warranty, do it yourself and make a small mistake = $$$ down the drain.

If you rebuild it yourself do you have all the tools to do the job or would you have to buy some? Have to add things like this into the equation

Would you rebuild it now and just have it sitting there waiting in the shed should something go wrong with the new one? Bit of money to spend on something that is just going to be sitting there, but if its there then its at least less off the road time for the troll.

Would I do one again?????????? If I could afford to have the car off the road while doing it yes, but if I needed the car back on road asap exchange would be so much easier and less down time.

Tough one

[mudnut]

Maybe I'll split them open and check out what is exactly wrong with them and learn how they work, and then find out how much it will cost. One mob does a partial reco, using the good bits out of 3 or 4 boxes, but it only comes with 3 month warranty, without the transfer case. I suppose having a unit to send away would cut down on repair time, too. The 360 reco was $2550, with the upgraded input shaft, but they're 400 ks away.

[AndreasT]

Hello to All and especially to mudnut!

Thanks for giving me a warm welcome to this Forum. Up to now I used this forum only for getting Information.
I´m native German speaker, so English is hard to write!

I don´t have Nissan Patrol, but I do have a Nissan Terrano (European version of N. Pathfinder I think).
This Car wasn´t build very often, so I need to look also for Patrol to compare
and get reliable Information concernig my car,
My 2004 Terrano has a ZD 30 Diesel engine and once upon a time it had a FS5R30a gearbox!

I removed the FS5R30a gearbox from my car and replaced it by a Borg Warner T5 NWC gearbox.

Before doing this, I asked some specialists for repairing my Nissan gearbox, but they refused:
Nissan constructed the FS5R30a in the 1970ties for big engine of the 1970ties. The gearbox
couldn´t manage nowadays High Torque Diesel engines (especially 4 cyl).

The input shaft of the gearbox has a grooved ball bearing with only a single row of balls.
Because of the Helical gearing there is a lot of axial power on this bearing.
For this reason the main drive gear bearing fails with big engines!

The counter gear for example has a Thrust Bearing to manage axial power.
There wasn´t enough space in the gearbox to place a ball bearing with two
rows of balls or anything else to minimize axial power!

This was the reason for me to switch to borg warner T5 NWC.
Up to now, the Car runs about 50000km with the new gearbox.
Below, you will find a picture. On the left you will find the original
Nissan adapter of alloy ("bell" = German translation), in the middle the
new Borg Warner T5 NWC and on the right NP119. Lateron NP119 has
been replaced by NP 231 for reliability reasons.

I hope you didn´t spend to much money for repairing FS5R30a.

Yours

Andreas Tietjen


http://1.2.3.12/bmi/up.picr.de/11882838ih.jpg

[mudnut]

G,day, AndreasT. Welcome to the forum, and thank you for your input. I know you don't have a Patrol, but that's okay, a Terrano is a Nissan too :) I actually checked one out before I bought my Patrol. It seemed to be a solid looking vehicle, but was too small for my needs. My Patrol is back on the road, so my old gearbox is sitting in my shed, awaiting rebuild or I might sell it. It is not a priority now. For some reason I can't view the photo you have posted, but thanks anyway. Please head over to the introduction section and introduce yourself, and enjoy your time here. From what I can gather, Germany has got many rugged areas, so you would have a lot of opportunities to go 4W driving. Cheers, Mudnut.

[Robo]

Hay bro.
As far as I'm aware the RB30 gearbox isn't the same as the others.
It's a lighter duty unit that was substituted by Nissan for the smaller RB engine.
haven't seen 1 in person, if your g/box is a alloy housing it is most certainly not the same box.
G/Box was originally in a 300ZX.
if your blowing this up the lighter g/box combo possibly isn't suited to your application !
don't know if you can swap to a TB or TD g/box instead, proberly not.

you mention a heavier shaft so if that's the fix and all that goes wrong then it may well be worth the trouble, I don't know.
only mention this, if it were me I'd hate to go to the trouble of repair or replace and have the same trouble again.
good luck.

[mudnut]

Yeah, Robo, that's why I only shelled out for a second hand box. I explored the possibility of fitting a heavier box in another thread, but only got as far as fitting the td/tb42 auto box via a mob that sells conversion kits. (Thanks to Taslucas for that info). I was talking to another mechanic today who was saying that there is a conversion kit for a turbo400. Apparently there is a small drive shaft between the auto and the transfer case. The only problems are that I would need a shortened tail shaft, and it would only have 3 gears. Nissannewby also reckons the bigger box will sap a lot of horses just to run it.

[Robo]

Yeah, Robo, that's why I only shelled out for a second hand box. I explored the possibility of fitting a heavier box in another thread, but only got as far as fitting the td/tb42 auto box via a mob that sells conversion kits. (Thanks to Taslucas for that info). I was talking to another mechanic today who was saying that there is a conversion kit for a turbo400. Apparently there is a small drive shaft between the auto and the transfer case. The only problems are that I would need a shortened tail shaft, and it would only have 3 gears. Nissannewby also reckons the bigger box will sap a lot of horses just to run it.

Sweet.
Sounds like you have it under control.
Hate to see, hear of things going pear shaped.

Maybe !! T400 + convert to efi + turbo get plenty of power that way from RB30T.
if you have the budget plenty can be done to RB30T EFI
but a fuel bill to go along with it.
May be easier to step up 4.2ltr engine.
depending if you think existing body etc is worth the effort.

[mudnut]

I've thought of doing a tb42 conversion, but the costs will be prohibitive.