Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Mate has a 2.8 that has destroyed 5th gear through previous owner abuse.

What are the options, can a RB30/Navara/300zx Box be used rather than rebuild the current box?

S/hand seem to be few and far between.

Thanks

The box in the 2.8 GQs is allegedly the same as a VL Turbo commondore and a 300zx.

I did a fair bit of research before eventually deciding to get mine rebuilt about twelve months ago.

I came across a few that had done 200+kms for about 50% of what the rebuild cost me but as I was keeping for car for a while I didn't think it was worth taking the punt on a box of questionable past.

How many VL turbo's haven't been flogged to death?

The MX7 and fs5r30a although similar in build strength are not interchangeable and nothing alike externally, also the MX7 has no real advantage over the fs5r30a in the patrol. Now the fs5r30a as in the patrol is also in 300zx, navara and very similar to the boxes in the turbo import skylines and is contrary to popular belief a strong box that suffers in patrols for 2 reasons, its heavier and patrol owners are tight arses who use the wrong gear at the wrong time to try and save fuel, you know who you are with the whining gearboxes and rattling motors

The fs5r30a is prone to chew out 5th gear bearings if its being driven at low speeds in 5th (less than 80km/h approx) or if you tow reasonable weight at any speed in 5th. If you avoid loading 5th they tend to go a lot of kays before they whine. other major week point is 3rd gear its self, you can shatter the gear if your pushing reasonable power (200+rwkw) and driving hard (road racing not offroad).

These gearboxes get a bad rep because when they get noisy people buy second hand ones and a year later or less when their noisy they come on the net and bag them out, if you actually rebuild it FULLY they should provide years and years of service especially behind the RD28.

Now if you still believe your power house RD28 will break em after a rebuild you could buy a turbo 350/400/700etc kit from CRS to bolt it to your motor (approx $775.00) then you could buy a Marks adapter kit to put your transfer on one of those autos ($1045.00), then you could pay $1600-$2500 to rebuild that auto add some cooler lines, Tbar, trans cooler etc and suddenly paying 1500-1700 to rebuild the fs5r30a seems cheaper.

also the fs5r30a fitted to the RD28 has super low gearing to go with the 4.6 diff gears to actually get it to move, even lower than the same box fitted to the RB30 patrols, so even if money was no option and you went the auto option the car basically would struggle to move and once moving wouldnt hold 4th gear anyway.......some food for thought.

RB30 RD28
1st 3.324 4.061
2nd 2.077 2.357
3rd 1.360 1.490
4th 1.000 1.000
5th 0.711 0.862

also didn't ask is it in a GQ or early GU?

Thanks is a GQ and the previous owner always drove in 5th.

Was thinking that if a 2wd box could be used it wouldn't have worked as hard.