Surf/lexus auto oil supply

[gloverman]

Now I have seen plenty of write ups on how to fit a Surf Transfer box(130 series electronic 4x4 engagement) onto a lexus auto. Non these boxes share housings just like supra and many other vehicles fitted with this series of aisan gearbox. Even the asian warner box fitted to other models looks very similar. Now my question is how long are these setups lasting. Specifically the rear bearing in the transfer adaptor housing as the oil feeds to this bearing and the rear housing bearing in the lexus box are very different. Non of the write ups have shown any mods to the oil system. Now its possible that there is enough oil splashed around the box to lubricate the transfer housing bearing. This is one problem with forums, lots of info often lacking the finer details and very few followups on lifespan and faulures. Ill show some photos to explain.

 

[gloverman]

Heres my test box

This is my test box we use for checking positions of componants and for explaining to customers what we are wanting to acheive. You will notice it is the lightweight model. Nothing inside the trans as it is one of the spare bodies I have which has been stripped out. Transfer is a good one so its a little tail heavy.

First picture shows it going together
Second picture - nothing inside the trans
Third picture - I had to clean it - looks much better

 

[gloverman]

oil feeds - lexus auto

Now the oil feed I am refering to is shown here. The lexus box the oil is supplied to the tailshaft bearing via the hole shown in photo 1. The speed sensor trigger wheel is clamped tightly onto the front bearing surface (photo2) allowing oil to travel inside the speed sensor sleeve through the bearing centre and onto the outside of the bearing where it drains through a small slot in the outter bearing face (photo 3) and then drains back through the rollers of the bearing and back into the gearbox sump. Notice in photo two there is the drain hole for the oil on the front of the bearing and it creates small dam of oil at the bottom of the bearing.

 

[gloverman]

Surf auto

Now the surf oil feed to the transfer adaptor is straight out end of the little stubby tailshaft (photo 1) through a little hole in the end plug(photo2). From here it goes into the front of the transfer box input shaft and out through a small hole in the side of this shaft(photo 3), then it drains back through the rollers of the bearing with the same dam setup as the lexus auto. The dam is on the opposite side of the bearing but that makes no difference.

 

[gloverman]

The big question

Now back to my question. To the guys that have simply cut the lexus tail shaft , drilled the speed sensor hole and shorted and reattached the lexus speed sensor and done nothing about the oil feed to the rear bearing. How long have they been lasting? Is anyone brave enough to say they have had a failure? How many kms have people done on these boxes? There is a chance that that rear bearing gets some lubrication through splash feeding as we all know sometimes things that shouldn't work do infact work.

 

[jen3ss]

I'm interested in this one as well, I have never heard of one failing.

 

[duza]

Mines been in my Hilux for just under 3 years and it's done around 60000ks. Much of this is around Sydney metro, but for the last 3 months I've travelled to Canberra and return every Sunday, aprrox 3hrs each way. So far, no worries.'
Ric

 

[pinkytamz]

here is what i did as i thought there would be a prob with the rear bearing (first thought was to replace with a sealed bearing ( but as i have been working in a hyd work shop i got to thinking about oil flow hot and cold ( my main reasons for finding a fix for this was as i had planned to buy a proper adaptor to fix this but got put off by the freight bill . so what i did was to fit a 1mm restrictor tee to the oil pump / oil cooler tube and then drill a new oil feed through to the rear bearing to give it its own low pressure oil feed ...i have not finished my engine yet but i have tested the the trans oil pressure and flow to the rear bearing using our hyd test rig and there is shit loads of flow to the oil cooler and the rear bearing so this is how i did mine so i cant see any probs with this working on or off road

 

[samsdad]

Not had any issues with any so far but the last one I put the Surf mainshaft into the autos as the client wanted the boxes overhauled before use as it had been sitting unused for a period of time and condition was unknown. Those with the trimmed mainshaft still seem to "splash feed" fine but a very good point to bring up. The main issue that has come in is people filling them with the wrong fluid and thus premature failure, but this applies to the stock Surf auto as well

 

[pinkytamz]

WELL on the second 1uzfe to surf job now and thought i would update kelvins question about the ( maybe) oil flow fault to the rear bearing ... if you use the lexus auto and cut the output shaft down to about 64mm when you refit the speed sensor onto the output shaft use a grub screw to hold it in place but make sure this grub screw blockes the oil feed hole on the shaft . then you re-drill the hole through the end of the shaft in the same place as the surf auto . if its been cut to the correct length you only drill into the shaft about 10mm to pick up the oil feed. but you will need to know how to sharpen drill bits as it is hard but not impossible

 

[gloverman]

I like that solution. Ill tell my guys to harden up and start drilling. We never got around to testing how far the hollow in the shaft went. Have other pirorities as we only do about 6 lexus auto to 4x4 year and we have a solution that works.

We had a run of them just before Xmas and had to do a few in a short amount of time. We have made up a sleeve to maintain the oil feed between the shaft and the speed sensor sleeve.

Since starting this thread I have had a heap of failures come out of the woodwork. ( none of ours though) One guy went through three and I found out as I was selling him a manual kit. I think they splash lube the bearing which is fine for a while but without a constant supply to wash the contaminates out the rubbish can build up in the bearing with accerates the bearing wear.

 

[pinkytamz]

thats cool you like my fix for the oil feed fault . it make sense to block the oil feed hole that goes out the side and re-drill the end of the shaft to pick up the oil feed so that it basically makes it the same as the surf auto box i have photos if you want them kelvin . i do wonder if the complete surf shaft would fit into the lexus box but when i get the two surfs finished i think i will try to find the time to strip two of them and find out ( do i get any discount on the wiring manual for this post ) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA ( wildcatters)

 

[samsdad]

Yes the Surf main shaft can be fitted to the Lexus box as for all intensive purposes they are pretty much the same box. But you have to completely strip the auto to do it and there's one circlip which is a real pain to get out even with the right tooling and experience.

Kelvin the Surf shaft is hollow all the way thru with a small core plug at each end

 

[gloverman]

Yes it is Samdad. Lexus shaft is also hollow until about 10mm from the end. I have a photo of the core plug with the hole in it on here. I could drill the lexus shaft but chose to use my kits still as it solves the following issue

I fixed another one of these the other day but this time the failure was caused by the connecting sleeve falling apart. While the kit I make wasn't designed with this problem in mind it also reduces the possibility of the sleeve splitting. As a result the rear spline on the gearbox was chewed to pieces putting fillings through the transmission we chose to start with another box. The lower hole had also been tapped on a angle and with the 8x1.25 thread.

 

[pinkytamz]

that looks nasty kelvin any idea why the sleeve has failed . do you get these made or are thay machined for a surf part . i will have to put some kms on mine to see if my fix for the oil feed works ...but thats after i buy your wiring help to get mine sorted

 

[gloverman]

The adaptor sleeves pictured are the factory surf ones but then we use a modified unit to sort the oil flow which also strengthens the factory sleeve. Look forward to sorting your wiring too. Cheers

 

[gloverman]

And and it failed as its just not strong enough for the lexus torque. Some go for ages but I have seen a few fail like this. I look at it that if a manufacturer said they only have a say 10% failure rate would they say this is acceptable. The answer is no so its not acceptable for me either. Im always working on improving my work. This vehicle is used offroad and does have big tyres but it still shouldnt fail.

 

[BlackUZZ31]

Get some made out of EN26, that oem material does not look great...

 

[gloverman]

With my modified setup I havent had one fail yet and I have a fair few out there now. It wasnt planned for it to strenghten the stock sleeve but im glad it does.

 

[andrewswe]

Hi Guys,

I've just drilled the shaft on my A343 box, I went doen the middle from the cut end, they are typically less hard in the middle, got in about 20mm and found the void.

Lets see how it gets on with oil feed to the bearing.