*runs into room exhausted...

YOU GUYS!! I saw a link on pf for cheap Chinese made gearboxes for thier copycat cars like the great wall ute and stuff. the prices are somewhere around $250US and above but for new boxes that's not bad.

cheap gearboxes for chinese copy cars

A friend and I been down this route and unfortunately even for 100 gearboxes
they are not interested in making new gears to replace the ridiculous 4x4 ones.
Imagine 4:3 or 4:1 for first no thanks.
Their reply was the tooling for such and exercise is excessive and cannot be
guaranteed unless we are willing to spend money on quality testing for each
newly fabricated gear in a separately formed process shift line and the ability
to pay 10% upfront for an order of minimum 1000 units.

Gotta be honest, I wouldn't try this option even if the boxes were free. I don't wish to be overly negative about things, but China is not the place one normally assosciates with quality control and the like. The fact is thigs are made cheaply thee. No employee is going to give a damn when they earn a few dollars a day.

This is a difficult process (imho gear manufacturing/machining/hardening is about the hardest mechanically based sub section of auto manufacturing) and there's a reason that Albins Gears http://www.albinsgear.com.au/ charge what they do (and if the actual costs of developing an alternate ratio set for any new gearbox with relatively limited sales potential, they aren't pocketing much profit at all), and furthermore that there's no shortage of racers who do business with them. It requires massive knowledge, expensive machinery, the best raw materials and significant experience to do it right

Slap me with the serious hand wont yas, it was partly a southpark joke from the somalian pirate episode :P

I didn't consider the gearboxes had rubbish 4wd ratios, though you could just use 3rd and 4th...

After surfing TradeMe over the ditch, how about the Fiat 5 speed as per this ad?

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mot ... iat/auction-295161150.htm

Has a seperate bell housing and already fitted with a straight cut C/R 1:1 5th gear set..

$1500 South Pacific Peso's = approx $1200 AUD plus 150 or so in freight..

There is also the alfa boxes but these boxes are quite rare now
while the T5 from a Ford ute with a 6 cylinder is only 34kg and
gearsets are often from Mustang v8s in the early Word class boxes.

ratios are pretty good if not excellent!!!
2.95, 1.95, 1.34, 1, 0.73 (also .65 overdrive available!)