On the cut and shut thing, A guy did that with a 63a belhousing, onto a silvia 6 speed box. All the pics are gone now. (Hosting expired, and the forum they were on is defunct) I could email him and ask him for some pics though.

It wouldn't be too hard to make a jig to hold the belhousing true to the baseplate while it was being fizzed together. Simply drill the bellhousing pattern onto a peice of decnt thickness plate, and have a verticle peice coming outfrom the plate that sat in the bearing journal in the gearbox half of the two peices. Each half would still need to be turned in a lathe or machines on a mill to make them dead flat. And the make their overall height bang on. Then the 71B part could be lowered onto the bearing spigot of the jig, and rotated to a happy spot and TIG'd up. ONce it was solid it's be no hassle to fill the inside with more wire and fill in any parts where there were voids.
I think When Glenn did the 6 speed conversion, he joined it almost right where the bellhousing begins to extend from the main body of the gearbox casing. That makes sence since at that point (Or thereaabouts) there wouldn't be as much variation in the shape for the two halves to mate together.

Ha Ha, You might want to fix that typo on the fist line.
Lately ive found they`re always shut for me!

Nah he's right on both fronts simon

My C&S option is only possible using 60 bell not 56a
unless its done in the approach Bart has mentioned.

Re-assessing the durafix vids, they build up ears for
bellhousing sections inc. other parts so I have now
flipped opinion again believing its a justifiable method
if I make sure all areas are clean with surfaces free of
contaminants even sand/roughen areas for better adhesion.
I think I will drill holes to place blobs of the stuff
in between then fill up all the sides inside and out.
If it makes a perfect joint material and also replacement
section where parts are missing its got to work.

Think of it from an engineers or insurance agents point of view. IF it did fail, you could be held liable for any damage. Not to say that it would, it's just that I am yet to see someone, for road and not race purposes , do a mod like this legally. And with good reason. It might be good enough to keep a bit of refridgerent in an air con but would you trust it to be the major bonding component in a major torque applied area? Not I. For me the tried and tested method of welding will suffice. There's no lack of 56 series housings. At least, not in my shed.

Don what do you think, they make custom ones?

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/492 ... ile_Transmission_Die.html

wow, looks like a Nissan gearbox front case, but it's only a Die they are selling (which weighs 5000 pounds).

On the cut & shut, wouldn't it be best to cut both cases parallel to the bell face, and put the adapter plate in between? That way you can center-align it and bolt it together without deformation.

Do you happen to have a a spare 56 bellhousing to sacrifice David? I'm fairly certain you have the 71 series boxes - more than one if I recall?

If you do, I've got about 8 or 9 of the durafix rods left (well they are at a friends place, since I left them there the last time I used his oxy set). If you are keen on this, I'll happily donate them so you can join them up, but I tell you categorically I won't be condoning its use, and if it breaks and causes a big multi car pileup, you can never say nobody warned you.

Here's the thing - they show what is 'best case scenario' on the website videos. That's not to say the products aren't 'great' but it's just taking it too far to sugest an entire bellhousing could be joined solely by durafix. It might 'work' in the short term, but honestly it isn't safe.

It is all about 'context'. nobody here is saying you are an idiot or something (and I don't think we come across like that, or at least I hope not) but what we are saying is that it is just too risky to trust to brazing/soldering (which this is certainly an example of. It's great for ideas like this to be discussed. Especially because without the sort of discussion that goes on here, all we are left with to decide the 'case' for this method would be advertising material. Sometimes there is truth in advertising, sometimes there isn't. And in light of that, short of discussing it here, the only other way to find out is the good old 'suck it and see' - where you all try the idea and then if it goes off the rails, it's a fair bit of money lost and potentially somebodies life or health.

Look at it from this point of view - certainly tig welding it is time consuming, and pre-heating is necessary. To get it right with durafix, even though it isn't welded but is brazed, you would _still_ have to pre-heat, as you need it to be 'spot on' when the thing is at operating temp, not under all sorts of twisting/warping stresses. So you don't save money/time as far as pre-heating goes.

you'd still need the 'jig' or alignment dowel thing (essentially a machined down pipe that goes through the main tunnels of a stripped a series engine block, and slips over the front snout of the gearbox, and a very firm, almost interference fit at that to ensure 100% alignment) - so you'd still need all that. The only difference is then tig-welding it vs brazing it. Well you'd still need the oxy torch from somewhere, and you'd use a fair bit of gas. You'd also use a fair bit of the rods. the biggest difference between durafix and muggyweld is that muggyweld has a separate flux, for cleaning and prepping the surface. A good thing,. Durafix doesn't. Instead it has flux imbedded in the rod, so you apply the rod, melt and then brush, to prep it. That's 'convenient' being all in one, but it also means you sacrifice a bit of the rod for all that cleaning and surface prep. SO in the long run, the durafix tends to use more rods, and be more costly.
Tig welders aren't cheap of course, certainly dearer than an oxy set.

Perhaps you could find a 'combination' of hte two. It's not 'perfect' by any means, but there is an oxy torch set with the brand name of 'henrob'. They aren't magical, but the torch/spray/dispersion pattern of the gases allows a bit finer flame/heat than a regular oxy torch does. And basically it can (for the record, a regular oxy torch could do it too, but is a little harder, arguably) be used to oxy weld alloy. THe biggest issue with welding alloy with gas is that it's hard to tell when the alloy has melted. there's a slight surface tension change, but not very much colour change. you can basically 'feel' your way along poking it with the filler rod to see when it has melted.

Anyhoo - that could be experimented with. It'd still be a 'red headed stepchild' option compared to tig welding it, but I'd at least be more 'comfortable' with the potential result

I would be interested to know how much they would be charging. I'm sure that once made and shipped you would get no change from $15K+. you could do it locally for as much. Plus it is for Die casting, which is good providing you cast a minimum of 1000 units. Sand casting is more effective for low volume numbers. Besides. You have to think of it from a buisness prospective. For a bellhousing/front case assembly, realistically you don't want to spend any more than $500 to $600. Otherwise you defeat the purpose of a 'budget' 5 speed conversion. Per casting for a bell housing you would be looking at around the $200 mark plus machine time. Which, if you have to provide all the internal, selector rod and bearing machining will be at least 3 operations. Mayby as much as 5. A fair cost would be $200 per unit. Setup is the biggest time waster so you had best aim for a minimum run of 10 to keep costs down. 20 would be better. So if you take your initial investment of $15K conservatively, plus $400 per unit in casting and machine costs you would need to sell your 20 units at $1150 each to break even.

Hmmm. Doesn't sound flash does it.

you saying whitesedans' pics aren't loading anymore? I'll go have a look for them cos