Hello everybody. Yes I am still alive and so is Sharkie :) Here's the long awaited comeback article.
Against all odds, the upgraded gearbox internals are back home. It was actually back home a couple months back but I'm the king of procrastination remember? Porn pictures below courtesy of Bro Greg. The man saw fit to take artsy bitsy piccies :) Per Greg - "Those pieces came back so uniform and pretty, I couldn't resist using my new Sigma 105mm 2.8 1:1 macro lens" ;)
Cost not including shipping, packaging, stationeries, frustration & anger management, etc. and BST (priceless) was:
- Cryo treatment: US$ 250
- Shot peening: US$ 200
- WPC treatment: US$ 903
Add in all the associated shipping, etc. costs and the total outlay increases to MYR 7-8K depending on the US to MYR exchange rate and not including purchase of the used gearbox. Shipping costs to and from the US and within the US alone was significantly above RM 2K. The gearbox internals had to be shipped to the respective treatments all over the United States and once completed, returned to Greg who took on the role of my project manager in the US. I primarily used
Fedex for international shipping as they were reliable and had the lowest pricing when I inquired. Ask around but please bear in mind that while you can save some dollars you definitely want your parts to arrive in the same exact condition you sent them.
Now all that needs to be done is to reassemble back the "new" gearbox but I can't do this yet as I am planning to use back the
Nismo LSD which is in my current gearbox. I was originally planning to try a
Quaife ATB LSD but went significantly over budget so have to settle for my
Nismo. Also don't forget one UK Pound is now bout 6 Malaysian Ringgit. Gulp! Need to find some time to travel down to KL to do the gearbox/LSD swap job.
