I've been summoned by Crusty to entertain a response to this thread. (Jeezus, 319 pages!!! I think I checked out a little after 200)
Shameless copy and paste of my response on another forum:
The trans issue discovered last week was a surprise to all of us, but was not due to poor design, nor from shifting them. Since Robby said it in his video last night, I guess I can elaborate:
The housings were not the issue of the failure, the gear broke first, which wedged bits of gear teeth through the other gears and had enough force to push the shafts apart, splitting the cases. Robby saying they are adding material to the cases to strengthen them is really just an added benefit to prevent the cases from splitting like that and ruining the whole trans. Gears will eventually break over time and use, when they do finally let go, it is cheaper to not have to replace the entire case as we can just replace what is broken and repair the gearbox.
The gear breakage sucks. Robby called me immediately after the first one broke last week and we discussed. We had hoped it was a fluke failure based on what that transmission was subjected to. This was not a fault that Speed or Weddle could have known about on the variety of transmissions and diffs we have inspected since they came off the assembly line. The issue only became evident once subjected to that level of use. Real world testing will always find the weak links.
The good news is that it is somewhat of an easy fix, other than having to wait a bit longer for revised parts.
I will stand by that anyone who damages this trans because of shifting, is purely on the driver of the vehicle. It is a great feature of the gearbox, but requires knowledge of how to properly operate.
I'll sign off now, I need to get some more Pro-R and Can-Am prep work done before I head out to Hammertown this evening.
