Installing Gearbox and Propshaft
Probably one of the most custom parts on the conversion was needed next: the gearbox mount. I did this by welding a box section of the new mount around the old crossmember for the gearbox, a bit difficult to explain, but thats what the pictures do best (the painted masking tape was to show where to drill holes in the plate, I did it by painting the bottom of the gearbox mount and pressing the plate up to it whilst it was wet, then wipe the paint off), tack welding the plate to the cross member to get the correct positioning, then fully welding the rest together:
With the gearbox solidly mounted, it needed to transmit the power to the rear differential. This is done via a propshaft. As the AE86 has a different gearbox to the Supra, I couldn't straight swap. The Supra one wouldn't have matched the rear differential either.
What I needed was the Supra half of the gearbox end and the Corolla half of the differential end, this meant a custom propshaft was needed. I found a company who specialises in propshafts (this isn't something to do at home due to delicate balancing needed) so I cut off the appropriate bits and sent them off with some measurements of what I needed.
It was sucessfully made (despite complaints I gave the yokes in with too little metal to attach the centre propshaft too) and sent to me, unfortunately it was lost in the post! As I couldn't get another set of yokes; the propshaft company complained to the courier and had to completely make a new one including brand new yokes, so I got a better deal in the end although had to wait an extra 2 weeks for it, the result is very nice:
Installed:
