REMOVE GEARBOX
The Quaife ATB can’t be fitted in-situ, so that means the gearbox needs to come out. And, as you can imagine on a modern car with the added complexity of an all-wheel-drive system, that’s not a five-minute job.
It takes the experts the best part of half a day to fully remove the gearbox from the car, so there’s no way we’d be able to cover each and every step of the upgrade in this feature. But, we can at least show you the main stages involved..
First up, the battery, battery tray, air filter, intake hose, and airbox all need removing from the engine bay – and that’s before you can even see the gearbox buried deep beneath. When there finally is enough space to access the MMT6 unit, the gear linkage cables and clutch all need disconnecting, and the gearbox mounting bolts will need loosening (to be fully removed later).
It’s not essential, unless you’re running a splitter, but it makes life easier (especially for photos!) to remove the headlights and front bumper too.
On the underside there’s even more to do. With the plastic undertrays, boost hoses, and chassis braces all removed out of the way and the gearbox drained of oil, there is enough access to get to the driveshafts. Removing these require the hubs to be separated from the ball-joints on the front wishbones before the driveshafts can be fully removed from the car. And then it’s time for the really tricky bit – removing the PTU (Power Transfer Unit). It’s water- cooler and a series of hard-to-access bolts hold it in place. To make things more difficult, it’s also filled with an expensive, specific oil – so it’s not something you want to be chucking around all over the place.
With the PTU removed, the engine’s weight can be supported with a stand, the bellhousing bolts can finally be removed along with the last remaining fixings and mountings, and the ‘box can be teased out of the car…