Man 3D Prints a Working 5-Speed Transmission For Toyota Engines

ErnieKey writes A man named Eric Harrell has reverse engineered a 5-speed transmission for a Toyota 22RE Engine, and 3D printed an entire working replica on his desktop 3D printer. Even though it is made up almost entirely of plastic, he says that it could function as a replacement for the real thing. In all it took about 48 hours of print time, plus many more in order to assemble the device. He has made the files available for anyone to download and print themselves for free.

Comments

"Replacement for the real thing"

[leathered]

For about 10 minutes, yes.

Plastic gears are a bad idea whatever the application but I can't see any surviving 200+ lbft of torque being put through them.

Re:"Replacement for the real thing"

[HornWumpus]

Never last 10 minutes. There is no way he could have achieved spec clearances with 3d printed parts.

What did he use for synchros? They are wear parts, typically made of brass. He'd need something softer then his regular plastic.

I bet this transmission can't even shift while turning at a real world RPM. Not twice anyhow, will eat itself.

Re:"Replacement for the real thing"

[BarbaraHudson]

Considering this is only a scale model, I doubt that his plastic scale engine will generate even one-tenth that before it melts. And what would you use as the facing material on the clutch disk? Or the pressure plate? The thing is going to stink like a plastic bag caught on an exhaust pipe.

Re:Guy on the internet does something cool...

[chihowa]

To be fair, all of the negative comments relate to the the claim that, "Even though it is made up almost entirely of plastic, he says that it could function as a replacement for the real thing."

Had the article writer not said that (he must have misinterpreted the builder, a mechanical engineer who seems to know how transmissions work), and the submitter here not misrepresented it even further, the comments would likely be much different. It's all in the presentation. ErnieKey chose to present it as a drop-in transmission, which is not the way the article portrays it.