driving a truck axle with a transaxle

so i was offered a s10 axle, for free, complete with brakes and all, my question is if I spin the transaxle sideways and use a jack shaft to drive the axle, would the 820 hold up to being "driven" from the side, ie, 90 degrees out, not really sure I want to try it, but it surely sounds neat to try, just wondering if anyone else has considered it. the rear end is leftover from them swapping in a narrowed ford 9, and appears to be in great condition.

Pretty good chance the 820 would survive, but your gearing would be pretty retardedly low and you'd have to compensate for that, big-time. Having said that, you'd have to speed up the input of the 820 by a factor of between 3 and say 4.5 (whatever the axle ratio is) and that is just to re-attain a "stock" speed. You'd have to spin the shizz out of it to get decent speed. Oil mods, bearings, etc. Probably not worth the aggravation.

Hey doc, would a horizontal shaft engine and a transmission like you had on M3 be easier and work better? Just offering possible solutions, but maybe he can't get his hands on one? Idk, just my 2 cents

I agree on the slow, to be fair I already had the 820 over revved to do 50mph (on 23" tires!), I am thinking a target speed of 10 to 15, and I could get some of that back on sprockets to the axle, I don't have a huge yard, and this will be a work tractor as much as anything, I will also gain back if I use taller tires, in the 28-31" range, vs the stock 22"-25", I'm mostly concerned if the tranny can handle being run 90 degrees out, as the input shaft would have different stresses, I am strangely attracted to the idea, mostly as I love weird projects, and the stock drum brakes would be a massive win for pulling (ie stopping!)the trailers, and being able to differential brake it like a big tractor, all fun ideas. to cure the 90 degree problem I could put in a v and flat idler or two to make the belt go around the corner I suppose. I am pretty sure the transaxle can handle the work in general, as I have seen a peerless 700 (rated for waay less torque) do a very similar job at a golf course and it hauled a huge spreader hopper. in an Ideal world I'd use a s10 t5 and cut back the housing, and run a drive shaft to that from a horizontal motor at the front, but I haven't got any of those things lol, so monetarily out of reach at this point.

If i do it I plan to use the stock front pulley to a 6" trans pulley then "fix" the output with a about a 20% gear up, to the 3.73 ish s10 axle, tires will be 29ish inches if I use 14" wheels, 31's on 15", depending on what I have tucked away that will fit lol, I am hoping for 15's, mostly because used AT/mud tires are easier to get in 15" sizes

This is what i have in mind more or less

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

Hey doc, would a horizontal shaft engine and a transmission like you had on M3 be easier and work better? Just offering possible solutions, but maybe he can't get his hands on one? Idk, just my 2 cents

Probably a lot more feasible.

Why not align the trans pulley to be inline as normal, shorten the axleshafts, and use a super heavy duty chain to drive the pinion? Then you would have more room for ratio changes.

thats kind of the plan, the axles are already shortened, I wasn't sure if I lined it all up a 2d picture would make sense.

i probably wont shorten the truck axles, mostly due to cost, I may make it so it can be done later.