Wow! That is a lot of work! What about the half-shafts? The 2018+ models use a slip-in yoke where the dual range has something else.

 

Yep, the driveshaft and half shafts all fit perfectly. I did have a minor heart attack when I struggled to get the first axle back in, thinking I'd messed up on my research, but it just needed to rotate a bit to mesh splines and get the internal retaining clip to lock properly.
The drive shaft uses a slip yoke.

 

Now that is just stinking awesome!!! Good job and thank you for sharing

 

Wow thats sweeeeeeeet!

 

Thanks guys. Gonna take it for a spin through the hills today. Wish me luck!

 

Update: I've driven her for a few days with the new gearbox now. For light off-roading the low range makes a world of difference. It won't crawl like a proper 4x4, but I'm much better able to handle steeper trails, and negotiate tricky bits at a slower speed. 66% of normal, to be precise.
I also filled the tank with 98ron (only ever used 91ron before) and the extra bit of oomph makes up a bit for the lack of low-end torque this engine has.
The gearbox is miles better. The solid feedback of a direct shift linkage rather than the slop of cable shift is much nicer, and the five gears are much more usefully spaced in gearing (at least, that's how it feels to this guy who's used to 5 speed manual Toyotas).
This is the gearbox the XV should have had.
The stick I've got does sit a bit more forward and low down than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps there's an Impreza gear shift mechanism that would sit better. For now though it's fine.

 

Update: I've driven her for a few days with the new gearbox now. For light off-roading the low range makes a world of difference. It won't crawl like a proper 4x4, but I'm much better able to handle steeper trails, and negotiate tricky bits at a slower speed. 66% of normal, to be precise.
I also filled the tank with 98ron (only ever used 91ron before) and the extra bit of oomph makes up a bit for the lack of low-end torque this engine has.
The gearbox is miles better. The solid feedback of a direct shift linkage rather than the slop of cable shift is much nicer, and the five gears are much more usefully spaced in gearing (at least, that's how it feels to this guy who's used to 5 speed manual Toyotas).
This is the gearbox the XV should have had.
The stick I've got does sit a bit more forward and low down than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps there's an Impreza gear shift mechanism that would sit better. For now though it's fine.

“This is the gearbox the XV should have had”

for your extreme use of crawling through hills, maybe. But the vehicle likely gets 20mpg now, almost assuredly will not be problem free for over 100k miles, and is a Frankenstein of parts not meant to hook together…

I think it’s a really cool project, and I’m impressed with what you’ve done! That doesn’t mean that it’s the gearbox the vehicle should have been manufactured with though. Subaru took infinite more factors and situations into account and mated the best transmission and engine options they make to provide a reliable drivetrain for MOST reasonable uses.

 

9l/100km/26mpg over the last few days on a mixture of highway, town and bush crawling, including helping a friend move apartments with a trailer.

 

9l/100km/26mpg over the last few days on a mixture of highway, town and bush crawling, including six trips moving furniture with a trailer.

That’s actually impressive, especially with ratio change. I’ll have to take you at your word on it.

 

Just wanted to do a quick update after two weeks. Everything is running well. I did have a leaky front axle seal (just the right side) but I swapped that out ($30aud from Subaru btw) and a few days of parking over cardboard shows no drips, so I'm confident that was a bad seal on my "new" gearbox and not any sort of incompatibility.
Fuel consumption according to the screen is 8.8l/100km (26.73mpg) over the last 700km or so, which again is a mix of town, off-road and (I said highway before, but actually it's the winding, hilly, single lane 100kph/60mph rural road I take to get into town). This is about the same as before.
In my experience with the 6mt, the 6th gear only really made sense on flat 110kph/70mph highways, which where I live is basically just the insterstate and I only do I trip on that once or twice a year. I also really hated the gearing on second gear. Though the whole point of this swap was to get dual range, I am finding that I much prefer the 5mt gear spacing for the driving I do, and the ratio of 5th gear is perfect for the highest speeds I do (still have to downshift on significant hills).
In addition to off-road use, I find myself using low range on occasion around town during hill starts. I feel like it takes a bit of the strain off the clutch, since the XV has ****-all low rev torque, which means to not stall you need higher revs before and a longer transition to engagement, and I don't like that for the clutch.
I'll be getting a scanner tool at some point, but so far I haven't noticed the car doing anything weird that suggests it's confused about the different gearbox.

 

You maintained 2 overdrives in the end, a 5th and a 6th. The 6th, getting you near to stock.

And your interior is much better then our 2015 as for bolster.

 

Yeah, I really didn’t need that extra overdrive for my usage. Much better for me to have low range.
Those are actually Liberty/legacy front seats. They were not a direct swap, but close. They have way more lumbar support and comfort.

 

Congratulations on the successful installation of the Dual Range Transmission.
With the next few sentences I would like to tease the American members of the forum a tiny bit, because in the USA the XV/Crosstrek was never offered with dual range.
I've had the feeling of driving off-road that you now have with the installation of the dual-range transmission since 2005 with my first Subaru, an Impreza. And all of the following three Subarus, 2007 Forester SG, 2011 Forester SH, 2017 XV/Crosstrek continued to let me drive through the terrain with dual range and a big grin when hunting friends with other cars had problems there.
Unfortunately, there are no more new Subarus with dual-range transmissions in Europe either.
But I have to say that based on my experience so far with my current XV/Crosstrek 2023 with CVT, the X-Mode replaces the dual range reduction quite well.

 

Sorry, did you say your 2017 XV came with a dual range? I thought I'd heard about some early models in Europe having them, but it's cool to get confirmation. Is it direct shift or cable shift, do you know? In Australia the XV never came with dual range as an option, but access to the many other Subarus that did made this a viable swap.
I feel sorry for the Americans always having automatics shoved down their throats.
Having looked at Toyota's Hybrid CVT (beltless), I look forward to them integrating that into a crosstrek and buying one used in a decade or so.

 

Since its launch, the XV has been offered in Europe with 2 engines, 1.6L and 2.0L. Only the 1.6 was available up to and including 2017 with 5MT and Dual Range, the 2.0 had CVT.
When I was looking for a replacement for my Forester 2.0 SH 2011 in 2017, the dual range reduction was so important to me that I even accepted the smaller 1.6 engine for the XV/Crosstrek, because the Forester was also only available with a CVT in Germany in 2017.
I chose the XV/Crosstrek 1.6 again this year because the 2.0 in Germany is only available as a hybrid, called the 2.0ie. As a hybrid, however, the XV/Crosstrek has a tank of only 48 l due to the battery in the trunk. That's not enough for my purposes and only the 1.6 with CVT was left again.
But as with the previous 1.6 5MT Dual Range, the 1.6's 114hp is more than enough, even on the German highways, which in parts still have no speed limit - my previous 1.6 managed real 185km/h with 114hp.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect my 2017 XV/Crosstrek had direct shift on the normal gears. Only dual range was cable shift. But like I said, that's a guess.

 

I get shot down when I point out that Europeans are OK without huge engines in their Crosstreks. It's an American thing...

 

Absolutely correct, especially since speed limits apply everywhere on American roads, including freeways, my own experience.
And the penalties for exceeding them are also quite high, also from my own experience.
What's the use of an engine with a lot of horsepower if I can't use this power at all - if at all, then at most when accelerating.
But you're right, different mentalities apply. That's not meant to be mean or critical at all.

 

Hats off, @ApocalypsePopcorn - you've got some seriously-sized spherical appendages to have done that. Kudos.

I'm still trying to come to terms with the 6MT gear spacing. I complain that 1st is low (but has proven perfect on steep forest roads), the massive in between the 1st and 2nd makes WOT acceleration tedious, and the difference in between the 5th and 6th is just ridiculously small (yet a taller 6th would make it useless on any hill). Oh well, another Subaru quirk..

 

Heh, thanks. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't second-guessing myself the whole way through, but copious amounts of research and a not-inconsiderable amount of luck seem to have paid off.
I'm impressed that I was able to do the whole thing in the driveway by myself and without taking the wheels off!

 

What is the legal background in Australia for changing a car's gearbox like this?
Do you have to go to any official technical check after the change?
Does the change of gearbox have to be entered in the registration papers?
Both are mandatory in Germany and in the EU as well. In particular, the technical inspection as a so-called individual acceptance would be expensive.

 

Based on my reading of the relevant rules, it's fine. We do have requirements for getting an "engineering certificate" for modifications such as installing a totally different engine or things that affect a vehicle's safety systems. We're less red-tape bound than Europe but less laissez-faire than the USA.

 

Now that it has been a few months . . . any updates? I am assuming all has been good.

 

Sorry, I was hiking for a month and missed this comment, and then forgot it was there.

The gearbox has been fantastic for me. We've done some medium offroading that would have been impossible without it. I'm still loving the gear spacing and tactile feedback of a solid linkage.

My next challenge is that the engine is increasingly using oil. 7l/100km, to be precise. I've been down a rabbit hole on the oil use issues, and the culprit seems to be the oil control piston rings. I'm about to do a bunch of engine cleaning stuff (double oil change with flushes, fuel cleaner additive and italian tune-up) to see if that makes a difference. In the event that it doesn't I've put the same hat I was wearing when I did the gearbox swap back on, and researching what's involved in swapping to a post-2014 FB engine. I'm leaning heavily towards an FB25 swap; apart from the obvious power benefits, I think it would lead to less clutch slipping to make up for the weaksauce FB20, reduced fuel consumption has been reported after that swap, and I'd imagine that needing to push it less hard would also mean less oil consumption (from the separate issue that all post-EJ engines have been built with looser tolerances because Subaru is chasing fuel efficiency at the expense of engine longevity and oil consumption)

 

Thanks for the update. I think my last concern is how the ABS handles the 2WD mode in high range. My mind is thinking about how the ABS will activate the rear brakes to get the front spinning but no power to front.

This is also an expensive proposition in the US since I would need to get the trans shipped from down under. I will see how I feel once my warranty expires . . .

 

I'm not sure I'm following you. I don't think there's any difference between the gearboxes from the AWD/ABS point of view. Certainly I've been in plenty of wheel-slipping situations in both high and low and the system has performed as expected, getting me traction.
Sorry, I just woke up. Brain not work yet.
Pretty sure I've got a spare dual range shifter kicking around if you decide to do it. I think you'd struggle to find the centre console with room for the lever in a left hand drive version, but you could probably mount it under the dash or something.

 

Glad to hear about your experiences with wheel slippage. Thanks for the offer for the shifter. I am not too sure it would even work for me. Since I have a 2nd Gen Crosstrek, I would probably need to fab something special. Besides having a left-hand steer, the console is significantly different. I was looking at getting a trans from ADS (LINKY) which can also supply some of the trim.

 

ADS is expensive (I looked into them since they're a day's drive there and back for me), but they will look after you, and you'll know you're getting a top condition gearbox (actually one that they've built).

 

I'm looking at things I've been meaning to do but neglecting on my XV and one thing is that the shifter assembly (which I believe came out of a Liberty/Legacy, but it's hard to recall. I think I grabbed a Forester one too, which wasn't any better) didn't fit quite right. It bolted in fine, but the position of the gear stick is too far forward and juuuust makes contact with the plastic of the console in gears 1, 3 and 5.
I remembered the comment above about the EU 1.6l XV coming with dual range, and I poked around and found one of theirs: SUBARU XV 1 generation (2011-2017) Gear Shifting Knob 35016AG011, 35011AG011 20992828 - Used parts online - 8511456 | Partversal.co.uk
Possible part numbers: 35016AG011 35011AG011 20992828.
That would be a complete assembly, and the dual range lever looks like it would bolt in place properly, rather than the lazy bracket thing I "fabbed" up.
Looks like maybe an Imprezza shifter assembly is commensurate with that EU shifter, and would fit better. Which, in retrospect; fucking duh.
Unfortunately, after years of government regulation chipping away, self-service wrecking yards no longer exists in Australia (at least within a day's drive of where I live) so playing "poke around until you find what you're looking for" will no longer be a pastime I can enjoy.