i was wondering you have cars with front rear and all wheel drive all cars with the engine in the back are rear wheel most cars are front or all wheel my question is HOW do the make the car front of rear wheel drive what is done to make it rear wheel drive when the engines in front? and is it possible to convert a rear wheel to a front wheel and vice versa or a rear or front wheel to all wheel drive what exactly is done from factory as far as setting the drive wheels go?
ill explain it this way. if your car is rear wheel drive like a 2 wheel drive pickup. theres a rear with gears in it spinning the axle which turns the wheels. when a vehicle has 4 wheel or all wheel drive there is a rear in the front doing the same thing as the rear. its more complicated than that but thats generally how it works the spider gears spin the axle or axles
Front drives incorporate a transaxle instead of a transmissionit does the same thing all of the gears are in one unit eliminating the need for having a separate differential and axle housing like rear drives. As for converting a front to a rear drive the modifications and labour needed would be astronomical. Also rear drives with rear engines usually incorporate a transaxle.
If you have lots of money, you can convert anything to anything. The most entertaining example I can name is the Ford Festiva (4 cyl, FWD) converted to the Shogun (6 cyl, RWD) by putting a mid-engine V-6 behind the driver seat and driving the rear wheels. See link below for explanation by Jay Leno, he has one of these in his collection. Essentially this is taking a $6000 car and doing over $30K worth of work to convert it from FWD to RWD. Doable but not PRACTICAL. For cars built from the factory to be front engine, rear drive, there is a significant transmission tunnel lump in the middle of the car that provides room for the transmission and drive shaft to connect the engine in front to the wheels in the back. RWD is generally preferred for performance in most circumstances, but as noted it takes away a little interior space and costs a little extra weight. For cars build from the factory to be front engine, front drive, the floor may be completely flat, so it may be more roomy for a 3 person wide bench, so some classic luxury cars like Cadillac Eldorado are front drive because it makes a roomy interior. If the interior can be flatter and more roomy, then it can be a little smaller and lighter for equivalent interior space so FWD maybe is slightly cheaper and better economy from the factory. And apparently in really icy areas they tend to prefer the FWD or 4WD. But on clean dry pavement, RWD is more controllable and tossable, you can steer with both the steering wheel and throttle. FWD the more throttle you give it acts against steering effect. spin front tires and steering stops working effectively.
