gate change top 3 speed ball wear

[JonE]

I'm just stripping the top of a late 1927 gearbox. I doubt it's been apart before.
Are paper gaskets used to shim the ball, as this one has two and removing one for ongoing wear of the contact parts would be easier than flatting off the faces of the gate and the casting below. Any observations others have made?

[Parazine]

Hi Jon,

I have stripped a few of these but none have (as far as I'm aware) been original/untouched. There is usually (not always) a paper washer between the lid and the gate; I don't recall seeing two but I have seen varying thicknesses. 

In theory, the factory could have used this method to space the lid/gate if they found a tight one I suppose or maybe it was a dodge, done by an impecunious student in 1952, impossible to tell at this distance in time.

[JonE]

that is interesting. Presumably the move to the later change was as much about disassembly as anything. I started thinking that it is rivets at both ends of the lever for the reverse catch, but then there is the knob too to remove! Or am I missing something silly?

[Parazine]

I think, by 1930, Austin were beginning to employ what we would call "Production Engineers" and they would (in modern parlance) have done a cost analysis and recommended a redesign for the sake of saving quite a few shillings in production costs.