20-07-2024, 10:39 PM
Today I finally succeeded in changing the Cup's gearbox, thanks to a lot of helpful advice from the Bearded Wizard. The previous gearbox kept jumping out of 2nd gear, but fortunately I had acquired one of Andy Bird's close-ratio ones with a sports engine I bought a year ago, so I decided to fit that. The amount of clutter under the Cup's bonnet (brackets, oil filter, etc.) made the task of taking the engine out look rather daunting, but Ruairidh told me that removing the front floor-boards would make it possible to take the gearbox out from inside the car. This all went very well untill we tried to move the gearbox back off the bell housing studs, whereupon it came up against the front chassis cross-member.
Another cry of help to north of the border led to the advice of taking out the engine mounting bolts and jacking up the rear of the engine. This did the trick and the gearbox was successfully removed (after having to take out the passenger's rear floor-board). However, when the replacement gearbox was fitted it turned out that the clutch would not engage... Gearbox out again and measured the clutch levers, the tips of which were too high. Rather than rebuild the clutch we decided on the old trick of fitting a couple of washers on each bell housing stud. This seems to have resulted in a working clutch, so we hope that all will be well to go on the VSCC's Northamptonshire Tour tomorrow (fingers crossed).
The above relatively brief account does not of course include the myriad of tedious and infuriating minor difficulities and irritations which inevitably form part of this sort of mechanical surgery, with which all Austin 7 owners have no doubt also suffered from.
Another cry of help to north of the border led to the advice of taking out the engine mounting bolts and jacking up the rear of the engine. This did the trick and the gearbox was successfully removed (after having to take out the passenger's rear floor-board). However, when the replacement gearbox was fitted it turned out that the clutch would not engage... Gearbox out again and measured the clutch levers, the tips of which were too high. Rather than rebuild the clutch we decided on the old trick of fitting a couple of washers on each bell housing stud. This seems to have resulted in a working clutch, so we hope that all will be well to go on the VSCC's Northamptonshire Tour tomorrow (fingers crossed).
The above relatively brief account does not of course include the myriad of tedious and infuriating minor difficulities and irritations which inevitably form part of this sort of mechanical surgery, with which all Austin 7 owners have no doubt also suffered from.