Re assembling rear brake shoes.

[Colin Morgan]

I believe there is a cunning way of ensuring the master spline is in a known position when offering up the engine - I am sure I have seen it mentioned on here somewhere before?  It involves putting the car in gear and then marking the drive flange at the rear of the gearbox to show the pre-set orientation of the master spline.  If the spline is then knocked and moves, this is then obvious, and it can be put back to 6 o'clock or where ever you need it to be for a fit.

[Reckless Rat]

That's it. Just put the gearbox in top gear and mark the position of the spline on the output flange with a dot of tippex. If you can turn the engine so the blind spline is at TDC and put the tippex dot also at the top, assembly is a piece of gâteau.

[Bob Kneale]

Although we seem to have drifted off thread, my method of aligning the clutch master spline is to replace the to studs at the top of the bellhousing with temporary long ones, so that the weight of the gearbox is taken off your hands. This allows you to conveniently rotate the gearbox output flange as per the previous advice. The reassuring sliding engagement is undertaken in less than half a minute, and the extension studs can be replaced and the job done. Proper job! 

Image doesn't seem to want to attach so I'll try that later......

[Hedd_Jones]

does that work ok fitting in the car?

[Mark R]

I made one of the tools described by Ian Moorcroft and it worked just fine.

Link to BA7C article here

[NBS]

Hello all, Thank you for your replies and Ruairidh solution seem workable but will put the hub out of balance (Not sure if this would be an issue however.).  Since putting my question on the forum I have found an article on the Bristol Austin Seven site on how to do the job with a self made tool. This tool pushes the spring rather than pulls it and  will try this before butchering the hubs.

John Mason.

I made one of these recently and it works brilliantly.