Ok. So you're at the drags, as a spectator. You're on your maiden
voyage, so to speak, on private ground, enjoying the chance of that first
drive around before the car is registered. You see your old pal Koops.
He snaps some digipix with his stolen, sorry, I mean borrowed camera. He
then mentions this camera's ability to make little movie clips. Proud of
your new toy, you readily agree to do a couple of drive-by's to get the
proud moment captured for posterity. The drive by's completed, you announce
you'll rev it up, drop the clutch and spin the wheels a bit for good cinematic
effect. Safe in the knowledge the freshly fitted V8 axle will stand the
strain, you get the revs up, brace yourself, drop the clutch. you are rewarded
by a sickening BANG!, no forward movement and that sinking feeling in your
stomach. has the axle gone again? No, this time it's the turn of the gearbox
to turn itself into shrapnel.
Once towed home, the gearbox lid was removed to reveal this.
Stripped teeth on the cluster gear, a SNAPPED mainshaft and an almighty
crack in the casing.
The back of the trans stripped down to reveal this damage to the
(brand new, dammit) rear bearing. Amazingly this held together while the
car was towed home.
The only gearbox available at short notice was this one, which
had some detail differences around the bellhousing area. Note the built
in starter cover, but that it is for an engine with the starter mounted
further inboard, which must imply a smaller diameter flywheel. Obvious
candidate is V8-60, but they are normally fitted with smaller gears. This
box has big V8 gears. I'm informed this box was probably from a V8-60 commercial
application hence the big gears.
Problem is, the box won't fit my motor. Here's a close-up of the
problem area. even though the cast in starter shroud was cut away, the
lever and boss foul the starter.
Sort of desparate, I decided to use the right side clutch shaft
pivot from the old bellhousing. It was duly cut down, drilled for a new
bolt and fitted to the rear face of the sump. Big problem was, the shaft
runs at a different height in the replacemenyt box, so........
I found I couldn't just replace the one side. I repeated the operation
on the other side. The two sides had to be carefully aligned to allow the
shaft to pivot freely.
The trans case was chopped away to clear the clutch release parts.
With care the clutch release assembly can be left in place and the gearbox
fitted over it.
Footnote: The trans was installed and was good enough to get me
to the MOT test. It was leaking however. I pulled it again and found the
front bearing retainer wasn't bolted on properly. I was in such a hurry
to get the car driving again I didn't strip it or check it. It is pretty
whiny in first too, due to the straight cut gears. I'll look out for a
later tranny that will bolt up, and make sure it has the later gears with
the helical cut first/reverse and hopefully the better synchro's too.
Footnote to the footnote:
I picked up another V860 tranny and it had helical gears. I wanted
to try and use them, but I found a couple of gears were chipped (roughly
half a tooth missing) . After mulling it over for about 10 seconds, I decided
to build up the teeth with mig weld and file them to shape. Apologies for
the poor quality of the photo's.
Now how somebody manages to damage a tooth on second gear (with
a V860) is beyond me, but chipped it was. A few bursts with the mig welder
produced enough buildup to file into shape.
Now first gear I can understand. again, a few bursts with the mig,
and enough material was deposited to grind into shape.
Lots of careful and difficult filing later, I got the teeth to
at least resemble their neighbours. The gearbox has been reassembled, and
I've covered about 60 miles as I write, and so far so good. Mercifully,
most driving is done in top, so once underway, these gears are not used.
Needless to say I am driving it pretty gently. Rebuilding damaged parts
loses it's attraction after a while.
Mart.
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