For those interested in old cars.

[uax6]

On ‎05‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 22:11, rodent279 said:

Yep. 1098 ribbed box. I broke the bellhousing when I took the engine out, purely my own fault, I didn't support the box properly, and as the engine came out, the top edge of the bellhousing was supporting the combined weight of engine & box, and a piece broke off. Looking at the break, it's not clean, there is muck in there, so I think it was fractured anyway.

So I've got hold of a spare bellhousing and transferred the innards over. The silver lining is that I've renewed the 1st & 3rd motion shaft bearings, which were getting worn, and the needle bearings inside the laygear, along with the layshaft. I also renewed first gear, as some of the teeth were roughly broken and fractured, so I may have avoided a catastrophic failure.

 

 

I bet you didn't actually cause the failing of the bellhousing top... There is a spigot on the top of the engine backplate, which serves as a locator for the gearbox, but sadly this often rusts, and then becomes a very tight fit in the hole in the bell housing. The result is that as soon as you try to pull the box off the top of the bell housing stays put...

 

I have done many, many thousands of miles with gearboxes with no top mounts on them, and never noticed any issues relating to the fixings being missing! (in fact I'm sure the van doesn't have the top fixings on its gearbox, and that's now done about 46K like it....

 

Mind you, the gear does look bad, so a good job you are doing sir.

 

Andy G

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, uax6 said:

 

 

I bet you didn't actually cause the failing of the bellhousing top... There is a spigot on the top of the engine backplate, which serves as a locator for the gearbox, but sadly this often rusts, and then becomes a very tight fit in the hole in the bell housing. The result is that as soon as you try to pull the box off the top of the bell housing stays put...

 

I have done many, many thousands of miles with gearboxes with no top mounts on them, and never noticed any issues relating to the fixings being missing! (in fact I'm sure the van doesn't have the top fixings on its gearbox, and that's now done about 46K like it....

 

Mind you, the gear does look bad, so a good job you are doing sir.

 

Andy G

No, I'm pretty sure it broke because I didn't support the box properly. The engine and box have been separated twice in the last 5 years, so I doubt that it's the spigot that got rusted in. But every cloud etc etc, it's definitely been worth it, I now effectively have a reconditioned box

[Porkscratching]

At least a moggy box you can swing about by hand unaided if needs be..a Land Rover gearbox with it's additional transfer box etc is a big old lump..!

[rodent279]

Yes, even fully built up it's fairly easy to lift. Even a bare engine block seems considerably heavier.

[uax6]

But still heavy enough to pin you to the spot while trying to do the lift, turn, thrust forward all at the same time fitting technic while lying on your back with the car not quite high enough in the air. It also doesn't help when you have the upper body strength of a dead fly....

 

It took a long time to work out quite how it had managed to fall back on me and wedge me against an axlestand and the exhaust....

 

I've grown up a lot since that day twenty  three years ago, I know take the engine and box out together.... ;-}

 

Andy G

[Enterprisingwestern]

On 28/04/2019 at 19:47, big jim said:

 but it’s looking smart

 

There's no accounting for taste!

 

Mike.

[RANGERS]

9 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Plenty of Tiptronic style boxes on cars more than 10 years old. The earlier ones seem all to have been rather "fragile". I would not want one but then I am a Luddite that does not want complicated tech of any sort on the car. Just more things to go wrong in my book. Often wish that I  still had my 1978 Volvo 245. I can't remember anything at all going wrong with that and it always came off best in any shunt. Kit currently being developed to put electric drive in the 2-series Volvo. I wonder if I can find a cheap one somewhere?

The Audi Tiptronic is a traditional torque converter, the more recent multi-clutch DSG is the S-Tronic in Audi speak. To add to the confusion, the Multi-tronic was a CVT box and all three were in mainstream production together for almost a decade.

[rodent279]

4 hours ago, uax6 said:

But still heavy enough to pin you to the spot while trying to do the lift, turn, thrust forward all at the same time fitting technic while lying on your back with the car not quite high enough in the air. It also doesn't help when you have the upper body strength of a dead fly....

 

It took a long time to work out quite how it had managed to fall back on me and wedge me against an axlestand and the exhaust....

 

I've grown up a lot since that day twenty  three years ago, I know take the engine and box out together.... ;-}

 

Andy G

Sounds like that was a close shave!

I'm putting engine and box back as one, if nothing else it saves the ballache of trying to marry the two whilst the box is suspended from a crane. I like having all my fingers!

[big jim]

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

There's no accounting for taste!

 

Mike.

 

 

Ooooh,  get you Gok wan!! 

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2019 by big jim

[boxbrownie]

On 07/05/2019 at 11:38, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

 Often wish that I  still had my 1978 Volvo 245. I can't remember anything at all going wrong with that and it always came off best in any shunt.

 

Might not have gone wrong, but the brakes sounded very suspect 

[Joseph_Pestell]

3 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

 

Might not have gone wrong, but the brakes sounded very suspect 

 

I never hit anyone else. They hit me.

[Porkscratching]

21 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I never hit anyone else. They hit me.

 

Advisory, don't take up boxing..!

[boxbrownie]

38 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I never hit anyone else. They hit me.

 

Well.......that’s always the first line on the witness statement

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

 

Well.......that’s always the first line on the witness statement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhDwz2bmey0

[37114]

On 07/05/2019 at 18:10, Porkscratching said:

At least a moggy box you can swing about by hand unaided if needs be..a Land Rover gearbox with it's additional transfer box etc is a big old lump..!

I managed to just about lift the Land Rover gearbox onto the bench without the overdrive fitted, witn the overdrive it was too heavy. Need an engine crane to lift it in though...

[boxbrownie]

12 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhDwz2bmey0

 

Saw that live.....a long time ago, brilliant show and still can see JC spinning around in the dark after just letting off two barrels 

[Al51]

41 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

 

Saw that live.....a long time ago, brilliant show and still can see JC spinning around in the dark after just letting off two barrels 

"There's only one way to kill a mole!"

 

Al

[Porkscratching]

3 hours ago, 37114 said:

I managed to just about lift the Land Rover gearbox onto the bench without the overdrive fitted, witn the overdrive it was too heavy. Need an engine crane to lift it in though...

I've usually done the lifting in and out with 2 blokes and a couple of straps slung under it, with lengths of stout bar as 'handles' 

I have hoiked them in and out on my own but requires some lateral thinking!

[rodent279]

31 minutes ago, Porkscratching said:

I've usually done the lifting in and out with 2 blokes and a couple of straps slung under it, with lengths of stout bar as 'handles' 

I have hoiked them in and out on my own but requires some lateral thinking!

I've rigged up an engine crane in my garage. A 1tonne chain hoist suspended from a thick wooden beam, supported by two wooden battens bolted to the garage walls. I wouldn't trust it with a tonne, but it's fine for a Minor engine & gearbox.

[doilum]

Spitfires were easy. Remove front, jack up as high possible and secure to a fixed over head point (children's swing, homemade tripod.......). Undo nuts and lower car. Push car away. Job done in under an hour and most of the time spent on the bonnet removal.

We shouldn't make light of lifting. Sister-in-law has had a lifetime of back pain resulting from trying to out muscle hubby on an escort gearbox. Having had to borrow a professional hoist to get a pinto out of an escort, I saw the light and invested in my own. It has paid for itself many times over, especially during the MGB years when I had the engine in/out down to around 3 hours.

[Porkscratching]

Indeed ..always best not to hurt your back, but we've all done it I'm sure over the years variously wrangling old cars about!

At least with railway stuff it's so heavy you usually have no choice but to use a crane..!!

[boxbrownie]

6 hours ago, Porkscratching said:

Indeed ..always best not to hurt your back, but we've all done it I'm sure over the years variously wrangling old cars about!

At least with railway stuff it's so heavy you usually have no choice but to use a crane..!!

 

All my life I suffered, and it’s getting worse now half way through my 60’s..........all because when we were racing single seaters in the 70’s (not mine, the 1970’s ) I lifted the front of our BT21 Formula Ford to plonk it on stands in the pits as we couldn’t wait for the jack to arrive, easy to lift it was back then when I was 18......but when letting down on the stands I felt a “poinnng/crack” in my lower back, that was the start.

 

What a stupid young knobhead!!

[Porkscratching]

That's the trouble, back then we thought we were immortal / unbreakable..!

[PatB]

I remember being able to manhandle a L-R gearbox solo, although the finesse required to actually remove/install it required two people, in the absence of a hoist. It was a bit easier because the Landy in question was a Forward Control, so with the load bed hatch up, the box was open to the sky. I was an awful lot younger then too.

 

The Spit was easy as the box came out through the car. Seats and footwell carpets out. Remove H-shaped bracing thingy under dash. Off with the pressed cardboard cover and, once you'd undone the bellhousing and undone the mounts, clutch slave cylinder and propshaft you could just lift the tail and slide the whole thing backwards on the edges of the chassis rails. Replacement was a reversal of the removal procedure, with the addition of someone with a loop of rope to lift and position the bellhousing as it went home. The only awkward bits were the overdrive which almost doubled the weight of the box, and the fact that, on mine, the body had sagged a bit due to rusty sills (repaired but didn't get the alignment quite right), making the gap between the chassis rails and the bottom of the dash a bit tight to get the bellhousing through. From memory there was no need to lift the car to go underneath for any of it.

[polybear]

12 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

 

All my life I suffered, and it’s getting worse now half way through my 60’s..........all because when we were racing single seaters in the 70’s (not mine, the 1970’s ) I lifted the front of our BT21 Formula Ford to plonk it on stands in the pits as we couldn’t wait for the jack to arrive, easy to lift it was back then when I was 18......but when letting down on the stands I felt a “poinnng/crack” in my lower back, that was the start.

 

What a stupid young knobhead!!

 

Read the book, seen the play, starred in the film, got the T-shirt...

 

7 hours ago, Porkscratching said:

That's the trouble, back then we thought we were immortal / unbreakable..!

 

And isn't it amazing as youngsters we all knew best when oldies used to say to us "...watch your back or you'll regret it...."