Type 9 gearbox first drive / The good The bad and the Ugly

THE GOOD

Well the long awaited drive has been done. The gearing is very good and slipping into fifth gear makes the spit now very usable at motorway speeds. Can't wait for summer .

THE BAD

Either the clutch spigot bearing or clutch driven plate have just gone bang and only after 15 miles covered ! Bugger. I will pull the motor for the third time over the Christmas hols. I have ordered a new bearing from Frontline Spridget in the hope it's more robust than just drilling out the old triumph spigot bearing.

The new bearing has just arrived it slightly longer i think than the standard item. But it is essentially the same as what i fitted. I am still considering using the ford roller bearing, it is 2mm bigger than the triumph item and i will need to construct a jig so that i can ream the hole out in the crankshaft accurately. However i have found a very cheap source for the bearing. The suppier is RS and comes in at a quarter of the price of gearbox part suppliers and yes the quality is the same or even a little better.

THE UGLY

The engine had to be pulled when it lost it's fluids nearly as quickly as i poured them into the gearbox. Three reasons

1. The welding around the nose casting was porous like i expected but did i seal it no !
2. The Drive shaft seal was knackered why i didn't replace it when i had i chance i don't know, i guess we all make mistakes.
3. A machining hole in the gearbox adapter let fluid pour out.


The build

The Caterham gearbox mount arrived and was fitted to a modded gearbox mount plate, not pretty, i will replace the mount soon for a flat plate that is properly painted.

The propshaft was welded, was easy in the end and there is no vibration even at 80MPH job done just remember if you do this to get the universal joints at 90 degrees from each other.

The speedo parts are here, it uses

A 1500 J type overdrive speedo cable.
A angle speedo drive gearbox from the same.
An adapter flange for the same but turned down to fit the ford gearbox.

All of these parts were picked up from Moss in Bristol.

The angle drive does not fit ford hole, the plan is to heat the pin from the angle drive and melt the plastic part in the ford gearbox. If the plastic won't melt then i will have to grind a broaching cutter to enlarge the hole.

Things to do.

Get the clutch fixed.
Refit.
Clean the car.
Refit the interior, i might even replace the cardboard tunnel cover with a GRP item, well see what Santa brings.
Drive it.

I have also been reading up on diff overhauls, mine is now very noisy and requires setting up. I don't however think the unit is worn as i inspected it prior to fitting. I did however lose the shim spacings for the diff as oil erased my careful pen marks. So i guessed when i put it back together.

That will be looked at next year, After that i will prep the car for it's MOT if i can i will get the Lamda sensor working and fit electronic ignition. Should make the emissions test a little less interesting than last year.

Then drive it, work out how to get the brakes to stop QUICKLY.

After that i think i will be on the lookout for project number three.

The critea will be

1 It must be road legal.

2 Would be better if it was a classic

3. Will be significantly re-engineered.

4. Will be raced competitively.

5. Must be quick

6. Will not be a Caterham or Westy, but a Lotus 7 would do.


Ideas so far are

MG Metro
BMW 2002
MGB- would use new shell.
Modern hatchback like fiesta
Frogeye sprite.
Kit car with hybusa engine.

Type 9 gearbox fitted into the spit at last

Well iv'e finally go t the engine resting on it's front mounts again. And i must say that it looks good. The gearlever pokes up in the right place. as shown below.





So i can now get on with making a gearbox mount. At present it's just resting on the old mounting plate. It also looks like my plan to use the sierra mount will not work, so i will buy a mount from caterham cars along with a few other bits and pieces. That will be next week.
Hopefully i will make the propshaft tommorow so that ready to be fitted.

Also as can be seen below there is a clearance issue between the chassis on the left hand side and the new gearbox so a tweak might have to be done to get over that.



As well as this i think the exhaust is also a touch to close, so that will have to be looked at as well. The gearlever also needs work as in it's to long, needs a triumph gearknob fitted, the plastic saddle bush in the gearbox needs replacing and the lever needs to be tilted by about 5 degrees to the left as moving the lever into 5th gear put the lever out of sight behind the steering wheel rim. minor tweaks that will make a difference.

All in all a job well done i think but still some way off actually driving it.

Type 9 gearbox progress ! My Ar**

Well another month gone and very little progress. Why ?

Simple the company i work for is a large multinational tier 1 automotive supplier. All the engineering work that i can possible do must be aimed at cutting cost before i see any more of my workmates join the dole queue. As did 9 of them last week.

So for now the spit has taken the backseat, and will probably for a while yet. That is unless i get made redundant! umm Maybe i won't think about that.

Anyway progress i have made is to machine the gearbox adapter to the point where i can now bolt the assembly together. I still need to machine the clearance for the clutch slave bracket. The slave bracket itself has been tweaked by welding more metal onto the mounting boss and angling the bottom face.

In bolting the assembly together and then bolting that to the engine a problem arose the inch diameter gearbox input shaft fouls on the flywheel, this will have to be opened up to provide clearance.

Other than that it will not take many man hours to get the engine back in the car. Other things achieved are

Got a propshaft from a sierra. It has the same size outer tube as the spit. these will be welded together soon as i can measure the overall length required. A simple butt weld will suffice but aligning the shaft before and during welding could be interesting. i have got some ideas to overcome this.

Iv'e also got an acquaintance that races an MG metro and has some old turbo calipers that he will let me borrow for brake mockup before i take the plunge and buy some new ones.

Type 9 gearbox all gears found !

That right all gears found, just had a small vacation ! Well i was right the casting was out of position thats now fixed the welding is nearly finished. A coat of black paint will be next.

So that brings the first mod to a close, a good tidy up of all my tools is in order I will then take some pictures of all the mods as i take the box apart for the final time. Yippe. That will be this weekend. I will also put it back together make sure all parts are clean i will pre lubricate the gears with a little oil before sealing the box for good.

There is one small matter to attend to when it's apart, a oil gallery has to be drilled from the selector housing into output shaft gallery as i have removed the oil seal on the selector shaft. This will allow a small of oil past it and that has to go somewhere. Now i cannot guarantee that that selector chamber is oil tight so i will have to seal over the welding i have done to make sure it is leak tight.

Next

I have finished the drawing for the adapter plate and will shortly be ordering the material getting the long abandoned lathe tools out of my toolbox in readiness for the take of turning the main adapter. This may have to wait for another payday we'll see.





So next month i will trial fit everything in the car sort the gearbox mount out. I will then pull the whole lot so that i can get the sump off the engine to baffle it and fit the spacer ring on the exhaust for my O2 sensor.


The gearbox is now finished the picture shows the ford gearbox and the original triumph box below.

More type9 gearbox welding

I think i have found the fault of the two missing gears and it wasn't the missing bush. I took great care to get the selector piece pinned in the right part of the shaft but I completely missed that the casting cutoff has to be repositioned with as much care.

Luckily i had barely gone past the tack weld stage so it was still easy to remove, Now I think that I was about 1mm out sideways before. I will have to tack weld in a new position and try again. This will hopefully happen soon as i pick up the gas i need to continue welding tomorrow.

In the mean time I have turned a bearing bush. Bearing material was going to be expensive as I would have to buy a long length to use 20mm of it. My solution was to make a bearing carrier out of aluminium that i had and add a high spec metal composite bearing bought from a company called Brammer. Once fitted it was clear that it would need to be shortened because I could not get the full throw of the gearlever in the forward and back position. I will tweak this tomorrow and recheck that all is well

Type 9 Speedo cal and selector shaft

Speedo calcs

I have been checking the gearing on the speedo drive to see what the difference will be.

the Spit has a 6 tooth gear on the output shaft as does the ford. The spit has a 23 tooth gearwheel on the speedo output and the ford has a 22 tooth.

This gives the spit a ratio of 3.83 turns of the gearbox output shaft to 1 of the speedo output.
The ford work out at 3.66 : 1 This is a difference of 4%.

This would make the speedometer over reads by 2.8MPH at 70MPH, 2.0MPH at 50MPH, 1.6MPH at 40MPH and 1.2MPH at 30MPH. To me that does not seem that bad so i might well not bother getting the speedo recalibrated.

Just to add to all this there are speedo gears with 21,22 and 24 teeth available but not 23 ! would be nice if i could find one of those.

More gearbox progress.

I have also cut down the selector shaft and re pinned the gearstick selector fork. And as i guessed I'm now missing 2 gears ! Doh. However this is not entirely unexpected, the problem lies with the fact there is a bearing missing. I cut the original out when i modified the nose casting. Once this bearing is replaced I'm sure the shaft will turn more and bend less giving me back those 2 missing gears. If it does not i do have a plan B. More of that later probably.

Type 9 gearbox nose welding

Well i finally plucked up the courage to cut into the gearbox casting. I could not take out as much as i wanted but 99mm is a good start to get the gearlever poking out in the correct place.

The cutting and first session of welding took nearly 5 hours. Mainly because i have never welded aluminium before, it took at least an hour to get my welder set correctly so that i could produce some decent welds. I will have to go back and finish the welding soon.

I will strip the gearbox of it's selector shaft this week end and hopefully get the shaft machined at work next week. I will then try the mechanism to see if i still have 5 forward and 1 reverse gear. If this is ok a good degrease and spot of paint should ready the box for it's adapter plate.

Taking of which i did say the design was likely to change and yep it has. I was trying to get the clutch release cylinder clamp as part of the plate, this now look less viable. I am following the route of modding the existing clamp by inclining the cylinder away from the gearbox. I will have to weld more material to the bosses on the clamp and file to and angle and relocate the mount holes so that everything lines up. Now this setup will never be perfect but it will work well.

Once the clutch slave cylinder issue is sorted i will finish the design of the adapter and get on with making it. The only cloud on the horizon that i can see is i can't find a supplier of M12x1.5mm cap head screws. If i cant get them yet another redesign of the adapter plate will be required.

New Type 9 gearbox progress at last !

Well after breaking the old box, I have picked up the ford gearbox and apart from the crud on the outside looks like a good buy.

The crud has now been removed along with the old bellhousing. After taking a few measurements the design is underway as shown below, now the model is a work in progress and knowing me the final result will look somewhat different.


Measurements.

Old triumph box - Back of casting to centre of gearlever hole = 450mm Ford =557mm . Now that means i have to get rid of 107mm + whatever the thickness of the adapter plate ends up as to get the ford gearlever poking up in the right place.

I think i can remove 105mm from the aluminium casting. There is also a real possibility that i can gain an additional 5-10mm. I will only be able to tell once i have cut and remeasured the casting. This extra might not be worth the effort as there may need to be some additional cutting welding and machining to get these last mm's. This would change how the selector rod is sealed and bushed.

I have actually managed to take out is 99mm, 6mm short of what i really wanted as a minimum. I think i might have a later gearbox than some and with this box you cant take out as much. Still it is what it is.

I also think i can 'gain' another' 10mm or 15mm. but i will need to check with the gearbox in the car to confirm.

The adapter plate will be more complicated than other peoples designs but this will hopefully shave mm's of the thickness.

All of this might mean that the gearlever ends up just 12mm further back than the stock location. Or even possibly less. Now will be. Now more likely to be 18mm out of place






This design will be completed this week. I will then hopefully make the plate. If not i will sub it to a local toolmaker that i trust. It might have no choice but to sub it out as i only have access to a small Myford lathe.

The gearbox is in the process of being stripped, mainly because the Layshaft spindle came loose and i have lost a thrust washer in the bottom of the gearcase. Bugger i wasn't going to do that. I suppose at least i can give the box a good exam before i torture it in use. To aid this i have bought a copy of the Haynes manual to help me.

I am going to shorten the remote housing, before i do i will need to study the casting more to see where i cut it. And then the fun of welding it will come next. Again i might chicken out of this and leave it to someone with experience of welding ali.

How to break a gearbox

Senario

Your driving up a hill, top down on what turned out to be one of the best weekends for weather this summer. Your gearbox 'jumps' out of third gear. That funny it's never done that before.

Well the picture below tells a story, it's the mainshaft from the gearbox and yes it definitely needs to be one piece to work correctly.




I examined the shaft and it apears to be a stress crack that resulted from a manufacturing fault 32 years ago. it's been waiting that long to break!

Now i know i want to put a ford 5 speed in the car but i was going to leave that for at least another month. Not now the car is disabled. However i have sourced a gearbox off ebay and will be collecting it this week. Hope it is OK.

The design work for the gearbox interface plate is underway, the details will appear here shortly.

On another note before i broke the gearbox i started to test the effect different pump unleaded fuels have on performance. It was to early to get meaningful results but Shell super unleaded does give more power. Probably what sent the gearbox over the edge.

Spitfire Update

Well very little has happened since the last post except the 1500 miles the spitfire has done.

However the list of things to do has expanded.

Remove and check preloads on diff, as it's noisy. I checked the diff before painting it and found no wear so I suspect I’ve upset the crush ring on the input shaft. Well see.

The engine mounts need replacing as the exhaust hits the chassis occasionally.

I do however have a plan.

The first three projects will run together and these are the gearbox project, The cylinder head project and a Lambda sensor project to help with tuning.

Gearbox

I have completed most of the research and will shortly be looking for a donor gearbox to start.
This will be partially stripped and checked before being painted.
I will then part design the interface plate. I will finish this when I disassemble the spit in about October time.

Cylinder head

I am researching porting of the cylinder head I think that I’m going to start with the current head if this is successful I will then buy a unleaded head and do the same to that. I it all goes badly wrong I will go straight to the unleaded head and forget about porting.

There seems at present to be three areas to concentrate on.

Valve area

Unshroud valve area in the cylinder
Smooth the valve seat into the port especially on the short side.

Ports

Smooth and remove obstructions or at least minimise.

Manifold

Match the manifold to the cylinder head.
I might change to stainless steel headers at this point.

Lambda sensor

The research is done and I have constructed an electronic box/readout
I need to buy a 02 sensor and fit.

I hope this works if not I will buy a gauge from ebay to work with the 02 sensor.

Later

After this i will need to think about fueling as the standard setup on the SU carbs will be way off thanks to the better breathing cylinder head. This is when i will think about servicing / modifiying and changing jet needles. This will hopefully happen spring 2009.

After this i will look at breaking again but i'm certain that i will be using Metro turbo calipers with bespoked mount brackets.

Restoring and upgrading a triumph spitfire 1500

Just for now a before and after pic.

Doesn't look to bad eh?

Don't be fooled.

Now thats better everything works in a 70's
sort of way.









Just leaves the mods to make it drivable on a day to day basis.

To Do list

5 speed gearbox - including modded selector casing.
Carb overhual inc needle selection and testing.
Better brakes - the originals need bigger balls than iv,e got.
Electronic ignition.
Rear Camber compensators.
Adjustable front wishbones.
Lowered by 50mm at the front.
Get all suspension geometry correct.
Unleaded head conversion / gas flowing.
Baffled sump.
Diff overhaul.

So why would i not buy a modern car ?
Easy i drive a mundano sorry mondeo everyday it's dull.

Why bother - why not !