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.