Mucho thanks to Doug Frank for helping me pull Nigel's gearbox out today.
Took less time than I expected, which is a testament to the power of having
two people. (When I pulled Percy's box by myself some years ago it sure
seemed like a lot more work!) Out of curiosity we pulled the top off to see
how bad it looked. One of the gears, 2nd if I remember right, was a ROYAL
MESS, teeth mangled or missing, various other wheels loose and floppy. Of
course, the whole thing is more or less frozen.
In order to tilt the engine up at the rear I tried to drop the exhaust pipe.
When I loosened the pipe-to-manifold bolts, two of 'em snapped right off.
Bummer. Okay, so we pulled the manifolds. That was easy. Too easy, in
fact. The manifold-to-head bolts were way too easy. No trouble at all. So
were all the bellhousing bolts, come to think of it. This gearbox issue is
a blessing in disguise because it now gives me access to and the opportunity
to fix a handful of other minor issues, plus torque all these bolts properly.
Jeff Jones at RaceTune in Allston has promised to rebuild the gearbox for me
and save me money by using as many pieces as possible from the spare I have
that came with the car. I've got lots of little issues to address, but
eventually it will all go back together again to be even better than it was.
Once again, many tanks to Doug and to all of you who offered advice!
Jim Muller
jimmuller@pop.rcn.com
'80 Spitfire (Percy)
'70 GT6+ (Nigel)
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