Gearbox Installed

Another milestone in the project today, with the installation of the gearbox. I'm glad I bought the splined clutch alignment tool, I'm pretty sure it made the process that much quicker. If I'd had to slowly rotate the primary pinion as well as pushing and trying to get everything aligned by myself, it would have been more difficult and taken a lot longer. As it was, getting everything correctly aligned was a time consuming process, but after an hour or so there came the moment when gearbox and engine suddenly appeared to stop resisting and in went the pinion.

These two views show the gear show the gearbox being lowered into place. Not much clearance on all sides, what with the exhaust pipe in place, it even took turning the 'feet' below the rubber mounts to an angle to get everything in place without scratching something.

Getting the two sections precisely aligned so that the shaft would enter the clutch drive plate was a challenge. In the end, I had a jack under the rear of the engine, a large C-clamp on one side keeping engine and bell housing at a set distance, and a wooden lever on the other side to adjust the distances. Turning the C-clamp handle would close things up a little, then everything else was adjusted to suit. Only when everything was aligned with a pretty good degree of precision did the shaft suddenly enter the clutch plate. Nice not to have to search for spline alignment, thanks to the tool. Once it was in, it was a matter of getting the nuts on just to hold everything together and then tightening them to hold engine and housing tightly together. Tomorrow I will go back and install the nuts correctly with their lock washers and then torque as required.

View below: The moment of success! I even put the hand brake lever mechanism back on, just to get it out of the way. After everything was in place, the engine was turned over a few revolutions using the starter handle to make sure everything was in working order and output shaft flanges turning.