Changing Gears III

I took the day off on Friday and met my Dad at David's again early in the morning. To start, David put together the new throwout bearing assembly. The picture shows the old one next to the new one. Notice the huge chunk missing from the former.

And here's a before and after shot of the ring gear. Notice the chunks of teeth missing from the old one. David attached the new ring gear to the flywheel. He did this buy setting the flywheel out in the snow (so it contracted) and heating the ring gear with a torch (so it expanded), then hammering them together.

Then we attached it to the back of the engine along with the clutch. We had to use a special clutch alignment tool to make sure everything was centered when bolting it on.

Next, we bolted the transmission to the engine. And attached the starter, fuel filter, and transmission mounts.

Dropping the whole shabang back into the engine bay required some finagling, but it went in easier than it came out. We connected all the necessary hoses, wires, and belts. Then back in went the radiator. From the bottom, we connected the exhaust manifold to the exhaust, the reverse lights wiring, and reinserted the driveshaft into the transmission. All these things would have been so much more difficult without David's lift which enabled us to stand and work from underneath.

Then we put in the shifter and filled everything back up with fluids. The transmission oil is actually filled via inside the car. After tearing back the carpet on the shifter tunnel, a plug is removed which gives you access to the filler nut. While we were getting the cockpit back in order, it came up that I didn't have a working cigarette lighter. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, David had one there and promptly installed it. Then as I was putting the carpet back together, I noticed one of the snaps had broken off. He had one of those too. My dad said how it's like working at Pep Boys over there. David has everything you could ever need.

It's funny. We put everything back together before starting the car...the grill, the hood, the carpet. As if we were so sure we weren't going to run into an issue and have to tear it apart again.

We held our breathe as the first turn of the key yielded no start. We realized we neglected to connect a wire going to the distributor. So we connected it and the car started like a champ. I took it for a ride. It was a little difficult to shift and second gear was particularly difficult to get into, grinding at times. But this got much better as I drove it longer. I'm confident that after the new gears get broken in, and the oil gets into all the nooks and crannies, it'll shift much better. Overall, the car sounds and feels so much more refined. First gear, thankfully, still whines. But it's a healthy sounding whine.

I couldn't imagine having done this in my own garage by myself. Maybe if it was a straight swap. But with everyhing extra that needed to be done, my garage and my mechanical knowledge wouldn't have been adquate to finish the project on my own. At the same time, I'm glad that I was more than a just a "light holder" and was able to be as big a part of it as I was.

Cool Runnings

I replaced the thermostat in the Mini today. When the Midget's broke this summer, it was overheating. Being winter now, the problem in the Mini was quite the opposite. It took a good deal of driving to get the temperature gauge even slightly above the C. This resulted in weakened performance and a need to keep the choke out much longer.

I had to try three different auto parts stores to get the thermostat and gasket I needed. The problem is, auto stores don't have a 1980s Mini listed in their computers because they weren't imported to the States during that time. So I asked them to look up a 1960s Mini thermostat/gasket. The engines differed slightly from mine, but I don't think that'd be an issue with something as universal as a thermostat. I went with a 180º thermostat which should be better for winter use than the 160º I replaced.

Changing Gears II

Since my last post, plans had changed. Despite my desire to do the job myself, my Dad convinced me to do it over at David's, my Mom's cousin. So I put everything back together on the car and the three of us tackled it this past weekend.

And to be honest, I'm very glad I ended up doing it there. He has a heated garage, a lift, and every tool you can imagine to make things easier. He's also extremely knowledgeable. The three of us working on it also sped up the process, since we could each work on different areas simultaneously.

We had some trouble getting the engine/tranny out as a unit, so we ultimately decided to detach the two before removing them. We lifted the engine with a forklift and some chains. And we dropped the tranny out the bottom.

David set up the two transmissions side by side, and pointed out that the new one was missing a reverse-light switch. I called Quantum Mechanics and he recommended swapping the neck of the new tranny with the old one. We did so. I'm guessing the tranny they sent me was from an earlier year...when reverse lights weren't required. David cleaned up some things inside and also noticed that my throwout bearing was shot and that my ring gear was quite worn. Both of these things should have been replaced, or at least certainly brought to my attention, when I had the clutch replaced by Maiden England 3 or 4 years ago. If you recall, when I picked up the car from them, a headlight and the speedometer were both also not working and I had to fix both myself. Talk about incompetence. But I digress.

So we called it a day, ate lunch, and ordered the parts. I also ordered some less significant parts that could use replacing...gaskets and bolts and such. We're planning to reconvene as soon as the parts come in to put it all back together. Also, my Ziploc organizational method was thrown out the window from the get go. I'll let you know if that was a good idea in a few days.

I'm very excited to drive it when it's all said and done. And I have increasingly frequent thoughts of getting it painted. Now that it'll be up to snuff mechanically, I want it to look as good as it'll drive.