Mosquitos have been horrendous lately here at any time of day. So thick I had to give it away yesterday.

This morning I went mad with the Aeroguard and managed to replace the fuel filter and start it up again and run it for a few minutes. Smoked like crazy - oil on the exhaust I suppose. Anyway that seemed to disperse the mozzies and I was able to install the switch and the relay.

I used a existing screw to mount the relay and I managed to fit the switch between the fuel gauge and the vacuum gauge. PO had an ammeter where the OD switch blanking hole was and I replaced it with the vacuum gauge.

I felt that the switch should go somewhere there so that's where it went. See pics:


The relay just went where it is because that was where the screw was and it was close to where the wires came up from the gearbox. The two green wires that don't go anywhere are the reversing lights switch.


I made up some short connectors to go from bullet connectors to spade connectors because I didn't want to cut the harness wires. Did that so it can go to standard if I desire. This, however, makes it look a bit messy.

Finished off the inside and put the bonnet back on. That means it's all done except for the driveshaft spacer and I spent some time drawing it up and thinking about how I want to do that. Decided to go with double set of studs so I only have nilock nuts to worry about. Long bolts I don't think would go in.
Here's the drawing of that which I've yet to make.


Well that's about it. I ran it again and tested the OD solenoid and tried to hear whether it changed when the OD was activated in 3rd and 4th.
Solenoid clicked in and out loud and clear and I think that I could hear the output speed change but I can't be sure. I'll have to wait till it's on the road to be absolutely sure.

If I had the speedo cable I could tell from that.

This is the morning after. It was too late yesterday (well earlier this morning, actually) to be bothered writing this up but I did put an entry on the forum click here.

Started at about 9 am and immediately got side tracked with the side tappet covers.
I was pretty sure one of mine leaked so while the motor was out I thought I'd have a go at it. It was the front one and of course it leaked, the gasket was not thick enough to stick above the flange - even when new. I compared the old gasket with the piece that had come from the centre of the gasket when new and it had not compressed very much, if at all. It was always going to leak.


You can see here that it doesn't fill the recess.


So I covered everything and went off to try to by some thicker cork stock. Long story, short, no joy there so I used some thinner stuff I had and added it to the original gasket with lots of gasket goop. The back one is a different design and it was sealing well. I had to take it off to establish that but it went back on with a fresh coating of goop as well. If they leak now ...........!

Ok didn't actually get to the motor/g.box install 'till about 1 pm or something like that. Cleared the garage and lined up the car with the chain block.


Moved the unit into position and hooked up the cable to it and the chain block while still on the stand.


Lifted it up a little, unhooked the stand, lifted it clear of the guards, spun it around and pulled the car under it while letting it down gently. The chain block is very precise and it take no effort to raise or lower it just a little. I had almost everything left on the motor so it was a bit of a tight squeeze but with the trolley jack underneath to alter the angle as I went down and in, it finally was resting on the front engine mounts.


A little jiggling while gently lifting and lowering and I was able to get the bolts for the mounts in.


Next the infamous crossmember. It was then I realised that these weren't where I wanted them to be.


Not such a big deal but I wanted to minimise the time I had to spend under the car.

Well, I managed to get them on without much drama. I actually found it easier to do it completely by feel with my eyes shut.
The crossmember was next and I installed the stay rod to it on the bench to try to make it easier and I'd already done the modification to the crossmember so by moving the supporting trolley jack away from the stay loop I installed the crossmember to the gearbox and then, using the jack to raise the whole lot proceeded to install the crossmember bolts. Wow, this was not going well until I realised that the OD gearbox uses different screw holes and these had not been used ever. After struggling with the bolts and actually getting all four in but unable to tighten, the penny dropped and one by one I took them out and ran a tap up the holes.
What a difference! No photos of the cross member unfortunately.

Anyway, I had to stop there as Sharon and David came home and were expecting dinner.

After dinner I went back out to clean up but ended up continuing and got everything else hooked up and gave it a test run.

Well one little hiccup. I must have damaged the metal fan on the front of the generator and it screamed like a banshee till I bent it back into shape. Took me a while to work out what the god awful noise was and there was a 'small' amount of panic when I started it up.

And I've got a fuel leak at the filter. Haven't looked at it in detail but I may have split the filter, plastic, generic just before the carbs.

However, all is well (ish).

The tailshaft is not connected yet but I engaged all the gears and the box is nice and quite. Not definitive yet but a good sign. Took me about an hour and a half to clean up and pack everything away.

It was just on 1 am when I'd finished and by the time I'd cleaned up and had a shower I didn't get to bed until about 2 am.

This morning I took these 2 pics:


Still some work to do on the inside:


It's 1.30 pm the next day and I've been to the Gym and I picked up a new fuel filter, a bit of fuel line, a generic switch and a simple relay. I'll fiddle about with those bits this afternoon - maybe!

Last 2 day have been 'fiddle about' days.
The wiring up and a few decisions to make about what to do about some issues have taken much longer than I had anticipated.

The new harness came with the reverse and OD harness and I'd packed it away a few years ago. Got it out and wired it up. The 3rd, 4th lockout switch had been replaced with a screw terminal version and rather than cut off the clips on the harness I modified some spade terminals and screwed them in and clipped the harness to them.


Attached the harness to the side of the gearbox with a combination of cable ties and a 'P' clip. I drilled and tapped an unused spigot in the side of the gearbox. A bit DPO but the result is neat. Also drilled a couple of 3mm holes into casting webs to use cable ties. (Very DPO)




Then it was time to address the adjustment of the OD solenoid. The manual was a bit sketchy in this area but it became clearer when I actually put power to the solenoid. It pulled in a lot further than I thought it would and it was clearer what the manual was describing.

I've covered the control arm up but it is clearly depicted in the manual. A 3/16" hole is in the brass control lever and it matches a hole in the casting behind it. At rest these two should line up. Well the at rest position is debatable and as the plunger can flop around all over the place when no power is flowing I determined close enough was good enough and went about adjusting the arm at the fully engaged position. Logic and the manual and the Moss video mentioned in a previous entry made it clear that the solenoid drew a lot of current when it was being activated but at the end of it's stroke it only needed a small current - less than 2amps to hold it there. A switching mechanism was built into the solenoid at the end of its pull stroke to drop the current from about 15 to 20 amps down to 2amps.
I just had to make sure that the plunger got to this position at the same time as moving the lever to almost it's full movement.
I needed to be able to measure up to 20 amps. Hmm, both my multimeters only go to about 500 Milli amps. I was almost at the point of giving up when I remembered the PO had an ammeter in the dash when I bought the car and started to search for where I'd put that when another light bulb moment and I remembered my old engine analyser that had been given to me maaany years ago but my college mates on my 21st. I sure it had a method of measuring alternator output so it must go into that kind of range. Well I dug it out and found that it did by using a shunt.
Used my jump start battery (almost flat) and hooked it up and got the 2 readings that I required - albeit a bit low because the jump starter was almost flat but there was enough to show a reading of about 10amps and then dropping to about 2amps.
High amp reading: (should be about 20 amps it's not because the battery was almost flat)

Low amp reading: (Really just a deflection of the needle)


I fiddled about to make sure I was stiil getting full movement on the arm when engaged and it was still a bit slack when disengaged. And I was done.

Used some locktite on the cover plug I got the other day and attached the cover,




All done ready to go!

There was some discussion about the use of the vacuum switch and relay on the forum. I've decided not to use these at this time. I'll just put the link to the discussion by way of explanation.

Link to forum discussion here!

Maybe the lump will go back in tomorrow.

Got a fair bit done today and tomorrow I may be able to get the lump back in the car.

I took off the front cover of the gearbox and replaced the seal. The old one wasn't leaking and it looked ok but I had the new one anyway so...
Was very careful to make sure I had it sealed well. Plenty of gasket goop.

Then after a few pics of the innards I cleaned up the side plate and with a new gasket and plenty of goop sealed it up as well.


3.6 Litres of engine oil and I was ready to attempt a test of the OD hydraulics. Using my corded hand drill and after scouring to find some suitable hose clamps and a piece of hose, we eventually came up with this:


It's a bit (OK a lot) rough but it functioned. Spinning the box in 4th and tweeking the lever by hand we were able to establish reasonably confidently that the hydraulics and the mechanism of the OD function. An audible and visual change in the speed of the output shaft was quite evident.


The solenoid is new so as long as it functions and I set it up correctly, I feel sure I will be able to get this to function.

After a bit of drama I eventually removed the old spigot bearing. Tried the grease in the hole and a close fitting plunger and driving it out to no avail. Then used a length of 10mm threaded rod with a large nut on the end fed through and hooked over end of the bearing and pulled it out using a heavy length of steel with a hole in it as a slide hammer up against another nut on the other end. Took a while but it came out relatively easily. Cleaned everything out and using the old spigot drove the new one in flush with the front end of the hole. No photos of this procedure unfortunately.

After putting the new spigot bearing in and attaching the clutch using the spare 1st motion shaft as an alignment tool an old guy and a scrawny lad couldn't for the life of us get the two together.


So a different approach was required.


Dropped straight in - no fuss!

And so this is where we are up to tonight.


Stay tuned for tomorrows episode.

Today I polished the ball and the pivot of the lever. Used a piece of abrasive foam to make sure there were no rough patches and then buffed it on a cloth wheel in the drill press. This is to make sure the action is as smooth as possible.


I then attached the remote control unit and assembled the lever in the remote control unit with a smear of vaso' around the pivot.


Went through all the gears checking the two switches with a multimeter to make sure they function correctly. I ended up swapping the reverse switch out of the other box as the on in the OD box was rusted on. I probably won't be using it anyway - MK1 no reversing lights - but I may want to put a small 3rd party reversing light later on so it's good to have it functioning. The new wiring harness I put in a few years ago has the wires for the reversing light so it's definitely something I may be inclined to do later.

Tomorrow I'll change the front oil seal and finish the side inspection plate installation, fill with oil and see if I can test the OD function.
I've also got the new solenoid ready to go and I found this Moss video which gives me some good information on the electrical side of the solenoid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI6EhAT9WSc

Chris

There's 20 photos explaining this so this entry is a looong one. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
I'd mentally done this a few times in my mind and it was dependent on a few things going my way.
Here's what I'm dealing with:


The bottom of the lever is about 8mm too long. Everything else seems ok and Peter had been there before so I was confident that the principal was sound.

With the nylon bush in the right place the top is this far out.


With the top in the right place the bush is too far down.


About 45mm overall needs to be 36mm, about.


This bit needs to be about 36mm in total.


Here we are set up ready to cut. Too hard to use a hacksaw - have to use an angle grinder. This is a leap of faith!


Well there's no turning back now. I was disappointed in my apparent inability to cut freehand more accurately than this.


For my plan to work I needed to be able to drill into the ends. I wanted to drill through the centre of the shaft before I cut it but it was far too hard. I was hoping that it was only case hardened.
Yes it is only case hardened. That's a blurry centre punch indent. The end of the shaft before cutting simply flattened this same punch.


Small end cleaned up and bevelled holding it in the drill press and using the angle grinder whilst turning at a moderate speed. Can't do this with the other part so me next cut has to be better.


After some careful measuring this is how much had to come off - cut has to be straighter than the previous cut!


I was able to do a straighter cut and cleaned it up on my linisher, and put a bevel on it as well. A 3mm hole is drilled in both ends.


Small end drilled. These were an easy drill the metal being quite soft inside.
The end having a flat on it made it easier to mount. The drill holes were only about 3mm deep, suitable for a rod of about 5mm long being used as a spigot.


Here we have the rod in place in the big end:


The assembled end before welding. The spigot was not in the exact centre but as they were both 'wrong' turning one around found the position where the errors cancelled each other out.


Setup for welding was a bit tricky and I could only align by eye.


Welded together. I made 2 welds opposite each other then one each side ground out to get full penetration then welded the sides. That means there were 4 welds around the join.


The fact it was case hardened has another advantage with the welding. It means that the bulk of the metal stays basically the same composition and any heating and/or cooling should have minimal impact on the strength of the component. Any heat treatment would only effect the surface and it's only the surface of the end ball that may be effected and it's enclosed in the nylon bush anyway.

Grinding down the weld was tricky but it doesn't have to be perfect. I did this by hand off hand grinding on a 9" bench grinder and touched up with a strip of emery cloth. (Old linisher belts come in handy for this sort of thing)


Well that's it. Here's in position from the top.


and here's a blurry shot in position from the bottom.


Preliminary movements seem good. I'll assemble it completely and try it's movement out more fully tomorrow.

On another topic. I also assembled the OD unit onto the gearbox this morning and it went very smoothly.
Some pictures of that are below as well:


Making sure the splines are lined up way down here and the thing just fell together.


It was a good day!