All,
While I have the engine out of my Elan (again) in a few weeks I’m going to be overhauling the gearbox as “preventative maintenance” - it has almost 140,000 miles on it with no overhauls and has lived a hard life with several hot laps around Lime Rock and dozens of autocrosses. I’m not expecting to find anything totally destroyed, it still functions fine but the 1-2 shift is getting slow and notchy and occasionally (like once every couple months) it will pop out of 3rd on overrun (only at high rpms, above 5k).
The gear box is original to the car (1965) and a close ratio type. So far I have the following replacement parts on my list:
-All gaskets and seals
-Input shaft bearing and tail housing bushing
-Front and rear thrust washers
-Front and rear bearings
-Countershaft and needles (given the age I’m expecting to find damage in the countershaft bearing area as that seems like a common issue)
-All synchro rings
-Detent springs
-1/2 and 3/4 shift fork (again, expecting to find wear given age and past [ab]use)
Looking through the parts offered by the usual suspects there is a choice between the conventional bronze shift forks and the steel type. Is there any upside to using steel forks other than decreased wear? And is wear on the normal bronze ones common enough to warrant using steel ones?
I also see a choice between the normal brass synchros, steel synchros, molybdenum-coated synchros (from Kelvedon), and synchros with a mystery “special coating” from TTR. Has anyone used any of the more exotic ones? Is there a distinct advantage over the brass synchros other than wear? Shift quality/speed and wear are my main concerns as I’m taking my Elan to a couple track days a year nowadays.
-Ben