Magnesium, Aluminium gearbox bits

Been thinking about buying light weight bell housing and tail shaft for my S4. There are some advertised on ebay right now anybody bought from this guy? Quality and service? Or should I just go to TT??

A bit of a stupid thing but I’ve had the box rebuilt by a 3rd party as I have cogs and stuff, but does the tail shaft just bolt on or do I have to start disassembling stuff??

Thanks
Mark

72 Sprint
69 S4 coming together :slight_smile:))

Mark

As our friends over the pond would say “Bangs for Bucks” or something like that?..Would it be worth it…or has the recession not hit Chester yet?

John :wink:

Mark,

You do have to take the lid off and maul. Watch out for the litle mech’ interlock bits. Easy to drop in.

Mike

Hi Mark

I’ve been doing some gearbox work lately. Trying to get an idea of the inventory of Wide, Semi-Close and Close gearboxes. To change over the bellhousing, drain the gear oil in the box or the gear oil will leak out when you pull out the bottom left bellhousing bolt (looking rearward).
The tail shaft replacement is started by pulling the (4) 5/16" bolts off the gearbox lid along with the lid and cutting the safety wire on the 3 shift forks, remove shift fork bolts (5/16 inch bolt head). Take off the shift tower (4) 5/16 " with 1/2 inch head and now you can slide the 1/2 shift fork out, when its nearly at the back, rotate the shift fork nearly 90 degrees (there goes that interlock plunger) and continue to withdraw fork. Once out, the other 2 shift forks will come out, there are still the other 2 barrals of the interlock to remove from the case with a magnet. Now the (5) 3/8 unc bolts can be removed from the tailshaft with a 9/16" wrentch and the tailshaft case withdrawn. No need to mess with the internals unless you want to swap out synchro/baulk rings and bearings

Gary

Semi-close Ultra close, Semi-close, Wide, Semi-close, Semi-close, Semi-close


Son of a Bin --no wonder I cant find a tranny for my super 7 – :cry: -ed-

Gary,

Are those solid Anglia gear levers that I see there?
Do you just heat them to take out some bend and then cut back and fit a stud?

I have one ready for the track project but have not touched it yet. Still full length with quite a bend.

Mike

hi Mike

The three gear levers used to be the long floor change from the early Cortina. They were heated til red, straightened, chucked in a lath and the middle turmed down to .310" over the appropreate distance and then cut to length, a 5/16 unf thread put on the gear lever and lastly re-heated cheri red then bent to the the right angle for use in the Elan.

Several of the gearboxs are made up of late 2000e integral remote Cortina semi-close boxes with the early tailshaft housing and shift rails removed from a wide box.

Directions can be had at

fordanglia105eownersclub.co. … artone.htm

Gary

Gary,

Thanks for the information. I will have a proper look at the link.

Re the Anglia stick. Am I right in thinking this has more crank and is longer as it went in the same place as our Elan box. And that the Cortina was on a remote and shorter. I would have known, way back. Do seem to recall me “ragging” an Anglia stick about on my Dads car on the drive when I was 4 in 1961. :laughing:

Have you shortened an Anglia one or do you think they are too cranked and may fatigue? Should I get the Cortina one?

Mike

Hi Mike

The tailshaft case and shifter Donor mk1 Cortina gearbox cost me $75 and another $60 for the Shipping

The main case and internal gears donor is the semi-close box (1967 - 70 ~ integral remote GT box)
see the blue box (farthest away), I think it cost me another $200 or so.
All 3 gear levers in this photo have no use in the elan, you want the steel pivot ball, those later molded pivots are nfg in my opinion.

Those gear levers do look interesting.
My original Elan fabricated lever, having the welded on ring with rubber bushing provides marginal clearance to the Dashboard in 1st & 3rd gear & if I’m not totally positive with the change up to 3rd the car sometimes pops out of gear.
I think one of those Anglia / Cortina jobs would be a solution, providing a bit more clearance.
Are they easy to source in GB?
No I cannot move the Engine / Gearbox further back in the chassis just in case that thought occurred.
The Thermostat housing on the back of the Zetec would then be too close to the Bulkhead.
What does the gearchange feel like without the damping provided by the rubber bushing?
Does it feel like you’ve got your own hands in the Gearbox? :slight_smile:

Cheers
John

I have eliminated the rubber bushing in my +2. The feel is improved nicely right up until the point when you try to beat the synchros. Then it feels like someone is applying a pneumatic chipping hammer to your fingers or palm, depending on which way you were trying to move the lever.

Guessed that could be the case :slight_smile:

I had a MkII Cortina 1500 that had the long gearlever i.e. no remote, so it wasn’t just Anglias

When I said “try to beat the synchros” I was actually being dishonest and trying to avoid being taken to task. If I was honest I would have said “when I don’t pay attention to what I am doing and start to let the clutch engage before the selector fork is fully home…” I try to follow the instruction I got in the Skip Barber FF course which is that if you apply more force to the gear lever than you can do with two finger tips then you are looking for a crunch.

Crunch away, I got a few left over parts. Of course some are better than others


stuff is getting expensive…

stores.ebay.co.uk/lotus-cortina- … centre-ltd

Ed

I looked at the (5) 3/4 shift forks and they all have seen better days.

Ray has the shift forks for $90 and gasket sets $17
rdent.com

Shift Fork
Shift fork for 3rd/4th gears

Ref. 26F7230 - $90.00

Gearbox Gasket Sets
Ref. 26F0001 - $17.00

ok thanks —Ill get a hold of them and solve the jump out of gear problem ---- should do 1 and 2 also --never having done the job before should be fun ----looks like it can all be done from the access cover once the motor is out and the tail shaft off ----ed

I bought a set of these forks from Ray a little over a year ago. They are fine but I needed to file a fair amount casting flash away from the bosses that the selector rods pass through. There was enough casting flash that the forks just touched each other in one position such that one gear was hard to select, I have forgotten which one. This was not a big deal because I checked all of the motions before I buttoned the box up. It would have been a big problem if I didn’t check everything before putting the box back in the car. I mentioned this to Ray and he was going to work with his supplier to get the casting flash cleaned up. The fork in Gary’s photo looks to be free of casting flash.