Thread: Oh dear! Loud bang and clatter racket.

What, who makes the better quality holden adaptor plates? I guess thats something you will look at later? W

Unfortunately I didn't get time to do anything on my gearbox woes this weekend other than check the numbers. So can anyone tell me if there are likely to be any significant problems with using the main shaft from a suffix C gearbox (my donor car) in my DeeDee's suffix F box?

Cheers
John B

Originally Posted by JayBoRover

Unfortunately I didn't get time to do anything on my gearbox woes this weekend other than check the numbers. So can anyone tell me if there are likely to be any significant problems with using the main shaft from a suffix C gearbox (my donor car) in my DeeDee's suffix F box?

Cheers
John B

Series II part number 264250 from my reference, it didn't mention anything on suffix so Id say it would be the same. Put them side by side and examine them.

It's been quite a while since I posted up on here. Been a bit busy (sshhh - non Land Rover stuff!)

I have, however, been making some progress on poor old DeeDee. I pulled he gearbox out of the donor S2a a few weekends ago and finally got a chance to start pulling it apart yesterday. (Hope you had a nice birthday Queen Elizabeth - thanks for the day off). I'll try and get some photos together tomorrow when things (mainly my hands) are cleaned up a bit.

I did have some drama because, when I went to undo the nuts holding the housing on the clutch assembly in the bell-housing, two of the studs started turning as soon as the nuts were slightly loose. With some photo's the problem this caused will be clearer but it took me quite some time to work out how to get them undone!

Turning the main shaft by hand, after decoupling the transfer box, revealed a "clicking" sound. This was repeatable in both directions and very "loud and clear". I imagine it would have sounded very terminal while driving and may explain why the donor car was originally taken off the road.

So today I have removed the donor gearbox main shaft, and I'm very, very happy to note that it looks to be in good condition. The mystery of the "clicking" sound may also have been solved as all the rollers from the front roller bearing fell out when the bell-housing was removed. It seems that the rear 'support ring" for the rollers is missing, probably ground away to nothing and spat out the drain plugs over the years. (Once again some photo's tomorrow will help explain and clarify). Anyway, it's not a problem for me as the one in DeeDee's gearbox is fine and will slip onto the donor main shaft without issue.

So, depending on how long I get caught up at my brothers place tomorrow for a BBQ, I may get DeeDee's gearbox back together and ready to throw back in. (Sounds easy but I know I have some work to do to ensure the Holden adapter plate is correctly aligned ready for the gearbox. I bought a DTI a week or so ago in readiness for doing the job a little better than the previous idiot - at least I'll try and do up the nuts, let alone actually put them on the studs!!).

Hopefully I'll have an update tomorrow night for you.

PS: While playing around the donor I removed the spark plugs and was impressed to see them in good condition. So I grabbed the fan blades and rotated the engine by hand for a few revolutions. All seemed nice and smooth so I cleaned the plugs up a little and threw them back in their holes. Be interesting to see what it'll take to make it run one day. I have a gasket kit lying around to overhaul the 2.25 so that might be a project for another day.

Ciao
JayBoRover

More progress today.
Firstly, here's the photo of the studs that protrude through from the back of the bell-housing.

Of the four bigger studs that surround the main shaft, two were spinning once the nuts were just broken free. The studs have splines at the other end that are supposed to grip in the alloy of the bell housing. Luckily they do protrude through and have a dome at the end. I managed to get a long shank screw driver down through the top of the gearbox and around the gears and other paraphernalia to touch the dome end. By levering fairly hard I managed to get enough pressure on the end of the screwdriver to hold the stud and get the nuts undone. I couldn't believe it worked! but was very happy because I had no clue as to how to do it otherwise.

I also mentioned in my previous post about the roller bearing coming out in parts. Here's the roller collection from the old donor gearbox:

...and here's the one from my DeeDee still on the end of the main shaft:


As I remove it ...

...and turn it around you can see how the rear "cage plate" is being ground away by the end of the splined shaft:

I suspect the donor one simply ground right through allowing the rollers to flop about and generally create mayhem.

Anyway, continuing on with the rebuild of my gearbox. With all the various internals removed I cleaned the gearbox housing with some spray can degreaser and a high pressure hose and followed that up with a rag and some WD40 and the occasional help of a tootbrush. Came up remarkably good:


Comparing the old broken DeeDee main shaft with the intact donor one didn't reveal any differences ... but I didn't look closely enough!


When I came to install the main shaft into the DeeDee gearbox housing I discovered it just wouldn't go in. So I pulled it back out and had a closer look and found this:

A dowel in the outer bearing housing. Checking the donor gearbox housing I found there was a groove in the bearing housing for the dowel to locate into. I guess I found one of the small differences between a suffix B and a suffix F gearbox. So I simply removed the "clean-skin" bearing and housing from the broken DeeDee main shaft ...

... and relocated it to the donor main shaft. All's good so far.

Second attempt installed the main shaft and then dropped the layshaft in and then played around for a while getting the selector forks in.

Popped on the selector box cover and that's it for another weekend.

Still have to refit the balls and springs for the locations notches but I also have to remove the selector box cover again and run a gasket bead around the mating surface before actually bolting it down.

All going well I'll get the bell housing cleaned up next weekend and bolt the gearbox back up and attach the transfer box again. I'll probably take a little time to clean the outside of the other bits before attaching them to my nice shiny clean gearbox, but I'll try not to get carried away like I normally do. I really want to get DeeDee going again so I can sell my Patrol ute and look at another toy.

Ciao
JayBoRover

Thanks for the photos, bringing back childhood memories of dad's 2A gear box. It too had been out of the car a few times...

Cheers
Ron

Originally Posted by JayBoRover

Still have to refit the balls and springs for the locations notches but I also have to remove the selector box cover again and run a gasket bead around the mating surface before actually bolting it down.

Well, a few drama's in the weekend putting the box back together. If you look closely at the photo where I'd just rested the selector box cover back on, you might notice that one of the four threaded holes that mount the selector ball spring retainer brackets (the top one in the photo) still has something in it. Yep - I hadn't noticed that one of the bolts sheared whenI dismantled the box. So I drilled the remaining bolt and tried an "ezi-out" but it didn't work. I then had to drill it out completely and tapped a new thread in it - unfortunately all I had in the shed was a metric tap so that's what's gone in.

The other big drama was I discovered that the gasket kits I bought from eBay were the incorrect ones. I didn't notice until I'd opened the packet and tried to find the gaskets for the gearbox/bellhousing joint and couldn't find one. Then I tried to sort out the other gaskets needed and the kit contained no gaskets of any use. Hmmm. Checked the label on the back of the package and it states "Range Rover". I sent an enquiry to the eBay seller (I had bought the gasket kits quite a while ago) and to his credit he emailed me straight back to say he'd check the order and then this morning rang me personally to apologise and let me know he's sent two replacement kits in the mail to me today. All a bit of a nuisance with the hold-up but I'm very happy with "allfourx4" looking after me with after sales service.

So hopefully this coming weekend I'll get done what I meant to get done last weekend. (and some more photo's).
Cheers
John B

John, Great post and very informative.