8 replies to this topic

[DJ T]

Right this darn thing is driving me mad. I'm following the procedure in the haynes manual to shim the idler gear. i've got a new shim kit and have changed the idler bearings. when ever i fit the clutch housing and tighten the bolts up to even just biting the idler gear locks solid. Where am i going wrong??????

[mk1leg]

your surposed to use a clutch cover gasket each time you measure with feeler gauge, which may account for idler gear locking up.
first put idler gear inplace than gasket and tighten up case than measure gap, undo and put chims to thickness, than refit idler and new gasket and fit case and retighten ...................hope this helps .............ps you have to use new gaskets each time so it can be expensive................

Edited by mk1leg, 26 November 2007 - 11:08 PM.

[JetBLICK]

Soz to sound obvious, but dunno if you've put all the shims on in one go or something, because its shudn't lock up. You have to first try it without any shims, then measure the gap and check the tolerances according to haynes then adjust the gap using the shims if necessary.

[pogie]

Are you putting the idle gear in the right way? ISTR that one of the shafts on the idle gear is longer than the other and if you put it in the wrong way and tighten the bolts it will punch a hole in the transfer case. I can't remember if I read this in the Haynes manual or the Vizard book but your post rang alarm bells as soon as I saw it. HTH.

Edited by pogie, 26 November 2007 - 11:52 PM.

[DJ T]

The drawing in the haynes shows 2 shims in place

[JetBLICK]

nar... the whole idea with shims is they take up the slack, and what you use is different for every engine.... if you read haynes carefully it does actually explain how and what your suppose to do, much better than i can.

[Turbo Nick]

if its locking up solid then the shims (thrust washers) aren't big enough and you need thicker ones to sort it out...trouble is they aren't cheap at about £20 a pop iirc. It does help to take it to someone with a large stash of them so you can try different sizes to get the float right. Even a thicker gasket will help with the tolerance as they vary quite a lot.

[Sprocket]

if its locking up solid then the shims (thrust washers) aren't big enough and you need thicker ones to sort it out...trouble is they aren't cheap at about £20 a pop iirc. It does help to take it to someone with a large stash of them so you can try different sizes to get the float right. Even a thicker gasket will help with the tolerance as they vary quite a lot.

Dont you mean if its locking up you need to fit smaller shims, thus increasing the clearance. He has the shim kit so comes with a selection of sizes to play around with

My personal feeling on this is that the haynes and the rover workshop manual, do not take into consideration the compression of the gasket when the bolts are tightened up on the transfer casing.

The method I use is to fit the transfer case to the gearbox without the engine and torque it up, measure the idler gear clearance and then juggle the shims around. Its a trial and error process if you dont have a micrometer.

As bud says though, the gasket plays a huge part, there are so many different thickness gaskets and they compress up by different amounts also.

I set the clearance as close to minimum as i can get it, this allows for everything to settle in, the clearance usualy opens up a little. Dont do this if you set the clearance any other way!!

[Sprocket]

The drawing in the haynes shows 2 shims in place

Yes one either side of the gear, but these are a specific size in relation to the gap between the transfer case, gasket and gearbox case, this is why you have to measure the clearance.

I would fit the two smallest shims, one either sideof the gear, then place the gasket onto the transfer case, idler gear in its hole in the transfer case, then with a steel rule, edge on across the transfer case above the idler gear, measure the gap between rule and ilder gear. You need to swap the shims around to get the gap into the middle of the min and max clearance values.