346 replies to this topic

[Pauly]

Well.... after about 1500 miles on the engine, its had its first breakage . On my way to Himley hall show today, pulled off in 1st, then into 2nd, gave it some beans and BANG! No drive. Im pretty sure it going to be the layshaft in the gearbox because it hasn't lost any oil, the engine itself was fine from what I heard the last few secs before I shut it off. Dipped the oil and thats clean.

When I built the 'box I fitting a new 'competition' layshaft, which I have heard about being like choclate and not being hardened enough.

So im going to be pulling the engine out within the next few weeks (got one more broken car in the family ) and start stripping it down..... oh well....... all part and parcel of building a pokey engine .

Will be using good secondhand shafts now .

Postmorten to follow

Edited by Pauly, 08 May 2011 - 08:16 PM.

[CaptainBland08]

thats an aweful lot of smiley faces for someone who minced a gearbox:P lol

[DaveVader]

Agreed with Mr Bland!
If you're in need of a new layshaft and you want something to last I say have a look at the selection from MRA Minis and in particular the high spec unit or even their high spec turbo shaft; although the latter does require some machining to the case.

Either way, good luck with getting it sorted, this is one of my favourite minis on the forum. Not over the top and very nice to look at.

Edited by DaveVader, 26 June 2011 - 12:32 PM.

[Pauly]

to be honest. Im not upset in the slightlist. Im like that. When I first built the engine I accepted the fact that it wasn't factory spec so there was going to be some breakages and repairs along the way. But you live in and learn.

Ive learnt not to buy brand new layshafts and only buy good s/h ones. I might have a good used shaft/gearbox lined up anyway. Quite excited to rip it to bits and see the damage . It could of been worse thats how I look at it.

Just trying to find the time to pull it out and strip it :s

[Turbo Nick]

hurry up bert i want to see what you've broken! makes a change from me blowing gearboxes to bits, lol.

original rover 2nd hand layshafts are definately the best to go for imo.

[Pauly]

Right first bit of news. Spent a couple hours on it last night, draining the oil and water, removing some ancilliries. When I removed the sumplug there was a gear tooth stuck to the end of it, I think whats happened is the layshaft has snapped causing the laygear to start moving and has taken out a tooth on the main gearset.


All I got left to do today is remove the carb and exhaust manifold. Then gear linkage, driveshafts and pull it out.

Then hopefully later on this afternoon, start stripping it.

[blue min 1]

pauly the new tooth fairy




mike

Edited by blue min 1, 14 May 2011 - 10:16 AM.

[Pauly]

Ok.... that went well.....

Pulled the engine out the car this afternoon, dropped the box off and found this:





Yep, the teeth on the input gear and the laygear are destroyed, the laygear is actually smooth with hardly any teeth left!

The explosion has left a hair line crack in the case aswell, so the box is only good for spares now.

Also it looks like metal fragments have flicked up it the crank & bores, so for good measure im stripping the engine down and inspecting. There are a few dinks in the crank where the teeth have hit it but nothing major, I'll just file them smooth.

Going to be a busy buy the next few months .

To be continued.......

[Fatsam]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh Fudge!!!!!!

[Ado1379]

AWWWWW MAN! ive been following this for a about 10 minutes from the very beginning, and i could've cried when this happened :'( but like the others have said before me, very very nice work on re-build!! please fix it

[Pauly]

Must of been reading my mind. Was going to update this thread today, so here goes.

Theres not a lot been going on lately to update about, just been prepping stuff ready for the rebuild. I will just run down what ive been doing though.

On further inspection of the engine, I notcied the explosion had left metal shards in the bottom end, so the only thing to do was to completly strip the engine and rebuild.

After stripping the engine, it looked like that there had been some contamination of the oil and the bearing shells where badly scored in some places. This meant that the crank had to be re-ground again down to 20/20.

The block was sent into the machinists along with the crank. The crank was re-ground and the block had the cam bearings and oil gallery plugs removed, I removed the core plugs. Then I sent the block in to have it acid dipped. I wanted to make sure there was no metal fragments left in the gallerys.

I got the block back from acid dipping, had the cam bearings fitted, painted it, installed the core plugs and oil gallery plugs, and then it was ready to build!

Thats where I am up to today anyway.

Pics.

[CaptainBland08]

shall you be going straight cut now to try and avoid such explosions? lol

[Pauly]

Nope, stopping with the same spec. Helical box and s/c drops. The gearbox im getting has been proven up to 100hp and has fitment for a windage tray so should be ok, he says .

[Ado1379]

so will Pauly live ?

[Pauly]

Managed to get a replacement box, and over the last few weekends ive been stripping and cleaning and getting it ready to build.

Finally made a start on building it this afternoon. Heres a few pics for now.