Engine and Gearbox, one again.
Today, we focused on getting the engine and gearbox together again. Before we could get started though, we needed to replace a few of the oil seals on the gearbox, both ends. While we were at it, we also replaced the gasket on the front of the gearbox. After a quick trip to the shops to get some gear oil, we filled the gearbox and we were ready to get the engine and gearbox together again.
Whilst I was at the shops, Dad got the clutch and pressure plate onto the flywheel. He has a special piece of wood that a friend had turned that was the size of the gearbox input shaft. He uses it to align the clutch and pressure plate. With the clutch attached to the flywheel (finger tight) we mated the gearbox onto the engine (glad to be doing this while the engine is out of the car). We then, carefully, took the gearbox off, making sure not to knock the clutch out of alignment. The clutch was tightened and the gearbox put back in place and bolted on.
The last thing we did for the day was take off the old exhaust headers and get the new ones on. It took a lot of fiddling around to get the old ones off, but the new ones went on pretty easily. The new headers had a couple of differences to the old ones though. Firstly, there as no place to put the heat exchanger (Not sure what this is called, but it provides heated air for the air intake to the carbies. The second is the depth of the manifold. It is about 6mm thinner than the inlet manifold. Both manifolds are held in place by a nut and washer that is attached to a stud between the two manifolds. This washer needs to be level and since the depths of the manifold are now different, the washer sits on an angle. We will have to get some new washers made up that have a “step” in them to make sure that the nut puts pressure on both manifolds evenly.