Fellow Triumphisti (Fellow Triumvirates?),
Nobody asked for this but I just completed a task that was quite
odious, or at least difficult. Now that I am finished (or should
that be it is finished) for now, I am pleased enough to want to share
it. And to complain a bit too.
For some months the Spitfire's gearbox has been making a strange
intermittent clicking/knocking sound while (or should that be whilst)
in 1st gear. The knocks are occasionally accompanied by feelable
jolts to the shifter, and about once a month or so it actually jumps
our of gear. Not good. No other gear does this and the OD has been
working perfectly. Since the GT6 is now running very well (knock on
wood) and I haven't been driving the Spitfire much lately anyway I
figured it was time to pull the Spitfire's gearbox and fix whatever
the trouble was. Or more likely, let Quantum Mechanics fix it. Or
maybe at least open it up and see if I can see the trouble before
committing dollars for someone else to do it.
The big accomplishment was actually getting the gearbox out of the
car. It took me two days (though not full days, I admit). I've
pulled the gearbox from the Spitfire before but it was two decades
ago when I was much younger. I've done the GT6 several times
recently and gotetn good at it. Neither the GT6 nor my previous
experience with the Spitfire involved an OD gearbox though. With OD
that sucker is HEAVY! Plus, there are a bunch of little things that
made the Spitfire a pain in the butt. F'rinstance, the starter motor
can't be removed easily because the steering column is in the way.
At least I could free it from the bell housing. The cardboard splash
guards on the engine compartment make access impossible, but removing
them means undoing screws rusted into thingys mounted on the
cardboard. (I may choose not to re-install the splash guards; am
open to advice on that issue.) The cable between bell housing and
frame that keeps the engine from flying forward in the event of hard
braking or an accident is so danged stiff that you (or at least I)
couldn't get it out of the hole in the bell housing, so I had to
crawl underneath and remove it at its frame attachment first. I had
to pull one wheel off just to improve accessibility to underneath.
(Okay, so my garage is too small and too cluttered.) More than one
of the bolts seemed to be positioned so as to be unreachable. Hell,
even my Fiats were easier to work on than that, or so I remember.
Ah, don't mind me. I'm just glad to have it pulled, like it was a
bad tooth. The real fun will begin when I try to put it back in...
--
Jim Muller
jimmuller@pop.rcn.com
'80 Spitfire, '70 GT6+
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