kws

https://tasteslikepetrol.net/2020/02/bosch-k-jetronic-basics/ Get in there, it's not that scary.

With the Tomcat finally on the ground again I could get around to doing some smaller jobs that I didn't have space to do before. The first was to replace the door switch on the RH side, again. I replaced both door switches when I first got the car as both had broken and the interior light didn't work. Unfortunately the same night the gearbox gave up, I opened the door and a piece of plastic fell on the ground and the switch was missing its lever again. Nuts. Old photo as an example. Thankfully Pick a Part still had a Rover 45 in the yard, so I grabbed a couple of original Rover door switches from that, but whilst I was there I had a look at a Honda Concero (the platform brother of the Rover 200) they had and noticed it had a different style of door switch, in the same location and a similar design. The Rover ones look like this; All plastic design. Broken on the right. The Honda one has a metal base with a slightly different plastic lever that has a more gentle radius on the 90 degree bend the Rover one usually breaks at. The underside is more or less the same, and its retained in the same manner It was easy to fit, slots right into place. And the interior light works a treat The best thing is that the Honda switches are also used on the 1st gen RD series CRV, which are a dime a dozen at wrecking yards (Pick a Part currently has 9 on the yard), unlike Rovers (zero on the yard). The next small but satisfying fix was to replace the brake light switch. I looked into an issue with the brake lights back when I first got the car, and I tried to adjust the switch, which did work for a bit, but was really touchy and often left the lights stuck on. I picked up a generic Tridon switch, TBS041, which was listed for a Honda Civic, which has the same thread, plug and design. The switch is tucked up under the dash, in an almost inaccessible spot above the pedals. I removed the panel under the dash, which gave me a little more room to work with but still meant contorting myself into the footwell. It lives here, screwed into a bracket above the brake pedal. There is a lock nut which you need to loosen first There is also a connector on the end you need to unplug so you can rotate the switch and remove it. Before installing the replacement I plugged it in and tested it The new switch is slightly different to the original one, but is close enough. The old one had an original label dating to 1994, so it had never been replaced. It's just a matter of screwing it into the bracket until the button is depressed, but don't screw it in hard against the bracket or you'll probably break it. I wound it in until the button was just completely depressed and then backed it off a turn. Use the lock nut to lock it in place. Check the lights work, and bam, jobs a good'un. The final job I had wanted to do was to install a boost gauge so I could check the turbo system was working correctly. I picked up a cheap second hand electronic Prosport boost gauge (I've used the brand before and like the style) and set about installing it. The electronic gauges have a remote pressure sender, which is mounted in the engine bay. This has a wire that has to go into the cabin to send the data to the gauge. I started by running said wire into the cabin. This turned out to be really easy, as there was an unused grommet in the firewall, which lead into the cabin. When you remove the grommet, behind it there is a pre-cut section of insulation on the inside. A quick poke with a screwdriver removed this The hole in the firewall comes out up to the left of the clutch pedal, which is very easy to access inside the car. I poked a hole carefully in the grommet and fed the cable through And refitted to the firewall I mounted the sender on an unused stud mounted on the firewall The boost reference hose was run to an unused vacuum takeoff point on the manifold With the sender plugged in, that was that part of the job done Moving to the inside of the car I found and tapped into a switched power feed under the dash, and ran the ground to the bolt securing the fuse box. The gauge pod was then carefully placed and stuck down. I used fabric tape on the wires so they wouldn't look shite. The wires are tucked into the gap down the edge of the dash and cant be seen. The view more or less from the drivers seat. It's tucked down quite low but is in line of sight for the driver. It's not too obtrusive. Could look worse. I did want a boost gauge that had a smaller scale so it'd use more of the gauge dial, since these cars are quite low boost (around 10psi), but it was hard to find a good one that was less than a 30psi scale. On a closed road in Mexico, I can now confirm the turbo system is working spot on. I'm seeing about 9psi in the first two gears and 11psi in the rest, which is expected for this system. Boost comes on really quickly and holds all the way through with minimal drop-off. The car doesn't feel fast as such. In first it's pretty hectic, but second onwards it just gains speed quickly with little fuss (other than the noise). I feel like that's a Rover thing, and without torque steer and being thrown into hedges it's all kind of a bit civilised. I have booked a WOF inspection for the end of the month, and will see how we go from there. Hopefully it's a pass and then I will be able to drive the car on the road legally and work on fixing some of the other issues.

I love your approach to problem solving; Nothing is an issue. "doesn't quite work? To the lathe!"

Apparently the bushes for the front tie rods regularly flog out and that would cause the wheels to flop all over the show when accelerating. Mine are in good shape but will be replaced with poly at some point. I'd say you'd be fairly right on that one, between that, shite roads and the original snatchy torsen diff, its no wonder so many ended up in hedges.

Last time we left off with the gearbox in place, full of oil and the axles in place. Thankfully the gearbox passed the white paper test with no leaks, which means I managed to seal it up correctly and all the new seals are holding oil. Unfortunately, the lower radiator hose was still AWOL; I had planned on waiting for that to arrive, but in the meantime, after work, I decided to fit the freshly rust treated and painted heater pipe and some of the coolant hoses in preparation for the hose to arrive. This did end up with me getting carried away and just sending it and installing the old coolant hose as it was in usable condition and wasn't leaking beforehand, and whacking the whole thing back together. New stainless lower pipe I had to replace this hose to the heater pipe as I found some quite deep cuts/wear in the original hose. It is originally a moulded hose to clear the gearbox and air intake, but some careful trimming and clamping had the generic hose in a good enough position. Starting to look like an engine again, and a huge milestone It had been a long time since I had seen the car without the engine support bar in the engine bay. All the intake and boost pipes were then reinstalled The cooling system was filled, bled and then it was time. Still up on the Quickjacks, with my Wife standing by to check the wheels were turning, I jumped in the car and started it up. Into first, clutch out. Wheels turn. Second. Third. Fourth. and gingerly into fifth since wheel speed was getting up there. All forward gears were doing what they should, and the clutch was actuating correctly. Clutch in, on the brakes, popped into reverse, and bam, the wheels go backwards even. I built a gearbox, and it even works With the wheels back on, and then off again to torque up the hub nuts (oops, that was lucky), and the wheels back on again, the car was lowered to the ground for the first time in a couple of months. Its maiden voyage was out onto the drive to turn the car around, warm the engine up and bleed the cooling system After the thermostat (hey, it has one now!) opened and the fans cycled, the car went back into the garage for the night. The next day, I got home from work and immediately checked the fluid levels and took the car out for a drive. I needed to make sure everything gearbox related was working as it should, before booking the car in for a WOF inspection. First impression of the work done is that the shifter is really good. It's direct, firm and has very little play. The clutch is nice and progressive with a good bite point, and despite being a slightly uprated clutch the feel is good and it's not heavy. The sticky shudder I had when engaging the old clutch is gone (thankfully, I was thinking the cable was sticky, but clearly not). The gearbox works really well. It's silent at idle in neutral, where it used to rumble noticeably beforehand. The synchros are working well with no crunching. There is a slight whine in second gear, but considering what the gearbox has gone through (or what's gone through the gearbox) I'm not surprised the gears didn't survive completely unscathed. It's a huge improvement. I haven't been able to give it a real good test since I don't want to push the car too hard until the clutch has had some time to bed in, and I have checked the rest of the car over a bit more, but the couple of times I came on boost in a corner showed that the diff pulled the car around the corner. The feeling of being pulled wheels first around the corner was quite pronounced, and I feel like I could push even harder into a corner and have the car pull it to the exit. The torque steer everyone comments on was almost non-existent. I say almost, just because if it was there I never noticed it. On boost it just tracks straight and true. I'm really happy with the work I have done, the gearbox is sublime to use. The turbo noises are addictive and hilarious too. So much whoosh. A quick stop to check I wasn't pouring fluids out gave me a chance to take some photos of the car that aren't on my drive, in my garage or broken down. Yes, the front corner splitters will make a comeback at some point (the steel inside them that mounts to the bumper is like a doily so I either need to fix these or find replacements), and yes the bonnet desperately needs paint. The car also happened to tick over 113,000km just where I stopped I have more or less doubled the KM I have covered since I got the car, and *touches wood* the car even made it home under its own power this time. You may (but probably didn't) also notice that the side repeater lamps on the front guard arent orange anymore. I didn't like the fact that all the other indicators on the car are clear but these weren't, so I bought a kit to replace them last time I ordered parts from Rimmers. The old lights were quite faded. They slide back or forward and then wiggle out The bulb on this side was covered in filth. It turns out there should be an O-ring on the bulb holder to seal it. I tried but couldn't find one that fitted, so will just deal with having to clean the light later. The new lights come with orange bulbs Which then twist-lock into the new light, and after a quick clean of the grot that lives behind the light, the new light clips in. So flashy Of course, I couldn't leave you without a video of the whooshy noises. Enjoy.

No, thats from bleeding the cooling system.

For the first time since... September... the car has moved under its own power again.

I like that you didnt even start with an RS as the base for this project, so its just the normal spec looks. Almost a shame its not full NZDM Poverty pack with the natural black bumpers for that maximum stealth.

The design is shared with some Honda boxes, but the Brits swear by MTF94 (which i havent been able to find a source of in NZ) but the Penrite is one of few fluids that meets the MTF94 spec. I used Honda MTF in the gearbox when I first got the car and ended up pouring a couple of hundred dollars down the deck of the flatbed. Honda MTF is also REALLY thin, much thinner than MTF94 which concerned me (MTF is like water).

This is dragging on a bit, but the end is in sight. The other weekend I had a friend help me reinstall the gearbox. It went fairly smoothly, just with the usual limitations on space making it a bit of a pain to wriggle into place. A bit of wiggling and jiggling got it to slot into place. It appears the clutch centering tool did its job again. With the gearbox back in its home, there were a few other jobs to attend to. One of them was to check the heater hoses. OEM replacements are NLA and have been for years. There is a group buy with the Rover Coupe Club to replace them with a moulded silicone set, but it's cost-prohibitive for me since I'm trying to slow the spending snowball down. Thus, the plan was to use some T pieces and generic hoses to make a replacement. I got most of the way there before deciding it was too ugly and scrapping the lot. The moulded OEM hose above my monstrosity. If I just had one more 90 degree it would've been better, but I didn't. I thoroughly inspected the original hose and found a couple of areas of concern. One end the hose had burst, and the previous owner had just slipped the hose on a bit further. There was also a small cut in the hose further up. The rest of the hoses although old were in good enough condition I'm happy to reuse them for now. I did cut that section out and joined a fresh piece of hose to it. It'll be cut to length once the heater pipe it goes into is reinstalled. The hose was then refitted. I wish it was just a normal pair of hoses without the moulded ends and joining section, but it wouldn't be Rover if it was. The speedo cable was next to install. This was a pain. There is a clip that holds the cable into the speedo drive, but the rubber boot needs to go over the clip without pushing it out of place. I had a lot of trouble with this until I removed the speedo drive and installed the cable and boot out of the gearbox. Then it was a case of installing the drive into the gearbox again, making sure to locate the retaining slot correctly. I found it easiest to do this from under the car (mainly due to the height that I have the car lifted to). Next I reinstalled the rear mount bracket, clutch cable and starter. I sourced a new lower bolt for the starter since it was completely missing. It turns out the crank position sensor cable has a bracket that is meant to be attached to the starter bolt that was missing, so that's now secured properly. With the gearbox mostly installed it was now time to reinstall the upgraded shifter linkages. I had installed a kit to rebush the U-Joint and poly bushes on the steady bar. I found it easiest to install the round front bush on the steady bar (loosely so you can lift the bar up), and then the UJ before installing the bushing at the rear. It's a bit clumsy otherwise. I had to change the orientation of one of the bolts through the UJ as the longer threaded section was catching on the gearbox casing. It's very tight though. With the front installed, there are two bolts to install in the rear of the linkages. Remember to fit the plate to the bush too. Tighten the round bush on the front and that job is done. I couldn't help but jump into the car and see how it felt. It's very direct with little to no free play. I'm looking forward to smashing through gears with it. Before the gearbox could be filled with oil I needed to install the drive shafts. The short passengers one was all good, just a quick clean up and a new retaining clip was all that it needed. It popped nicely into place The drivers side though, needed some work. The main thing was that the splines on the very end had been damaged, but there were other warnings signs, such as the boot having a single zip tie on it, while the big end was being retained with hopes and dreams. Not that it mattered, it's not like it had any grease in the joint (and no signs of it having ejected the grease) The retaining collar was all beat to shite too. I'm glad I didn't choose to run this joint. I split the outer joint off, leaving just the tripod. No, I haven't cleaned it, this is how little grease was in it. The tripod is retained with a circlip Once the circlip is removed, the tripod can be removed from the shaft with a puller. The new tripod was then hammered into place, and the circlip refitted. The boot was cleaned up, grease pumped into the joint, and new bands were used to secure the boot in place. The old retaining clip was removed And a new one popped into place The shaft was then slid into place and the inner joint clipped into the diff. Now it was time to fill the gearbox with oil. I chose to use Penrite Trans Gear 75W80 this time as it's cheaper than the Honda MTF I used last time but meets Land Rover MTF94 spec. It was pretty easy to fill. I just popped the pump from my filler bottle right into the oil bottle and pumped about 2.3L of fluid in until it started to run out. Now it's playing the white paper game, where hopefully I will come out tomorrow and see no oil on the paper. Before wrapping up for the day I gave the heater pipe and battery tray a good going over with the wire brush and then rust killed them. I'm prepping the pipes as I still haven't secured a replacement yet, and I can't have this car off the road taking up garage space much longer, so I will refit the original pipe for now and swap it out later when I have a replacement. Hopefully it won't fail in the meantime. The battery tray is pretty bad, with a couple of decent holes in it, but the main part is solid and it still bolts down OK. Both got a good coating of black zinc paint, in the hopes it will protect them. They're drying now, but will be refitted soon. Then it's just a case of waiting for the replacement lower coolant hose to arrive from Greece, and I should be able to have the car rolling again.

They have time based intervals for a reason And nothing sealed for life is actually sealed, it just doesn't have a manufacturers interval to make servicing cheaper for customers. Just ask BMW owners how their sealed for life transmissions are....

Gearbox is finally back in the car. I still need to bolt all the brackets and mounts back up, but that will come later. Unfortunately still held up waiting on the new lower radiator hose coming from Greece (currently in transit) and the heater pipes which have been delayed due to the holiday period (waiting on shipping costs etc). It might get to a point where I jam it back together with the rusty old pipe and just hope it holds together, I'm sick of this car taking up precious time and space in my garage.

Tried that on mine when I went decat, didn't work. Even tried the fancy one with a "cat" in the extension, and didn't work either. Needed to be tuned out. It's a VW, just let the light of its people glow bright until you tune it.

Or just order parts direct from Partsouq too.

Its a gorgeous car that one, I only wish mine was half as nice. Still waiting on the dominos to fall into place and everything to start going back together. This is the worst time of the year to try and get things done, despite having time up my sleeve to do it.

The next step in this adventure was to start putting all the bits I had acquired together and make it look like a gearbox again. The first part to be assembled was the new Quaife ATB diff. This needed the speedo gear and new bearings to be fitted. First I needed to remove the speedo gear from the old TorSen diff. For some weird reason, typically, my gearbox didn't have the normal, easy to remove, plastic speedo gear. No, it had a metal gear that was a shrink-fit on the diff. First I used a puller to remove the bearing. I had to gently lever it up a little with a pair of big screwdrivers so I could get the puller under the bearing. It came off easily. And then by gently putting force on the speedo gear with the puller, heating the ring with a heat gun, and tapping a chisel in behind it, the ring finally came free. The Quaife then spent the night in the freezer and the next day the (thoroughly cleaned) speedo ring went into the oven at 200c for a few minutes. The ring dropped straight onto the diff, no issues. I took the opportunity to slip the new steel cage bearings on the diff too Once it had all warmed up a bit, I fit the ring gear, and doused the whole lot in gear oil The diff was ready to go, so it was time to work on the gear clusters. The first was the input shaft. I didn't take too many photos of this because it was very messy, but the whole shaft was stripped, the shaft and every gear was scrubbed clean in degreaser, and then each part was rinsed, oiled and refitted to the shaft with new bearings. This is the completed input shaft. The main shaft was slightly different because I was swapping everything over to a replacement shaft that didn't have a damaged pinion gear. And this is the replacement main shaft assembled, with new needle bearings in the gears, and new bearings on the top Now that the gear clusters were ready to go, the gearbox casing was next on the list. This had been through some extensive cleaning to get rid of the metal shavings hiding in the crevices. The new input shaft seal went in first. Followed by the steel cage input shaft bearing The mainshaft bearing was next. This needs the little plastic oil guide fitted first And then the bearing driven in Interestingly, even though this was a genuine MG Rover bearing, it's slightly different to the old one in design. Appears more robust. Before dropping the diff in place the new seals need to be fitted. First was the selector shaft seal. This was tapped in place with a hammer and the inside area slathered in rubber grease The clutch fork seal needs to be fitted too Now the diff can be lowered into the case and the bearing settled in place. The selector shaft needed a quick tickle with some fine sandpaper, to remove the corrosion on the outboard end of the shaft. This isn't important as this is miles away from the boot or seal, but I still wanted to clean it up and make it smooth Before assembly, I cleaned the little fork on the end of the shaft. This is the glitter that came off that one part alone The shaft, fork and detent ball/spring were all assembled. The magnet had also been refitted. Almost looks a bit like a gearbox again Now, after a clean, I could slip the selector forks over the gear clusters and lower them into the casing Next, the reverse gear idler was refitted, along with its little selector. This selector holds the idler up out of the way until you select reverse, where it then slams it down into the gear just behind the selector in the photo. And the main selector mechanism is bolted into place, making sure it locates correctly in the notch in the selector shaft It's a box of gears again! Before progressing further, I put a handle through the selector shaft and checked that I could selector all 6 gears (including reverse). All gears selected fine, although you did kinda have to jump up, surprise and slam reverse in order for it to select. You are fighting a couple of detents to do so, so it makes sense. The final steel cage bearing was fitted. Where this bearing seats in the top half of the casing there is another plastic oil guide and a series of shims that need to be refitted first. Then a thin smear of sealant was run around the cleaned casing face, and the two halves joined again The reverse gear idler bolt and reverse light switches were screwed into the relevant holes and the last thing to fit was the speedo drive. This was a real pig to remove, so it was no surprise that it didn't go in completely smoothly. But it went in, lined up, and was all good to go. Until I spun the input shaft and heard a weird tinkling rattling sound. And then it stopped. Everything was working fine. Did I imagine something? Was it meant to do that? After putting so much work into it, I had to investigate. I split the box again. It took about 3-4 Minutes from being assembled, to being completely stripped. Nothing immediately obvious. I kept digging until I had removed everything from the casing except the diff. I started to remove it, and *tink* out dropped a large chunk of alloy. Shite. I have an early speedo drive. It has squared-off corners. The laters ones had a nice long taper to their design. Do you know why they changed it? I suspect its because it could catch on the lower support for the speedo drive and break it off... It should look like this example (as fitted with later, tapered, speedo drive) Well damn. Nothing for it but to crack on and hope it's fine. I cant weld it back on, and I don't have (and can't get) a replacement casing. The main part of the housing the speedo drive goes through is quite solid, and it's a tight fit, so hopefully it won't go wandering. Mostly back together again, with a smear of sealant on the face Completely back together. Always remember to trust your gut. If something doesn't sound or feel right with a job like this, it's always worth stripping it down and checking. I'd hate to have filled the box with aluminium shavings on the first drive, just because I didn't want to strip the box again whilst it was on the bench. Now I could fit the last remaining seals; the diff seals. I went with the early type as at the time I didn't know what style my shafts/box had. Turns out the box had one of each. The early seals like these will work with both early/late shafts, but the late seals only work with late shafts. A new boot was fitted to the selector shaft And finally, the new clutch release bearing was fitted, to a well-greased fork/shaft That's the gearbox done. Ready to refit. I'll likely be looking to refit that sometime in the near future, but it should really be a two-person job. Another part of the gearbox rebuild plan was to replace the bushes and U-Joint pins in the shifter. I bought a UJ rebuild kit and poly bush kit from eBay. The U-Joint on mine was very sloppy, with lots of play internally. I used an angle grinder to cut the head off the pins that go through the joint, and then a punch to push them out. The factory fitted bushes were a hard plastic, with a metal tube. The pin was a loose fit in the sleeve, the sleeve a loose fit in the bushes and the bushes loose in the housing. The new solid "Nylatron" bushes pressed in by hand The bushes in the UJ got the same treatment The bushes in the UJ were worse. They were soft and very loose. Everything was reassembled with new bolts. One other little trick I did was to notch both sides of the area that goes onto the selector shaft in the gearbox. The theory is that when I tighten down the bolt through the shaft that it will clamp the UJ on to the shaft. This will remove slack from that area too. Speaking of notching that part, always remember to wear proper protection when using a power tool. The cutting disk on the grinder got caught in the cut and came apart. Shame to lose a good disk before its time. The last part of the shifter refurb was to remove the old rubber bushes and press in the new poly bushes. The big round bush was so soft I pressed it out by hand just by using the handle of the hammer. Take note of the orientation of the bush before pressing it out, one side is dished. I needed to use my press to press the new bush into place And finally the rear bush. This was a pain to get on. In the end, I had to hammer the flare on the end of the tube down a bit so I could get the new bush on. Don't forget to transfer over the tubes That's the shifter done, ready to refit. Should make a big difference, between the sloppy UJ and the soft rubber bushes. The final thing I did to round off a day of working on the Tomcat, was to look into why the valve covers were haemorrhaging oil like crazy. It was so bad I wondered if there even were gaskets under the covers... I whipped the bolts out of the front cover and removed it. The gasket was old, hard, and completely flush with the cover. It was obvious where the oil had been leaking past the seal; everywhere. Look how nice and clean it is in there. I'm pleased to see that they obviously cleaned the head and cam boxes when they did the headgasket. A shame they used too much of the wrong sealant on the cam boxes though. It does appear they weren't lying when they said ARP studs had been fitted, which is a bonus. As it turns out, in the junk that was in the locked boot, there were some various gaskets. New and unused. One of them was a nice new rubber valve cover gasket. A perfect fit. I cleaned everything up and fit the cover with the new gasket. The rear cover was worse. It was just pouring oil everywhere. This one had the older metal style gasket, which was compressed completely flat on the sealing surface. No chance of sealing. Once again, very obvious where the oil had been bypassing the gasket And again, there was a new gasket, just sitting there, in the boot, ready to be fitted. Why on earth you would go to the effort of doing a headgasket, only to not use the new valve cover gaskets you have sitting there, I will never know. This is the level of stupidness I'm dealing with on various parts of this car that were touched by the PO. A very thin smear of sealant went on both sides of the gasket, and the cover was refitted with the new gasket. Time will tell, when I can run the car again, if it stops the leaks, but I strongly suspect it will help. I also replaced the seal on the oil filler cap, as this too was completely flat. I'm a big fan of changing these. They are easy and cheap to do, and you get to reuse the original cap. Old seal, completely flat New seal sits slightly proud of the surface The final touch for the day was to give the top of the dipstick tube a quick tidy up and a coat of satin black. This was previously peeling and rusty. Hopefully I will have a new heater pipe sorted shortly, and that will be a huge relief. The car won't be back on the road for Christmas like I hoped, but should be back in the new year.

Mint,have fired him a message. Cheers

Thats what I thought too, but the one I was recommended locally hasnt come back to me and I dont know of any others here since Kaizen stopped doing awesome work to flog pre-made rubbish.

Things went from bad to worse, but what else did I expect? With the gearbox in bits and the diff clearly given up on life, I wasn't in the best mood, but I needed to dig further and see what other damage had been done. The first step was to carefully strip the gear clusters down and check what the shafts and needle bearings were like. The input shaft got inspected first as there is nothing holding the gears on, so it's very easy to strip it. I slid the 5th gear synchro hub off and the gear just slips off the needle bearing The bearing spun freely but felt a bit rough This might explain why. Deep grooves in the sleeve where the bearing runs The sleeve slides completely out and has another bearing on the other side. You can see how the sleeve should look; smooth and slick That was the worst of the damage on that shaft. Everything is covered in grey sludge, so will need a clean, but all the gears and synchros are in good shape and operate how they should. The main shaft on the other hand wasn't so good. This has a big left-hand threaded nut holding it all together. I whacked the shaft into the vice and used the impact gun to spin the nut off. Those two bearings at the top had eaten metal and weren't spinning smoothly. With the bearings removed, using large flat blade screwdrivers, the gears just slip off the shaft. The last gear on the shaft. Everything is once again covered in grey sludge, and the oil passage in the shaft has fine metal filings in it. Sadly I found more damage to the pinion gear on the main shaft, so that is now scrap. I carefully reassembled the shafts to keep them together and in the order they should be. Next was to strip the casings. This meant removing the magnet, bearings, oil guides and selector. The magnet was just absolutely covered in metal, and there were chunks hidden in various places in the housings. Lots of little crevices at the bottom of the box where the metal had settled and got stuck. The input shaft bearing in the back of the casing basically fell out (as it should, these sometimes come out with the shaft). There are a couple of shims and a spring washer behind this bearing. Removing them and the oil guide revealed more hidden metal To get the two bearings out of the bellhousing side of the housing, it is common to use boiling water to expand the housing. I boiled the jug, and the moment it stopped boiling poured it into the casing on the opposite side to the bearings. Both just dropped out within seconds. Which revealed more metal. Quite a bit behind one of the bearings. Next, the selector shaft was removed. This is held in with two bolts. One bolt holds the selector fork on the end in place And the other is for the detents on the shaft. This one has a spring and ball bearing under it. I used a small magnet to retrieve the ball bearing. The shaft can be withdrawn then The oil seal can be removed now too. I used a flat blade behind the lip to lever it out. The casings then got a really good clean with degreaser and brake clean, and finally a quick touch up with a soda blaster. They came up ok at best; I think they need a proper sand or vapour blast, but I don't have the time or money for that. Plus, it's just a gearbox that is going to get covered in oil again soon. That night I made a list and ordered a bunch of parts. Various bearings I didn't order initially (such as all the needle bearings), a couple of spare seals, the Quaife ATB diff, and a couple of awesome people on the Rover Coupe facebook page sorted me out with a replacement main shaft, bearing sleeve and RH Inner CV joint. In the meantime, whilst waiting for those parts to arrive I removed the clutch and flywheel Well, I tried to, anyway. Turns out the clutch had been replaced somewhat recently, and the pressure plate bolts had been reused... and torqued to round. Five of the six came out without too much trouble, but one would not budge. I tried everything I had. Bolt extractors, vice grips, a smaller socket, an impact driver, punches, chisels and finally an easy-out. When the easy-out snapped in the bolt... I reached for the grinder. The bolt spun out once most of the head was cut off. This revealed that the clutch wasn't looking too hot anyway. The pressure plate is covered in heat marks, and the inner area of the clutch material on the flywheel side looked chewed up. And a similar story on the flywheel too. Lots of heat marks and felt uneven to the touch The numbers on the clutch indicate that it's an OEM replacement. I suspect that the flywheel wasn't machined last time the clutch was replaced, and then it suffered lots of abuse. Heck, it could've been a second-hand clutch. I don't know. I had the flywheel machined by a local specialist. Looks much better now. With the flywheel off you can see how much oil has been leaking down the side of the engine. It's all coming from up top (mostly valve cover gaskets). The rear main seal was dry, so although I had a replacement I chose not to replace it this time (as it requires draining the sump and lowering it enough to remove the seal). I gave that backplate a quick clean And as per the manual, cut a slot in an old flywheel bolt to clean out the threads in the end of the crank It worked quite well, pulling out the gunk from the threads. The manual explicitly states not to use a tap to do this job. New bolts with pre-applied thread locker The flywheel was lifted into place and the bolts fitted. These were torqued whilst using my longest prybar to lock the flywheel against a bolt All torqued to spec, and paint marked Note there is no spigot bearing in the end of the crank. Apparently this is due to the PG1 transmission having such a short input shaft it doesn't need one. Next was the clutch. I went with a slightly uprated clutch from a diesel version of this engine. It's the same fitment but has a higher clamping pressure, Kinda OEM+. Awesome clutch alignment tool that came with Tess and has now been used on two of my cars. New clutch cover bolts fitted too. All torqued and ready to go And that was as far as I could take that part of the job until parts arrived. There was one last thing I wanted to do, "while I'm here". The coolant pipes. I had purchased a pair of snazzy stainless pipes from the UK when they popped up on Facebook, and since my lower pipe was very crusty, I set about replacing it. Draining the coolant was a lot easier without the front cross-member in place The top hose comes out as I have a replacement for this too. A NOS hose I sourced from Japan of all places. Complete with (currently missing) thermostat. With a bit of wrestling, the bottom pipe and all hoses attached to it came out The old pipe against the new stainless replacement. I have a replacement for the hose still on the pipe, which is just as well, as it was stuck on there. The small turbo drain elbow and lower waterpump hoses will be replaced too. The elbow is easy as that's just a 90 degree 15mm hose but I'm having to source the lower waterpump hose from Greece. Another hose I have a replacement for is this one for the mid pipe for the heater. Some bastard didn't think of the next person working on the car when they refitted this, as the hose clamp was facing the wrong direction and blocked by the alternator. Thankfully I could just slip a 1/4" ratcheting spanner in there and loosen it enough to turn it to a place I could reach. Speaking of the mid heater pipe, it's the one pipe I didn't have a stainless replacement for as it wasn't available. I decided since it was also looking crusty that I would remove it and give it a spruce up. As it turns out, this is the one I really needed a replacement for. All the ends where the hoses connect are badly corroded and holed, whilst half way down the pipe a previous owner has sealed a hole in the pipe with some sealant. Yay. I'm currently scrambling for options on this one as new pipes are NLA, and all the reproduction stainless pipes are currently sold out too. So I'm at a dead halt on a few things there. I need a solution for that pipe, and I have a hose still in transit. The gearbox needs a bunch of parts, but since starting this post they have arrived now, so I can start reassembly of the gearbox. The Quaife ATB is so pretty. Damn it's heavy though! More soon.

Those teddies are amazing

As mentioned, check if the injectors are getting power/firing. If not, could be a relay/fuse/distributor/ground. Check everything is plugged in and all the grounds are connected. Immobilisers seem to be rare, and depending on various factors. Being a jap import i suspect it wont have it.

Between this thread, and your K11 porn thread, the more i really want to thrash one around town.

Im fizzing to see what the blue monstrosities do. I hope they whistle.

What the beat solution to clean my gearbox internals in? I want to scrub them first and then dump them in the ultrasonic for a bit. Steel gears and yellow metal (brass? bronze?) synchros. The gearbox has a lot of metal through it so everything is covered in a gearbox oil sludgey glitter.

Everything I need for the rebuild is paid for and will be en route shortly. I made the mistake of totalling up what the car has cost me. Lets just say, i've done 15KM in the car since it was dropped off, and including the cost of the car it has cost about $580/KM. There were a couple of smiles during those 15KM, but even the smiles per mile mileage ain't great at this point. Going to have to do some serious KM once its back on the road to make up for that (and hope nothing else breaks).