95 SPI Project

[London Dry]

Hey All:
I'm new to this forum. Bought my first Mini over the Thanksgiving Day weekend. Arrived at my house on a trailer -- true test of a "project." I'll be sharing my progress and asking for lots of advice.

[London Dry]

Here are some pics of the car when I got it. Came with a  broken diff pin , that sent one of the pinion gears spinning inside the gearbox and diff housing. I've since pulled the gearbox off of the block and the gears look good and spin smoothly -- amazing. But there are a lot of bits of aluminum sitting at the bottom, so I'll need to pull everything out to clean it up.

[London Dry]

So, I've pulled the gearbox and cleaned up as much as I can short of pulling out the gears. I bought a cross-pin diff from Mini Spares along with a full gasket set and other bits to get everything back together (see pix below).

My problem: I cannot find any documentation on how to teardown the gearbox. My Haynes book (through 2001) stops short of showing how to do it . I have the Leyland book, but it assumes knowledge I don't have.

I downloaded the PDFs of the manuals from this site, and the factory book for 59 thru 76 does have some info, although very little for rod change boxes like mine.

Here's a great step-by-step to put a box back together:

http://www.theminiforum.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=9808&hl=gearbox

But I need the basics on how to tear it down.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[94touring]

Hey Dana welcome to the forum.  Good luck with the gearbox, that's one area I've never had to deal with.  How's the body on the car? 

[London Dry]

Hey Dan -- Thanks for the for the welcome wagon :-) -- I bought this Mini because it had all the goodies I was looking for:

1) Injection
2) NO RUST
3) Webasto Sunroof (I'm at the beach in SoCal -- perpetual sunshine)
4) A hint of rarity -- "might" really be a British Open from Longbridge's spare parts bin

So, the body has NO RUST. Paint is really great, but has been neglected, and is coming back really well. Interior is in excellent condition. Correct blackface clocks on the 3-clock binnicle, burl dash, stone beige interior, etc.

Previous owner put on big arches., then 12x5 rims. Looks goofy. I'm either going to retrofit back to correct black smaller arches, or get a set of 13s and cut the sheet metal under the arches to allow for turning and body roll.

This was a EURO export model with LHD. I found a Deutsch toll booth chit in the back parcel shelf, so I'm guessing German market version. 50k klicks, so low mileage example.

Literally a barn find in inland San Diego county. Several years without running. Price was right. Willing to risk a lot of bench time, which is proving true. I have an AMAZING neighbor, who has every tool imaginable -- even his air hose reached over my fence to allow for an air wrench to pop off the clutch/flywheel assy. I'm really lucky.

Your PDF of the 59-76 Factory Manual may have the info I need to teardown the gearbox. I called Graham at Heritage Garage in OC, and he said that he doesn't have the previous Haynes book that has the blow-by-blow description of the teardown. I found one in UK, but would be wunderful if a member of this forum has a solution.

Again, GREAT site!!!!

I'll post pic of body and interior in the next few days.

[MEhinger]

Hey Dana,

I have the manual you are looking for to disassemble the transmission.But it is a 40 megabyte PDF. Send me your e-mail and I'll see if I can find a way to file transfer it. I am sure I got it from a web site but I don'y remember where. I am at mhe56@hotmail.com.
Mike

[London Dry]

Thanks Mike, I can really use it. I'll email you my FTP coordinates.

Great forum. I appreciate everyone's input.

[94touring]

Hey Mike if you don't mind send that file to me as well and I'll throw it on the site for download whenever I make it home again. 

[London Dry]

Yesterday my neighbor and I pulled the last pieces out of the gearbox. The shop manual posted on this site had the directions we needed (59-76 Manual). The manual talks about three or four specific factory tools required to pull the gears, bearings, and giant circlips. We had none of these. Instead we improvised. See the image below of using my neighbor's combo bike-chain vice grip to hold the gears in place while we used an air jack to back out the securing nuts.

Although we tried not to allow the small ball bearings and springs to escape from the synchro rings, one set did come apart. Since this was our first time doing this teardown, we learned as we went.

Downside: we discovered a serious set of fissures in one of the internal web bracings around the output bearing. I'm going to see if I can get that TIG welded tomorrow. Otherwise, a new gearbox housing will be in order :-(

I'm really glad that we tore the whole thing down, as it revealed dozens of small and large chunks of aluminum shards from the runaway pinion gear. At least everything can be thoroughly cleaned and ready for re-assembly.

My son was able to manually crank back the Webasto sunroof over the weekend, and let the sun in.

[94touring]

Nice looking car, like that interior.

[London Dry]

Thanks Dan

BTW, the site is MUCH faster tonight.

Today I took the gearbox and diff cover to a TIG welder to see if he could reinforce the web that holds the main output bearing for the gearbox. As I've shown in a previous post, the web was chewed up pretty badly by the loose pinion gear when the diff exploded.

The pinion gear also put fissures in the diff cover, so both needed to be saved with some welds or tossed.

Well, it looks like I might have been saved from replacing both casings. The welder, who specializes in TIG or Heliarc welding of aluminum spent more than an hour carefully adding fresh aluminum to the web and the diff cover. We reinserted the main output bearing in the web, to keep the shape, as the 1800 F heat can distort the metal. I'll need to replace this bearing, but this way the hole won't go out of round.

The result looks butt ugly, but solves the problem. I'll be filing down the excess weld around the web, and maybe grind down a touch inside the diff cover, so that the gears won't be too close.

Next step: put everything back together and into the Mini :-)

[94touring]

Ah good you're coming along with it. 

Thanks, I think I've managed to speed things up a little.  Been kinda buggy lately, still may have the occasional slow spot.