This is a follow-up to a question I asked earlier about MG midget
gearboxes. My friends MG midget has a bad gearbox, so I asked for
advice on options and costs for repairs.
After taking the gearbox apart, we found that the rear-most needle
roller bearing on the layshaft had turned into fine metal paste
and spread itself throughout the gearbox. The inside of the laygear
is rough, and the layshaft is also rough. The metal that used to
be a needle-roller set (plus cage) has covered every surface, bearing,
and gear-tooth. We may be able to salvage it, but then again ...
Anyway, to summarise the reponses I got:
1) somebody offered a gearbox from a spitfire 1500. This was argued
to be incompatable.
2) Various parts-suppliers in England and the US were mentioned, such
as mini-mania (US$800 "gold seal" ribcase trannies) and "Seven
enterprises", and someone thought you could get them for US$400
(extra cheap ??). International fax numbers for these places are
the best thing for me (gets around the time difference, and I can't
dial any 800 numbers ...).
3) rebuilds (in the US) were not too expensive (eg: US$500 parts and
labour a few years back).
4) install a 5-speed tranny from a Datsun 210 (not B210) sedan, using
a conversion kit purchasable for about US$1,000. This gives full
syncromesh, O/D, etc. Also mentioned was that you can use a
5-speed from a datsun 1200 (probably the same unit ?).
5) parts were the same as used in early minis, and buying parts from
mini-shops was cheaper than buying from MG-shops.
6) the gearbox is easy to rebuild.
So where does this leave my friends gearbox problems ? Well, we plan
to cost the necessary machine work to fit a new needle-roller bearing
into the laygear, and get the gearbox working. If the money is
available, I think the best bet is the Datsun 5-speed tranny swap
(note that we don't really care about originality - the car is in
far too sad condition).
If anybody has quotes/inetrnational-fax-numbers for suppliers of the
Datsun 5-speed conversion, please email them to me.
Thanks everybody !
--
John Barlow, Parallel Computing Research Facility, Australian National
University, I-Block, PO Box 4, Canberra, 2601, Australia.
email = John.Barlow@anu.edu.au
[International = +61 6, Australia = 06] [Phone = 2492930, Fax = 2490747]
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