Hi Kai
I have had many cars from 1965 2000 Saloon to 1977 2500S saloon (have worked
on a 1978 registered 2500S which must have been one of the last) and all had
dowel bolts installed, I would guess that the cars that have them missing
are more likely to be DPO syndrome than factory penny pinching! Many people
do not realise the significance of these bolts and try to fit them late in
the re-assembly order and they won't go so what do they do? Leave them out
or fit 5/16 bolts instead! Even Heralds used location, a dowel at the top of
the block which protruded through the back plate and in to the bell housing,
and a 3/8 bolt at the bottom to one end or the other of the flat section.
This format carried on right up to the 79/80 Dolomite I recently did a
clutch on. I can't imagine even BL would take the chance of warranty claims
for gearboxes by deleting a dowel bolt or two!
One car I have done which was on it's 2nd "Professionally" fitted clutch in
as many years was missing the dowels and the input shaft bearing was so
trashed that the input shaft could be moved axially fore and aft a full 1/4
inch! The "Professional" was so good he had left out the dowels and fitted
metric nuts to imperial bolts and imperial nuts to metric bolts! He had been
the only person to take the gearbox from the car as the current owner has
had it from 2 years and 8000 miles old, it was a managers car before that
and had a full service history which consisted of the PDI and 1000 mile oil
change and a 6000 mile service plus a couple of bulbs and a puncture repair
and a diary of every drop of petrol oil and water added during the 2 years!
Graham.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kai M. Radicke"
Subject: Re: Gearbox dowels ?
> It seems that somewhere in between 1973 and early 1974, that the dowel
pins
> were deleted from TR6 production. My reasoning? My 1972 TR6 has the
dowel
> bolts, and through a recent discussion/visit with Richard Good, I know his
> 1970 car has the dowel bolts. I also have a TR250 drivetrain and a 1972
TR6
> drivetrain in storage, and both had the dowel bolts. My former 1974 TR6
> lacked dowel bolts, a one-owner 1974 TR6 I know of also lacks the dowel
> bolts, a customer's 1976 TR6 that recently had a clutch job lacked the
dowel
> bolts (has them installed now though), and the three additional 74-76
> engine/gearbox combinations I have sitting in storage all lack the dowel
> bolts.
>
> Now if we were to assume the simplist explanation, based on what I have
> observed, the only reasonable assumption is that Triumph removed the dowel
> bolts from TR6 production. I would bet that who ever assembled the engine
> and gearboxes at the factory, still aligned the bell housing to the rear
> engine plate using a master jig or two master dowel bolts. When one
engine
> and gearbox combo was bolted together, the alignment jig or the dowel
> bolts/pins were removed and went to the next engine and gearbox pairing.
>
> Kai
>
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