Bob,
Sorry to hear of your clanking noises and the fact that the PO of your PA
was a known "under-tightener". I agree basically with what everybody has
said so far, yes, the gearbox will come out without removing the engine, but
there are a few things you need to do before you start. This is not a Sunday
afternoon project so you need to decide where the car is going to sit for a
week or two without being moved.
The tube that supports the rear of the engine and the gearbox is invariably
rusted solid into the bell-housing bushes. This is not necessarily all bad
as it keeps things in the right place but it does make it a little more
difficult to remove the bell-housing. You have to be able to pull the
bell-houusing back after you've removed the four bolts from each bracket and
wriggled the brackets inboard. Before you can do any of this you need to
support the back of the engine with a 2 x 4 (or the Canadian equivalent)
across the sump and a good jack to hold it all up. A second shop jack on
wheels is best as after you've disconnected the bell-housing from the
flywheel housing you're going to need to turn the whole unit to free the
ends of the tube from from the chassis rails. You can then lower the unit to
the ground.
When the gearbox is out of the way, the first thing I would check is the nut
holding the rear main bearing sleeve onto the crankshaft. That nut should
have been torqued to 100 lb. ft. If its loose, it could be the source of
your clank.
Cheers, "Bob".
/// unsubscribe/change address requests to majordomo@autox.team.net or try
/// http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// http://www.team.net/mailman/listinfo
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive/mg-mmm
/// Send list postings to mg-mmm@autox.team.net
|