Stripping all of the gears out of the A10 gearbox box was not too difficult, but I was aware that putting it back together may be a different story. So to be extra careful I took photographs as each piece was removed and laid the gears out in order on the bench and then photographed them as well. I then transferred the photos to my computer for safe keeping.I was surprised how light and easy to handle the gearbox was once the gears had been removed. Time to polish. This coincided with the arrival of a new linishing/polishing wheel that I had ordered off the Internet. It looked a bit like a red Brillo pad in the shape of a buffing wheel and made of a nylon type material. I was very sceptical about this new wheel and whether it would work so I tried it on a scrap piece of aluminium first. To my surprise it was fantastic. It was a bit like rubbing the aluminium with a fine wet and dry emery paper and a gentle touch removed deep scratches leaving a smooth but dull surface ready for polishing.
I set about the gearbox housing with the new wheel. It was possible to remove not only deep scratches but also casting lines and flaws. I then changed to a normal polishing wheel to bring the box up to a bright finish. It was then onto the bench for the final polish of the tight little areas that you can only get to with a Dremel.
Just to digress for a minute, I was so impressed with the results from the new linishing wheel that I decided to try it on some pit marks that I had been unable to remove on the engine timing side cover. Big mistake!!!. As I started on the pit marks more appeared and the more I tried to remove them, the more I got until suddenly a hole appeared right through the casing. Disaster! It would appear that the casing was a bad casting and contained air bubbles in the aluminium. The timing cover was now scrap. So back on the Internet and the purchase of another one. More on that later. Back to the gearbox:
With the casing brightly polished now was the time to start reassembly. So out with the laptop and bring up the photos. As usual, nothing goes quite how you expect. All of the photos were corrupt and none of my programs could open them. (Which is why there are no fully stripped photos on this blog). Of course I had also removed them from the camera, so it was back to the service sheets and the manual.
You first fit the side selector plate which pivots on the inside of the housing, new stainless steel pivot and nut of course. You then fit the output shaft in place along with new bearing and oil seal, the output chain sprocket and the notched nut. Then the rest of the inner gears along with the selectors carefully fitting the selectors into the side selector plate at the same time. It would help if you could grow a third hand during this process as it is very fiddly, but eventually all the gears went in and working the selector plate with a screwdriver proved that all of the gears were working.
Before fitting the outer cover, it is important that the selector is positioned in neutral. Double check because you will never get it to work if you put the outer cover on when it is in gear. The gear selector plate has to mate with the toothed quadrant that sticks through the inner cover plate and this quadrant must be in the right place (angle) before you push the plate home. To help the manual says that there is a red dot on the quadrant that should line up with the dot on the inner cover. My red dot had all but disappeared but there was an indentation on both so I lined them up. Wrong!. I could only get three gears. I removed the cover realigned the remains of the red dot with the case indention and reassembled. Wrong! Only two gears. After that it was just a case of trial and error until eventually I found the correct position for the quadrant that allowed the selection of all four gears.
Then on with the outer cover with it's new kickstart parts and spring and bolt it all together with new stainless steel studs, nuts and screws.
The next blog: The final gearbox polish and fitting it into the frame.
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Copyright K. Hopcroft 13.10.12 All rights reserved
You can contact me on: hopcroftscoot@gmail.com
My Other Blogs:
1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html
Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide
1971 VW Karman Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.html
Motorcycle Trailers / Caravans:
http://motorcycletrailersandcaravans.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/1-motorcycle-trailers-problem.html