I had hoped this update would have came sooner, FedEx let me down and my last parts sat in Memphis for the weekend. So I put a vacation day to work and put in the work to get Minibox moving again. I really wanted ample time for shake down testing/extra parts ordering time before Minis on the Dragon at the end of the month. Because I had the end goal laser focused the pictures are lacking. Got me thinking back to the shell resto I seemed to have a lot of time to stop and take pictures, with mechanicals its like wrench wrench… lets just get this done. Either way heres how things went.
Not sure where I left off last time, going through my photos I will do my best to tell a story here. Because I had to wait on the remaining gearbox parts I started to focus on buttoning up anything I could while I waited. I got the new pot joints installed, reshimmed my ball joints (did I mention that before?) repacked the front wheel bearings with grease, cleaned the gasket mating surface (had to get clever with a light and a mirror because I don’t have an engine stand), and checked the idler end float (fun fact don’t bother doing this without the first motion bearing on, cause you do it again later anyways when you do…. ask me how I know).
Once the remaining parts arrived it was time to get to business of getting the gearbox back together. There was a lot of frustration here because nothing just went together like I had hoped. First shimming up the layshaft was a pain, then the layshaft keyway needed to be opened up because the lock plate was just too big for it, I then learned that when you go to a taller(?) final drive the larger pinion gear will not fit the third motion bearing retainer and it needs to be opened up. So getting the parts and just slapping it back together didn’t happened like I imagined. Oh and when you recheck you idler end float just to be thorough and find out that its way too tight with the 1st motion bearing installed, you wonder why you bothered before. With all that I got some pictures but not nearly enough. You can see the stages of the 3rd motion carrier clearancing I did with a dremel though.
Next up was time to get the block and box mated up. I thought this was gonna be more of a pain than it was, it dropped right in nice and snug and the gaskets stayed put, I’ll take unexpectedly easy any day. Once that was on it was time to take some lapping paste and match up the hub boss with the crank shaft, heard this was good to do. I made it nice and matte finished guess thats good. Then I used my fancy rear main installation tool to hammer home the new gasket. Once that was done It was time to bolt up the flywheel.
Once that was done some stuff happened and boom the car was finished… ok not really but theres really no need to go into all the details of I bolted up an alternator, or I torqued my cam shaft nut and bent the tabs on the lock tab, or I then installed my new shiney dsn bits, and I relocated my coil to the transfer housing, swapped out a faulty oil pressure coolant temp gauge at some point, bolted up the exhaust, and added fluids… nope you don’t need to read all that… wait I guess you just did… anyways tada!
I really like how the engine bay is looking these days. I have drove the car a bit and have some slight issues with 1st and 2nd gear. I am not sure if its because the new synchro hub or my Kad quick shift being the issue but it can definitely be hard to find 1st and 2nd gear, until it isn’t then it comes back again. I will be monitoring it and try to be gentle while I work out what to do with it. If I still had my original shifter I would have dropped that back in to eliminate the quickshifter component. Seems adding some grease to the shifter helped smooth things a little. Some more drive time will tell if that is really true though.
The Rust chronicles 