Monday, December 17, 2007

GT6 gearchange shortening

Work on the GT6 is progressing, albeit slowly at the moment. Since I have moved the engine back in the chassis of the GT6, a number of components need to be relocated or modified in some way. One of these parts is the gearchange mechanism, a fairly straightforward job of reducing its total length by six inches.
So, the first job was to dismantle the mechanism, to separate the cast aluminium housing from the other components. To do this a small roll pin (1/8th inch) had to be drifted out to release the overdrive inhibitor block and then the selector arm released by removing a bolt.

With that out of the way a six inch section was carefully cut out of the housing and then sent off to J&J Engineering near Swindon to be joined back together at the new length. Meanwhile, a control rod from inside the housing has also been reduced in length by six inches, although it was not quite as easy as just cutting it down.


The end of this rod has to mate up with the gearstick, so has a long slot down the centre and a hole through it for the bolt. Originally this would have been cut using a milling machine, but as I do not have one here, the piece was carefully marked out, then cut by hand using a hacksaw and finally finished off by file. It's not perfect, but should do the job.
For good measure, new "O" rings have also been fitted to the aluminium housing around selector shaft.


The saloon has been putting up good service again, taking me to Leicester to meet-up with Jony5 from the Club Triumph forum and see my mate Simon to get some php programming done for the Cambridge Museum of Technology website.

My entry for the Club Triumph 2008 Round Britain Reliability Run (RBRR) has been accepted, coming in as entry number 31. As before, the run takes place in October over 48 hours, starting from Enfield in London on a Friday Evening, to John O Groats for Saturday Breakfast, down to Lands End for Sunday Breakfast and then back to Enfield for Sunday evening, should be fun.