So thought it was time for an update..
The test drive was not that successful... Thinking oil leaks and running issues were a thing of the past I took the car on a drive to a mates house, when pulling onto the motorway decided to give the car some throttle to be confronted with what can only be described as a noise like a neumatic hammer they use for digging up the roads except on the floor pan of the car. It seemed speed related so keeping below 60mph stopped the banging but the car was shacking quiet horribly..
I then started to realise what was probably causing the issue.. The propshaft
Back home and back in the workshop time to find out what had happened..
This shows where the propshaft has smacked the side of the tunnel.. Which explains the noise, at this stage I was thinking unbalanced prop - as I had matched the rear section with a new front section on an early stage of work when I changed the propshaft doughnut - this is where my in-experience with the running gear showed.. After speaking to the company who balanced the prop shaft it was suggested that the reason why it was oscillating was because it was not centered properly.
Back to the workshop and it was starring me in the face and I really should have noticed before
The output shaft on the gearbox has been cut down to fit the earlier propshaft doughnut, the earlier doughnut has the centering bearing in the doughnut.. The later doughnut (the one I replaced with as you can't buy the earlier type anymore) doesn't, the front section of the prop has this bearing in which centres on the output shaft.. Which is missing.
So with that settled and with only one way of repairing the box properly the gearbox was out again
After a week of searching and phoning around gearbox specialists I found a company that had in its stores, randomly an output shaft from the ford MT75 gearbox - luck at last!
Once back from picking up the box you can see just how much was cut off!
Once again with help from Ben we got the box back in the car and with the new balanced prop all bolted back up and centered as it should be!
Small plate on the prop added to balance it all
Centered properly!
Whilst the ARB was off I decided to re-thread the stripped thread on one of the mounts. It before had a nut used on the other side of the box section and accessed through the passenger footwell. Didn't like that repair so decided to get it helicoiled and repaired properly.
With that done it was back out for another drive finally.. Weeks later!
This time the car drives really smoothly, transmission is nice and quiet. It's a massive step foward and the car is starting to feel like it's meant to! However as this car is proving time and time again whilst one area may be fixed another is not. The oil leaks are still as bad as ever and having cleaned the engine it's a bit de-motivating, the only positive is that because it's all clean now I can finally see where it's coming from and its an enormous leak!
That is the back of the block on the exhaust side looking up from underneath. It shows where the head meets the block.. And if you look closely the fact it's all shiney is fresh oil. Bit of research and my thoughts were confirmed.. That is head gasket failure on the pressurised oil feed to the head. It is literally pumping oil out the side of the engine as it runs.
So back in the workshop and the strip down begins... Getting a little bored of this now!!
More to follow soon!
Thanks for looking
