Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Backtracking A Bit....

So, I got my car back on the road just before Christmas. It was on the stands in the garage, but how did it get there.....?

Throughout the 90's the Six was my daily driver and occasional autocross and track day car. I drove it like crazy and ran it hard. It started with me as a wreck, I turned it into a show car, and the daily driving turned it back into a daily driver. Along the way, a lot of stuff wore out, worst being the transmission. By the middle of the 2000's, she would not shift except if I doubleclutched it hard.

My wife and I were about to become parents, so I decided to yank the tranny and rebuild it before my daughter arrived. We all know what they say about the best laid plans....

With the tranny out and measured up, I found that it really was worn out. The bearings in the bottommost shaft were shot as well. After having a machine shop work the bottom most shaft over and getting all the right parts, I began looking for synchros. No luck. I wanted NOS parts as I had been told that the repros were crap.

Several years passed, my daughter was born, learned to walk, learned to talk, and still the car was on stands.

Then I lucked into a set of genuine NOS synchros and a clutch kit. By myself, I wrestled the tranny back into the car and hoped to get it back on the road. Unfortunately, something was wrong, and it would not shift at all. I could not figure out what I did wrong.

After pulling the tranny back out and going through everything with a digital micrometer (everything was correct), I decided to check the clutch. Lo and behold, it was not close in dims to the old one. Since the 'old' one only had about 5k miles on it, I stuck it, and a new friction plate in and she shifted like a new car!

So on my 2011 birthday, my car was back on the road and driving!

My buddy Matt helped me put the transmission back in the car this last time, and he is a Triumph fanatic (of the 2 wheeled variety), so we had to go tear up some backroads and get a cool pic of the Triumphs together......

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