Jake's Story

Trying to get the Journal Up top date, thought I'd postednthis, so a little out of sequence

For the gearbox cross member, The engine is sitting on its mounts, the gearbox is on a trolley jack. I’ve spent a fair chunk of time trying to find out what the installed angle of the drive train is, but Christmas 2014 saw us on a trip back to the UK for some family celebrations. A little bit of homework before hand saw us visiting
• Clive Wheatley, in Bridgenorth, for some engine mounts
• Moss, in Manchester for
• A coil over kit
• RV8 type manifolds
• Sebring rear valance
• Front valance with a little lip spoiler (like the LE50?)

With the engine mounts in our case, and the Moss gear being shipped home, back to NZ

After looking around for a suitable BW T5 box, (the preferred option) I managed to find an LT77 box, still with the right bellhousing. It’s one of the unloved, older types, but better than nowt.

After chasing a couple of flywheels, eventually ended up finding a flywheel at Triumph rover spares in Adelaide.

So the engine goes on the box, and drops into the car. So far so good!
2 big jobs to tackle,
• making room for the RV8 headers,
• making up a gearbox cross member

After some trawling the net looking for what to do with the headers, eventually is time to grasp the bull by the horns, and start cutting. A couple of small holes, a metal blade on the jigsaw, and some tin snips saw the holes from Tennis ball size, dozens of trial fits ending up with a hole that the headers just squeeze through. The holes have ended up bigger than I expected, but no way of getting them any smaller * still be able to get the header in & out. (Ended up taking the carbs & rocker covers off to give me room to manipulate the manifolds) only to find no rockers on either bank. I’m guessing my Hack engine isn’t as good as I thought…..