Build Day Sixteen - Engine and Gearbox in... yyyeeeaaahhh

This evening's build really felt like a triumph after yesterdays progress got halted by poorly laid out instructions (once again).  I sent an email to Derek at CC early this morning which he replied to promptly and answered all of the questions I had asked of him.  This got my head into the right place to feel confident in what we'd decided yesterday was the right way of doing things.

So Derek (not CC Derek) came over to lend a hand, and as some have mentioned maybe a third pair of hands would've been helpful, but we managed it... eventually.

The first task was to ready the gearbox.  I started by putting the selector shaft o ring in place - this was one of the question points I had for (CC) Derek, and he confirmed it went in the hole in the picture below and was held in place with a little bead of silicone.

Selector shaft o ring in place, and held there with a fine bead of silicone.

I removed all the plastic plugs from the gearbox and fitted this larger metal one.  The other holes will be filled with other gubbins, gearstick, reverse switch and so on over the next few days.

Gearbox mounting rubber - this mounts to the cross member in the chassis tunnel.

I then removed the two brown wires I mistakenly fitted to the front left engine block hole and replaced with the earth wire I found when I was rummaging around in the garage at 4:30am this morning... yup that's jet lag for you.

The gearbox got fitted and torqued to the engine, and then we strapped the engine to the crane via a strap I'd bought threaded through the lifting eyes, and began the install.

R500 engine with gearbox attached and strapped to engine crane.

My thoughts at this moment... It's never going to fit, but smile for the camera anyway!

It's going in with some jiggling.

Well the caption on the last image is a bit of a 'white lie' as the engine had to come out again, as we just couldn't quite get it in.  We re-adjusted the straps to make the engine as level as possible, and dropped the front axle stands to give the car a bit of rake to help the angle of attack.

It worked in the end, but it really was quite difficult.  As I had already installed the diff and prop shaft this made fitting the gearbox to the prop shaft a nightmare, that and the fact the R500 has a prop shaft guard, which completely restricted the movement of the prop shaft spline.  We must've spent an hour with jacks, lifting, trying to move the engine that little bit further forward, back, left, right - it really didn't want to go in.  We were also getting snagged up with the copper fuel line, but that was swiftly held out of the way with a trusty cable tie.

Fuel line cable tied out of the way for a short period of time.  Had we had the third pair of hands this would've been their job!

Getting the prop shaft into the gearbox was really tricky - mostly due to the R500 prop shaft guard doing it's intended job and completely limiting the movement of the prop shaft.

In the end we had to remove this belt pulley off the front of the engine, so we could get the engine and gearbox at the correct angle to fit to the prop shaft.

Belt pulley removed to aid prop shaft and gearbox 'marriage'

After some more shuffling, backwards, forwards, left, right, up, down - it slotted together and was in. We then finger tightened the gearbox mount into place then set about re attaching the engine mounting arms and fixing them to the rubber engine mounts.

And then the engine was in - WELL HAPPY!

Another view of the engine in it's home.

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention whilst all that was happening, Doug also popped past with my new (old style) wheels - which are the ones I ordered and wanted originally.  These are miles nicer in my opinion than the multi spoke variants they are now supplying and originally delivered plus I think the anthracite finish will really set the car of nicely when it's on the road.

New (old style) R500 wheels.

Tonight was a fair few hours work, but it really was a great sense of achievement.  This project has been an up and down roller coaster at times, and today on reflection has been one of the most satisfying to date.

Tomorrow evening will be a few fiddly bits which won't be anywhere near as satisfying as tonight, but each bit fitted is one step closer to the ultimate satisfaction of having it on the road which I'm very much looking forward to.