If you have shares in a company that makes Ibuprofen, buy some more, just spent the weekend getting my engine and gearbox in and my biceps and lower back are already feeling it :laugh:
Firstly, a big thank you to Simon Winter, for letting me use his engine crane, which I picked up Friday night. Didn't have a chance to use it until Sunday though after visiting friend had left... then bang, a greyhound couldn't have got to the garage any quicker!
Engine in first, and I have to say I was a very happy bunny; then came putting the gearbox on.
For those of you who haven't followed the saga that has been my build... I decided in my wisdom that Renault boxes where becoming harder to find, and therefore in an effort to 'future proof' things, I decided that maybe I should try a newer Audi than the older 016.
That in itself lead to another problem, no one made an adaptor; so a conversion from an existing adaptor was done. This was all enabled by Stu Birchall, who hasn't been on the forum for a while, borrowing the gearbox and getting a CAD file of an 016. He confirmed that they matched centre lines and bolt holes. So an 016 kit was ordered from Kennedy. Then once that arrived a new drive plate was made up by Helix Motorsport, along with a friend turning up a new spigot baring adaptor.
I'd previously confirmed that the box mounted up to the adaptor with the drive plate in, so I was pretty happy on Sunday night, and rather confident as well. Except, no, it didn't mate. However, by this time it was 10:30pm so I called it a night.
After doing Daddy duties this morning at the pool, I leapt back into it. Firstly, taking off the drive plate and then re-installing the box with the bearing adaptor in place. Yep everything fitted. So back on again. Still no good.
A friend came round to help, and we went over this process twice more, thing it looked like it was maybe an alignment of the drive plate issue. Still no luck, so we took the adaptor out. It hadn't appeared to go all the may in, so a little skim on the tolerance fit and back in again. Properly seated this time; and as Sir Fred of Flintstone would say "YABBA DABA DOO" All mated together :thumbsup:
With a put it into gear and turned the crank, just to confirm and the flanges turned. This is a real milestone for me! This will also allow me to start working out where all the wiring will run. Dave's an engine loom electrician at our Dagenham plant, so he's going to hep me. All heading the right way!