Hi Jim
as you know I was trying to get an original MK1 bellhouse ZF DS 25-1 re cast and the rear flange modified to mate to the ZF DS 25-2 The guy that specializes in bellhousings had all the parts for six month and did nothing except feed me lies about his progress. I then went to Malocks but was told they would have to have an order for five castings to go ahead. A friend of mine has just persuaded them to cast one for him but without machining. The problem is the bottom mounting lugs on the Malock bellhousing are not in the right place for your Monocoque, they are positioned on the engine side of the housing and not on the gearbox side.
I ended up going to Bob Putnam who very kindle sold me an ERA housing for $750
this as you probably know is a straight bolt up job except for shortening the input shaft by . 25".
The easy thing about the ERA bellhouse is that it fits without any extra modification.
I used an alloy fly wheel with standard 157 tooth Ford Mustang ring gear 10.5 "Ford Motor sport clutch.
If you are against using the ERA item because it has no bottom mounting lugs then you might be able to get one to an original pattern from Brian Wingfield, or go to Johnny Neilson at
www.autoart.net Johnny is a great guy for original parts as long as you can stand the price.
If you go down the original rout then you will need a flywheel with 115 or 117 tooth ring gear to fit, I understand that the original ring gear came from an Austin A35 or A40. I rang Tilton about a flywheel and clutch and spoke to their technical director, He said that they had made flywheels for Safir in the 80's with 115 tooth ring gear fly cut into the steel. He said to run one off for me would be $1000 I guess he did not want the job. You could however consider a Tilton Modular Housing with flywheel and clutch. You would have to machine the gearbox plate to except the ZF. and you would need to make depth checks to make sure they will go together.
Regards,
Chris.
[ February 06, 2003: Message edited by: Chris Melia ]
[ February 06, 2003: Message edited by: Chris Melia ]