the Steinard MK3 takes shape

[John]

I got the full story this morning as the box is now out and on the bench, pinion is shot to pieces, and not only did the preload nut come off the pinion end, the nut on the other end of the same shaft was finger tight when he pulled the back cover off, the bloody thing never had a chance of staying together.
cheers John

 

[Jac Mac]

In this pic which was taken before the shaft moved on the dyno session there is no nut on rear of pinion shaft or rear of layshaft which I understood was the first issue and unrelated to this problem. If either nut on the pinion shaft relaxed tension in service it looks like the same would occur to the other as it appears the whole deal relies on both bolts/nuts remaining tight to maintain pinion position. Apart from the pinion this is critical as any shaft movement back n forth also moves the shifter forks and could result in further gear damage if it manages to self select two gears at once. ( that is ugly and usually means binning most of the internals )

 

[John]

Yeah mate that bottom shaft was a 2 piece affair with the rear section pressed on to carry that rear bearing, and it walked out, and stripped a couple of gears in the process, so it went back and a new bottom shaft was made in one piece, and thats failed again this time.
so what do you do try again or is it just throwing good money after bad, as its not only cost me financially its also made me look a right dick over here.
john

 

[Jac Mac]

Yeah mate that bottom shaft was a 2 piece affair with the rear section pressed on to carry that rear bearing, and it walked out, and stripped a couple of gears in the process, so it went back and a new bottom shaft was made in one piece, and thats failed again this time.
so what do you do try again or is it just throwing good money after bad, as its not only cost me financially its also made me look a right dick over here.
john

I dont have any skin in the game so its easy for me to say... From where I stand the bolt on pinion is designed to fail, so in order to biff that would require a re-design of that whole shaft plus incorporate a proper double taper roller bearing at the pinion end which would mean talking to whoever makes the R&P sets and cost a fortune on a limited number basis, especially as Richmond Gear has been scattered to the 4 winds in the corporate reshuffle which I believe was a major hurdle for De Lynn on his project.
Nobody is going to win out of this, I wondered myself when the project went from your 5000 car to the M1B then sold to the current owner how things were going to shake out, sort of put the development side of things on a fast track with no real control over events. In short a 930 would probably solve your immediate problem and give Leon time to come up with a bullet-proof fix if he wish's to continue down the path.

 

[John]

I agree whole heartedly mate the pinion needs to be a one piece shaft with a double taper roller bearing, as every schematic of a trans axle i can find has, with the pre load taken by a nut on the back end.
unfortunately your right there too mate its a no win situation,, I'm personally down the drain not only for the money I've poured into it to get it to this stage, but i also took a sizeable hit on the sale price of the macca as the trans was an unknown quantity, and i know for certain the owner isnt going to spend any more money on it, so its pretty much come to a dead end i'm sad to say, from this end anyway. whether Leon wants to continue refining it or not i have no idea.
so the plan moving foward is to source another trans, i do have a lead on an LG500 MK2, also Fran has a box that would do the job, so at the moment were waying up options.
cheers John

 

[Russell]

John, really sorry that your having these drama`s....nobody needs this. I would probably go the new box way to get your new owner sorted and then chase the repairs as a separate issue.
Regards
Russell

 

[Randy V]

.....and racing cars down under have some sort of warranty?
Keith Black taught me a very important lesson back in 1973 when the brand new 426 Hemi in my dragster let go a mere 300’ out of the hole on its first run in my old Top Fuel dragster.... He told me that when the engine is out of his sight and control, it is out of warranty.
I ended up repairing the frame damage to the digger, freshened up the old 392, converted back to that engine and sold the car.

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Perhaps not fully understanding the issue...could a temporary fix include modifying the cover plate with a stop/thrust washer to at least prevent both from moving rearward?

 

[Jac Mac]

.....and racing cars down under have some sort of warranty?
Keith Black taught me a very important lesson back in 1973 when the brand new 426 Hemi in my dragster let go a mere 300’ out of the hole on its first run in my old Top Fuel dragster.... He told me that when the engine is out of his sight and control, it is out of warranty.
I ended up repairing the frame damage to the digger, freshened up the old 392, converted back to that engine and sold the car.

Dont know about OZ, but in NZ there is legislation that says a product must be fit & suitable for its intended use, I think anyone here would need to have the purchaser sign a waiver that they accept that anything is 'their' fault entirely since it is used in a motorsport application in order to give them 'the vendor' some legal foundation. If any spectators get hurt it goes to hell in a handbag real quick.

 

[Jac Mac]

Perhaps not fully understanding the issue...could a temporary fix include modifying the cover plate with a stop/thrust washer to at least prevent both from moving rearward?

Dont think that will suffice Terry, rear cover would require additional material in those two bearing areas to provide a buttress to control end thrust. One other factor in regard to that pinion is the ring nut that came loose appears to have a 45 degree taper to match the pinion, so the act of tightening that ring nut will spread the pinion and loosen any tolerance it has on the shaft splines, with the approx 400/500 hp we can assume its making ~400+ ft lb of torque, multiply that by the ratio of low gear ~( 2.00+/1 ) gives 800+ft lb of pain at the pinion unless the tires are spinning.
I cannot see why the input/lower shaft really is a problem myself as its all straight cut gears with no real end thrust issues and low gear is at the fwd end, since the other end (rear/ high gear) would have been loaded on the dyno and all ratios are indirect that bearing support spud that was pressed into the rear of the original Jerico layshaft just needs a rethink.

 

[Randy V]

Dont know about OZ, but in NZ there is legislation that says a product must be fit & suitable for its intended use, I think anyone here would need to have the purchaser sign a waiver that they accept that anything is 'their' fault entirely since it is used in a motorsport application in order to give them 'the vendor' some legal foundation. If any spectators get hurt it goes to hell in a handbag real quick.

No such thing here in the US in terms of equipment - vehicles used in off-highway environments. That does not stop people from sueing you and in the case of negligence and personal injury, even a waiver will not absolve you of responsibility.
Back in the late 90’s, I purchased a full set of Koni racing shocks and front struts for my SCCA American Sedan Camaro.
The rear shocks worked pretty well. The front struts, however, quite literally collapsed. When removed from the car, both struts shafts woud literally fall into the lower housing if stretched out and released.
Koni told me that their “Lifetime” warranty did not apply to any of their products which were used off-highway. Their warranty for racing products is simply a NON-DOA warranty. IE, they’re only guaranteed to be good when first removed from the factory packaging.
—
All that said, I guaranty my work (labor) and the parts I use carry whatever the manufactures warranty is. If I installed a transaxle that later came apart, I would work with my customer on the labor to replace but the transaxle itself would be the responsibility of the owner and the manufacturer...

 

[John]

Hi Randy, i too stand behind everything i do no questions, but in this case when i sold the car i took $20g off the price as the trans was an unknown quantity and i couldn't guarantee it, and now i'm doing my upmost to find a suitable replacement.
So from my stand point i'm pretty peeved as i got talked into this thing with the assurance they knew what they were doing, and i'm down the toilet twice for the one item. the initial outlay, then the discount on the sale price, which is a big hit when your on a pension.
cheers John

 

[John]

Trans problems all solved, Fran has offered me a trans he has surplus to requirements that will do the job admirally, and is also going to make an adaptor for me so it will bolt straight up, so the ole girl will live again, so that is a huge weight off my shoulders.
so now i can get back to my own little Lotus 23 project, which is at the sanding the paint off the body stage, any volunteers
cheers John

 

[John]

Well it seems as though i'm down the toilet good and proper, i spoke to Leon yesterday and it seems i was just a patsy to fund and test his new beaut project trans, no warranty implied or given he says, we can send it back and he will carry on developing it to get it reliable, at our cost i take it, and he will test it in his car, so in the meantime we have a car parked up with no trans for god knows how long, i dont think so.
3 failures is enough for me.
john

 

[Leon]

I have read through the posts and in my defence I have backed up and tried to make right what has gone wrong with this project and I will continue to do so. Let me just say one thing, the first trans I sent John would not have had the problems this trans has had because it had double taper bearings on the pinion shaft the gear stack was as per the std configiration so no shaft issues would have happened. The problem was it was too heavy for John and the shift setup was rubbish. The shift setup I can fix the weigh was because it was a Quick change setup and simply had more parts in it. I made a new case and redesigned it at my cost to make John happy I have tried my best and at no point have I walked away from this, I'm just a guy working in my home shop not a big business trying to make money and I thought I had someone who also keen to make this project work. and as for talking John into it he approached me.
Cheers Leon.

 

[Keith]

What a sorry tale. Time to move along I think and put this behind you John. I know what living on a pension does for you too and I hope this episode hasn't dampened your obvious enthusiasm for creating some amazing machines. I'd love to see the orange beast run but don't do Farcebook, so I wonder John, could you post a YouTube video link here when you get her up & running again? All the best John, from another pensioner...

 

[John]

Hi Keith, there is a couple of very short vids of the beast running but unfortunatey its never lasted long enough for a decent vid, we have a new trans on the way which will make the car reliable, the only other problem we have to attend to are the rear uprights which desperately need a redesign in the bearing dept, and we have that underway, so with a bit of luck i will spend the X Mass break with the Macca back in my shed getting sorted for the coming 2019 season
Rest assured when i have them Videos will be posted.
cheers John

 

[John]

Update time on the McLaren, after what seemed like an eternity the new trans arrived, complete with a new beaut bell housing,, so first up was to make sure the bell housing clears everything, not quite, small mod required to cross member under flywheel, so trim a tad of the diagonal and bingo fits like a glove, its tight but it fits and has sufficient clearance etc, so next was to fit the trans and check shaft positions and again tight but enough clearance, next step is to try and get the input shaft out and fit the new one i had made , so while thats getting done i took my uprights down to my machinist to make up some half shaft hubs etc that would survive more than 3 laps, [ long story best not dragged out on here] all i will say is when you have 600+ hp driving a 16" wide slick you want a tad more than a small weld holding the hub on to the stub axle. and i very much doubt if it was annealed before welding and then re heat treated
https://flic.kr/p/QHsLA8 so a couple of pics of progress so far. 1st the reliefs needed to fit bell housing
https://flic.kr/p/2emWHRm trans in position
https://flic.kr/p/QFdgT8 axle clearance
https://flic.kr/p/2emWJto modified button flywheel and triple plate 5.5" clutch
https://flic.kr/p/Siqy4C current head ache is trying to get a working gear shift through the chassis, i think i have it sorted, time will tell.
cheers John

 

[Keith]

John I’m so delighted you are getting back in the game I’m replying directly from my hospital bed where I’ve been languishing for a few weeks. Fair cheered me up mate. Thanks, Keith

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Off topic Keith (please relocate my post if it will make you feel more chipper), but hoping you start languishing at home soon.