Gearbox is out - the clutch is the culprit!

Very exciting - we've wrestled the gearbox off!

It is absolutely covered in a thick, difficult to clean off greasy mud.

Degreaser barely touches it, so we've been cleaning it by alternating between prying it off with a screwdriver, spraying on degreaser, brushing with a toothbrush and wiping with rags.

Hauling it out from under the car was a great achievement.

Now to tackle the inoperable clutch...

Joel manages to unbolt each of the six bolts which hold the clutch pressure plate unit to the flywheel with a half inch ratchet. The advice is to loosen the bolts a bit at a time in order to not cause distortion on the plate.

The bolts are finally removed and.... out pops the clutch disc!
Looks like the pins holding one of the anti-chatter springs have given out and the spring has come off.

We are wondering whether this is what caused the clutch to not function.

Light rust marks on the smooth pressure plate surface seem to indicate that the clutch disc material was bonded to the pressure plate - possibly this is the explanation?

Any thoughts would be welcomed!

We are now deciding what to do next... Ordering parts from the UK is a big priority. There is also a debate going on between us as to whether or not we should open up the gearbox now that it has been removed from the car. Given that neither of us actually has much of a clue what we are doing, its all very exciting!

Back On Track!

With our new tools at hand, we were finally able to recommence the tasks which had been holding us up. Despite the cramped workspace under the car, Joel was able to remove 3 of the 4 bolts on the flange pinning the prop shaft to the differential. The 4th bolt proved to be more difficult as both the head of the bolt and the nut deformed under the pressure of the spanner, and we finally resigned ourselves to cutting the head off the bolt using the Dremmel. Once this had been done and the remainder of the bolt hammered out using a screwdriver, we lowered the prop shaft and withdrew it to the rear, thereby completely detaching it from the car.
We've decided that this particular task should be a "one-off". In other words we'll completely clean, paint and oil the prop-shaft while it's off, so we don't have to re-detach it in the future.
Our next task was to try the advice given to us on the forums of morrisdownunder.com to detach the speedo cable from the gearbox. It turned out the advice was completely solid, and it was a simple thing to unscrew the cable itself from the brass fitting, as opposed to attempting to unbolt the large brass fitting from the gearbox manifold.

Whitworth Spanners & Getting the Gearbox Off

Well the little Lowlight is now up on stands and we have removed all the brake drums, shoes and cylinders. We've decided to replace most of the brake bits with new parts to make sure that the car stops as well as possible. Seems like the pragmatic thing to do with a 61 year old car with only drum brakes!

At the moment progress has been halted because of our seized clutch. It will not engage at all. We had the engine running when we first got the car, and tried pushing the clutch in and putting it into gear. What an awful grinding noise! Hopefully we haven't chipped a tooth of one of the gears. We won't be trying that again. Our thinking is that we should remove the gearbox and see whether the clutch or pressure plate has corroded on.

We've just received some second-hand British Whitworth standard tools which we won via an eBay auction. Its very exciting because finally we have the right size spanner to undo the bolts on the prop shaft. We were pulling our hair out because our 1/2 inch and 13mm spanners were too small, but our 9/16inch and 14mm spanners too big! The right spanner has proven to be the 1/4" Whitworth. We'll post some pics shortly for all the tool-fanatics out there.

Hopefully we can now get the propshaft off and gearbox undone. Again - let us reiterate how limited our technical understanding is - it will be a challenge!

Once we've gotten the gearbox off, our thinking is that we will then know whether we need parts for the gearbox/clutch. Then we'll place a large order for new parts from the UK including cosmetic stuff, an exhaust, heaps of brake bits and window and door rubbers.

Hopefully then with those bits we can get the car roadworthy. Once its mechanically sorted, we then plan to pull it all apart again to give it a back to metal respray to make it pretty. But that seems a long, long way away, given our slow progress up till this point. Watch this space.

One great thing about a car like the Morris Minor is the community of enthusiasts who are generous with their knowledge. We're getting some great advice from the Morris Down Under forum:

http://www.morrisdownunder.com/

Its all about learning - this Morris Minor project!

An unwanted visitor

We raised the car up on all 4 pins, and commenced the removal of the remaining wheels. The lighting in our work area can be rather dull at times, and at this particular moment Gavin had most of the lighting over his side of the car. As Joel removed the rear-passenger side tyre he noticed several white spots and something moving in the gloom. He called Gav round, and there, sitting on the wheel drum was a huge (for that species) Red-Back spider, the second most poisonous spider in Australia, and a string of egg-sacks she was protecting. Even Gav, the consummate vegetarian-hippy-type agreed that we had to 'dispatch' our hitchhiker and her offspring. After doing so quickly and painlessly, Joel concluded that he should have his garage fumigated in order to ensure that the rest of the car and workshop were Red-Back free, as this species of spider is uncommon in his suburb!

Enough of the Brakes...

Since our last blog, we've focused on getting the brakes into working condition. We ordered restoration kits for the 2 pairs of front slave cylinders, the 2 rear slave cylinders and, of course, the master cylinder restoration kit. The lot cost us $100AUD including postage. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when you actually open the packet and see what you get for your money, it's a bit of a disappointment. The slave 'kits' are a single rubber 'cap', and the master kit isn't much better; a few rubber bits and a copper o-ring.
Joel did a rippin' job of cleaning up the master cylinder, scrubbing it out in a turpentine bath, before blasting it with a high-pressure gurney, and finally detailing it with a wire-brush Dremel.
So far we have removed the 4 front slave cylinders without too much difficulty. The drivers side ones were a little trickier, as we had dismantled the suspension arms on that side which allows the wheel to swing freely. Ironically, it was using one of the arms as a crowbar which allowed us to get it off.
The slave cylinders seem to be in good condition, including the rubbers, however we've decided to replace them anyway, for safety's sake.
Gavgav has bought some pins to raise up the rear of the car, so we can get the remaining cylinders off and we shall hopefully finish up the brake restoration this weekend!

Brakes, or Clutch, or both

Work on the car has begun to slow down a little, due to a combination of external factors (GavGav being away on work, and Joel having family commitments), and also because of some indecision on how to proceed.
We have found a parts supplier in England, which has all the parts we need for as little as 25% of the cost of obtaining the parts here in Australia. We intend to do a big order, but this requires some forward planning on our part.
Many of the parts we need are cosmetic, however we do require some fairly critical components that will limit our progression soon. So now we have to decide which parts to order from UK (which may take substantial time to arrive) and which parts we should fork out extra dough for, in order to obtain quickly.
We can't discern which gearbox parts will need replacing until we pull it out, so that will be our next priority, and in the meantime we have decided to order all the brake rubbers from our local supplier. This will let us recondition all the cylinders (slave and master) and get them ready for when the brake shoes and other critical components arrive from the UK.
We've also been discussing how to go about supporting the rear of the engine when disconnecting the gearbox. At the moment, we're leaning towards lying a wooden beam laterally across the engine bay, and using a winching belt mechanism suspended from the beam to support the engine. We can also put a pin underneath for added security. The clutch can be lifted using our rolling jack, and once unbolted can be rolled back and away from the engine.
In other exciting news. Last night we finally managed to remove the thermostat housing which had firmly corroded itself to the engine-block bolts. It only took us 4 tries on different days, but a lot of WD40, some large screwdrivers and mallets, and it finally came free! Another 2 parts for us to add to our England shopping list! The inside of the engine block, under the thermostat is quite dirty/corroded/rusty/covered in deposits, but considering that passage is part of the cooling system, and only has water flowing through it, there shouldn't be too much of an issue once it is cleaned up. As long as the rest of the engine internals aren't in the same condition.

Starting work on the brakes

As we mentioned earlier, we discovered (the hard way) that our brakes are completely non-functional, so we decided that due to our current ventilation limitations, that the brakes were the logical next priority. The brake master cylinder was our first target, and on most cars removing this wouldn't have been too much of an issue. However, on our early-model Morris, this proved not to be the case. As opposed to having the master cylinder under the hood, like more modern models, ours is located under the floor-pan, beneath the driver's feet!
We removed the driver's side front tire, and had a good look at the condition of the brakes, and everything seems in fairly good nick, although most of the suspension is caked in a thick layer of greasy mud.
Getting the master cylinder out proved to be somewhat of a mission. In order to extract it, we needed to remove the entire driver's side torsion bar simply to access the two bolts holding the master cylinder in! This involved jacking up the front right hand side's suspension to full compression, disconnecting the parts of the suspension from the wheel. We then lowered the wheel back down to relieve the pressure on the torsion bar before unbolting and removing it (believe me, easier in theory than in practice!). All this gave us access to the two bolts holding the master cylinder in place. As if this wasn't difficult enough, the other half of the task involved removing the floor plate surrounding the gear stick (which was held in by about 20 rusty bolts), disconnecting the brake and clutch peddles and removing the entire assembly. Once this was done all it took was the removal of a couple of awkwardly situated bolts connecting the brake lines to the cylinder, and it finally came free!
It was in pretty grotty condition, and we sat down to dissect it and check out the condition of the interior. Externally it was a bit rusty, making removal of the ring pin difficult, but once we freed it, the internals popped out quite easily. We decided to replace all rubber components, just to be safe, and since GavGav was to be away on business that week, Joel tasked himself to give the body of the cylinder a good turpentine bath and scrub...