Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Henry David Thoreau
The gearbox was covered in 40 years of collected gunk and congealed filth so we gave it a wash and brush-up before re-fitting.
We bolted the clean gearbox back into it's correct position without connecting the driveshafts. I was concerned about the length of the new linkage that we made up last week and whether it would all fit properly. No need to have worried - it's only perfect! Lovely stuff.*
I seem to have scattered spare parts all over the house, garage, workshop, shed and store-room. I managed to find a suitable bolt to connect the linkage to the gearbox and bolted them together. The new linkage shaft seems like a tight fit in the guide tube, despite the globs of grease that we slathered all over it when fitting it last week.
We fitted the gearstick temporarily, just to try out everything and test it. The locking plate went missing for a while. It's a plate that is designed to prevent accidental selection of reverse gear while looking for forward gears. After a long search I found it in a desk drawer in the outside store, together with the original worn-out seat belts and nothing else. How odd.
* Not quite perfect :(
It's all fitted and it seems to be getting all four of the forward gears without problems. Reverse gear IS a problem though, we cannot find it! But it's late and we're tired so we'll look for it next week! I expect that we have fitted the lock plate incorrectly but we'll see.
Thanks for stopping by
CooP
