The gearbox was caked in oily dirt. It was obvious the rear mounting rubber was perished and it looked like a persistent oil leak had sped up the process. A rudimentary clean reveled the gearbox number, which matched the engine. I therefore knew I had the original.
Rebuilding a gearbox is the most technically demanding thing you can do with a Reliant three wheeler. Opening up the top cover revealed the inner workings; The selector forks, rods and gears. The oil was also silvery and judging by the wear on the selectors I thought a full strip down was in order. Practising on one of the other gearboxes went fine up until it came to remove the synchro gears. I was a bit heavy handed and ended up having bearings and springs shooting all over the garage!
The front housing situated within the bell. The thrust ring operating arm has already been removed in this view.
This is the carbon thrust bearing in place along with the rod operated clutch arm & the coiled clips to fasten the bearing to the arm.
Removing the cover exposes the ends of the selector rods and the front bearing. A new bearing will be fitted.
The front bearing in place.
The gears in situ with the rods withdrawn leaving the selector forks in place.
Releasing the rear flange that connects to the prop shaft.
The selector rods and forks were cleaned and inspected. Some less worn items were swapped with the other gearbox. The parts the gear stick slot into were badly worn in places, so brand new ones were sourced.
As well as photographing things I found labelling them essential.
Carefully consulting the workshop manual it was then time to re assemble. First task was to press in the new bearings. The re assembly has to be done in a specific step by step process.
5/10/2013 And finally all back together. The top cover was corroded a bit so it received a coating of aluminium spray. The gear stick and gaiter are slotted in for effect at this stage. The rear mounting features a worm drive for the speedo cable. Attempting to get the old mount pressed out resulted in a loud bang. It turned out the thin part of the mount had split. It took a while to source a new rear mount and rubber & the old one had to be cut up in order to retrieve the speedo drive. The later engines did away with the large rubber and instead used the same mounts as the engine.
