whoa guys...take a chill pill ...matt's cool...one of the coolest mechanics i've ever met...always willing to take me into his workshop/garage and explain all sorts of neat things that i'd prolly never get the grasp of if not for his excellent tutelage...listen to the man he knows his way around a mini better than anyone i've ever met...

as for the brain surgery...i'd go with the 30 degree drilling angle on the left temple using a masonry bit BUT ONLY AFTER first scoring the surface with a 5" masonry disc making sure not to penetrate the cranial cavity more than 1/16"

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Bling me up Scotty!
"wait till it grows into a plant...then bunny rabbit THE PLANT!"

1966 Morris Mini DeLuxe FOR SALE

LOLOLOLOLOL

cheers man

made my day

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

ok fellas we can all relax, me and matt are like brothers basically (hardly) but my point is that this has caused alot of frustration, and matt has kindly decided to help me with it.
we all friends

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Matt is right, there are traps here for the unwary.
As an example of what can happen, I just rebuilt a Mk2 S box for ****.
Somewhere in the past it was levered off the motor, with the 2 front screws (behind engine plate) still in. You can see where it's been TIG welded and flange machined to fix it.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

After over forty years of playing with cars, I also made a costly error.

Having rebuilt an engine gearbox and fitted into the car (mini), I wasn't happy with the timing and decided to pull out the distributor and advance the distributor spindle a tooth or two. I didn't screw a long bolt into it to manouver it around and in the confined spaces of a mini engine bay it slipped from my fingers and fell down into the gearbox.

I tried and tried to grab it using flexible magnet picker- upperers and assorted grabbing devices. Nope - had to pull the engine out again - strip of the gearbox and then reassemble the lot and reinstall.

It wasn't even a naive mistake - just complacency but costly in terms of effort and time.

OOohhhh Mike,,,i can bet you won`t do that again

There are many many tales of error & terror in repairing minis,,,i can`t say that i`ve seen & heard them all, but must be dam near all of em

growing up in a mini workshop (literally lived there all my life) i not only got to see my dad make mistakes, (rare but true) But i also got to see about 500 mechanics & aprentices thru the ages stuff things up too,,,& yeah--->there have been times where even i`ve been a dikhed too, i am only human (i think)... BUT!!!...As a kid eager to learn all there is to learn about minis, becoming a sponge & sucking up all the info i can & wanting to be the very best dam mini mechanic & mini racer there ever was --->(that`s just what i thought i wanted to be when i was a kid...now i`ve grown up it`s what i know i`ve become chuckle chuckle... it`s easy for people to see what i type on message boards as--->

""""He thinks he knows everything"''' ...the truth is that i don`t "Think" i know everything.

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

i dropped the little pin that secures the peg that attaches the clutch slave cylinder arm to the clutch actuator thing...heard it tinkle its way down through all the bits in the engine bay...but it didnt drop out the bottom...took the subframe (with engine attached) out of the car thinking its prolly caught up on the subframe somewhere...took the engine off the subframe and still cant find the little bugger the left-sock fairies got it i reckon

not quite as bad as yours...but still

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Bling me up Scotty!
"wait till it grows into a plant...then bunny rabbit THE PLANT!"

1966 Morris Mini DeLuxe FOR SALE

hee hee,,,Andrew , you made that sound like you took your whole car apart just to find that little pin thing

I know you didn`t but it does sound like it

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

I can't let this one pass.

Make no mistake Matt is a truely helpful guy. He should not be placed in your self-assessed' rudeness category. Your statement is WRONG, it needs to made very clear both to you and anybody else who had to read that. It may be Matt's readiness and ongoing enthusiasm to help people that you have misinterpreted. Statements like that are not thought through and not productive for a genuinly helpful guy who survives by helping us.

Rudeness does not prevail here. Unwelcome, unproductive commentary however, is a different animal alltogether.

Sorry for the rant, but that REALLY got under my skin. You don't know Matt.

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But he's thriving and striving and hugging the turns.

ignore juan summeranch... it's just awdmoke..

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You serious funny man?

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But he's thriving and striving and hugging the turns.

Talking about the left sock fairy; I was doing someting ages back on the radiator side of my engine (can't remember what) and I dropped the spanner. Couldn't see it anywhere!!! A little while back when I changed over my engine, I had a look for it while the engine was out, you guessed it - no-where to be seen.

Cheers

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Rod
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v607/Rodney/

Most Minis have one black hole behind motor (top of lower subframe) remote boxes have another- nuts etc can fall down thru a hole in top of remote shift's diff housing. Some cars have a plate over hole, but not all.
This can spoil your day by jamming the shift up.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

But Matt...

the question was: "how to remove a block from a gearbox" not "How to remove gearbox from a working engine! just to work on the gearbox alone"

That is exactly how i removed my gearbox from my block (Yes surprise! I've done it before!), i turned it upsidedown and removed it one bolt at a time.

I also assumed that since he was "working on an 1100 powerplant" that he was going to pull the whole thing apart anyway so I don't see what the problem of removing the head has if he is going to pull the whole thing apart to work on the engine?? in which case to undo the crank he would have to turn the engine upsidedown anyway...

Gosh take it easy, i felt I was right in the context of the question!!! Next time I will try to account for all points of view for all questions. My appologies for answering the question litterally in the correct context...

I stand by my answer: to remove a GEARBOX from a BLOCK, the easiest way is to turn it upsidedown and unbolt it one bolt at a time and lift the gearbox off.

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

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