*grin* me neither.. was sitting on the passenger side, and the nut-dooer-upperer was on the other side of the car so I thought, I'll do it next time I walk around the other site.. Course, once the wheels were back on, i dropped it off the stands, messed with the timing (turns out it was 180 degrees out like my housemates car), fired her up. emptied about 2l of oil out onto the ground before I twigged that someone had pulled the oil pressure sensor out of the engine without telling me..

So I cleaned that mess up, removed the oil pressure sensor from the old engine, topped the oil back up, started her up again, and then proceeded to do a rough (i.e. find highest revs) tune/adjustment on the distributor) - doing a proper tune is a three handed job (one to hold the mirror, one to hold the timing light, one to turn the distributor..) , and at that stage none of my housemates were home..

Then jumped in it to take it for a test-drive.. completely forgetting about the wheel nuts



Sorry, I think a previous poster confused things - nothing to do with the idler gear in the gearbox, it's the little bearing that presses over the end of the input drive shaft. The one on the new gearbox was too large to fit my cover.. So I went and bought a gear puller, did a lot of cutting and grinding, and ended up with something that worked to 'safely and cleanly' pull the two bearings off.. then put the bearing off mine that matched the housing onto the new gearbox, and it all bolted up nicely..



Everything looks the same,lengths, etc, with the wheel off, it seems to be that yoiu can jack the suspension up a lot higher than you could before I lost the wheel.. So my (relatively uninformed on hydro) bet is that something let some fluid out when I went for the dive and it needs pumping up again.. Guess I'll find out if I ever get the damned thing running again and go get the hydro looked at..



Carb, I doubt it, as I just dropped the carbs straight off the old engine on, so it *should* just work? Timing, could be, since I just hand timed it.. but would either of those cause huge clouds of blue smoke? I thought blue smoke was in the oil domain, which would mean the new head is doing exactly what my old head was doing.. - back off at high revs, then apply throttle again, and you'd get big lots of blue smoke..

That's the weird thing - because I wanted the gearbox out of the car that the engine/clutch came out of, we *tried* to give it a pretty good hard drive.. Then discovered 2nd was completely missing.. So we then proceeded to give it an even harder drive in 3rd/4th, and never noticed any clutch slip, or oil smoke - where as now there's smoke just while sitting there idling..

Totally confused, hence I'm just gonna let it sit, and keep riding the bike (lets admit it, a BMW K100RT is pretty much larger than a mini anyway..) for a while until I feel like getting covered in grease and figuring it out..

Regards,

Damien

_________________
_-DG-_
'73 Mini Clubman S

Well, thought I'd give folks an update..

Finally had some free time today, so I pulled the head off the car, and put my old head (the one that I thought I'd done the valve guides, on, as It was blowing smoke on backoff-then-footdown) back on.. Took it for a drive, and it runs perfectly.. no smoke, no hesitation on acceleration.. absolutely perfect.. Though the clutch still slips..

So I get home, park the car back in front of the garage, ready to pull the flywheel/clutch out tomorrow (was going to try the method that was suggested at the last act mini club meeting - undo the drivers side engine mount, jack that side of the engine up a couple of inches, and then taking the housing cover off, and then can take the flywheel out with a bit of tight manouvring..).

Then as I'm walking to the front of the garage to put away the tools I'd used, I see an oil trail running up the driveway. 'oh crap' thinks I, and go to look, and sure enough, there's a good half a litre of oil puddled under the car.. dash into the shed and get an oil pan, and throw it under, then look to see where it's coming from, expecting to have lost a sump plug or something..

Nope, it's coming out of the drain hole in the bottom of the flywheel housing.. So looks like with all the messing around with the bearing on the input shaft for the gearbox being the wrong size, and taking the housing on/off about 30 times, I've narfed the main seal around the crankshaft..

I just phoned anto, and he's a little iffy on whether I'd have the room to take the flywheel housing off and replacing the seal with the engine in the car.. - Has anyone tried this? or is it an engine out of car job? I *really* don't want to take the engine out of the car (with three minis in the house, one of them having it's engine out three times already, and it again needs it out), I've had enough of taking engines out, and I'm just not up for that.. I'd rather set fire to the damned thing and do a sacrificial dance to the leyland demons. (Sorry, but the 'fun' of owning a mini is quickly waning)

i'm halfway to just putting a heap of oil in the car, driving 5km down the road, and then calling the NRMA and going 'yeah my car is leaking HEAPS of oil, can you tow me to the mini workshop in fyshwick?' (premium care is good..), and letting them get the bloody thing working properly..

Thanks,

Damien

_________________
_-DG-_
'73 Mini Clubman S

Yes it is quite easy to change the rear main oil seal in car. You don't need to take the housing off. First take off clutch /flywheel etc.

Then get two self tapping scres, appropriate screwdriver and screw into opposite sides of seal. Gently pull on both screws at once, and you should be able to manouver the seal out.

Replacement seal, some like to tape the splines to protect seal, I don't bother and haven't had any trouble yet - slow and steady! Smear of oil on the lip helps stop it catching. Press home with fingers. Some gentle persuasion with a soft mallet / block of wood might be necessary - be gentle and work your way around opposites on the outside (like bolting on a car wheel) Make sure the spring doesn't pop out!!!

Oh, awesome, thanks for the info

Regards,

Damien

_________________
_-DG-_
'73 Mini Clubman S