Lauren's 1985 Kouki Trueno

[Lauren]

Had to pull out the gearbox because I realised that I hadn't fitted a spigot bearing what with the bottom end coming out of an AW11.

So on Sunday we thought, take the box out, get bearing on Monday and re-fit. I Finally I bought a decent jack from Halfords, especially so as Mark spent lots on bendy ratchet spanners. It was one of their advanced ones for £90 that is quick lifting and lifts nice and high.

I still need to use the shitty Aldi jack to lift it high enough to get the new jack under, but then it was a breeze.

We got the car nice and high and well, it wasn't anything difficult. As usual with the AE86, nothing was rusty and everything came apart easily enough. We had to drain a bit of gear oil when we pulled the prop out the back of the box, so there was an all pervading smell of gear oil, yeuuck!

The box came out easy and isn't particularly heavy. As Mark said it's easy to handle. None of the flywheel bolts were loose, but we took them out and locktited them anyway.

Should be able to pick up the bearing just about anywhere as the Toyota one I've ordered will arrive a day too late. Still, I'd rather get it sorted by tomorrow, than fret about sorting it the day before the trackday. Hopefully should be an easy couple of hours work. Have to say the AE86 is a nice car to work on, which is just as well really!

Then on Monday and time for refit. It only took 7 hours to put a bearing in, bolt the clutch up and fit the gearbox. I will be buying one of those clutch alignment tools. It obviously doesn't massively matter too much if you are fitting an MR2 type box with no spigot bearing, but alignment is absolutely critical with a spigot bearing.

I did say to Mark this afternoon, do you think I should check the clutch alignment as I did it by eye? He said no, we had another half hour attempt of wiggling around the gearbox. I then decided to drop it again on my own, which resulted in the box landing on top of me, but I couldn't get it off me, so was stuck for 5 minutes till one of Mark's employees found me and gave me a hand.

Mark then re-aligned the clutch and guess what, the box popped fully home nearly straight away. That 6.45pm by then so we put in a couple of the main bolts and called it a night.

Taken loads of pics but CBFA at this point so will post them up tomorrow. Should have just a couple of hours now in the morning to finish bolting everything back together. One observation from spending a couple of days under the car, is how mint the underneath is.