I hope you’ll forgive me if I digress into cars this morning, though there is a motorcycle element to my story.
A speedway mate of mine posted up this picture on Facebook yesterday and it provoked a flurry of comments as memes like this usually do. To start with, it is impossible to disagree with the sentiment of the picture, fact is that most teen-aged boys today wouldn’t even know what is happening here let alone how to do it themselves. But the thread took off from there into reminiscing about our early days as car (and motorcycle) owners and how that most of the maintenance we did was of this type using rudimentary equipment and great deal of innovative thinking.
Of course, these boys were way ahead of me, I couldn’t afford and couldn’t borrow a block and tackle. Lifting an engine was extremely difficult using rope and the rafters of a friend’s garage. And work that involved working on the engine/transmission while it was still IN the car usually involved running the car up onto the footpath with the inside wheels on the grass and the outside ones in the gutter thus allowing almost enough room to slide under the car and perform the necessary tasks. OH&S? What’s that?
Penury meant that many tasks which later were handed over to the garage had to be done by the owner (me) and I think that was a good thing. Despite being very car-savvy from a very young age, having to do my own maintenance made me even more so and helped me to be a better owner.
And nowhere was this more evident than the several times that came to remove and replace the gearbox on my Triumph 2500TC.
The TC was a beautiful car but, as it grew older, more maintenance was required. Also as it grew older, finding a mechanic who understood the car and knew how to work on it also became more difficult. So, for most tasks, I did the job myself. Now my particular TC had a 4 speed manual gearbox AND, tacked onto the back of it, a Laycock de Normamville 2 speed electronic overdrive unit. Like all Pommy cars, it was constructed of steel and no real thought was given to lightness in any area of its construction. And the gearbox was HEAVY, I mean, REALLY heavy, especially with the added weight of the overdrive unit.. Lying on the ground or a cold concrete garage floor while trying to remove it was a trial. Firstly, all the bolts that secured the bellhousing to the block had to be removed (obviously) and it was here that bone-headed British design reared its ugly head. You see all the bolts were relatively easy to access except the two bolts on the top. Now logic would suggest that these could be accessed from the engine compartment but they couldn’t.
There was no way they could be undone from on top or underneath. What to do? Well, there was no internet to consult so you started looking around for n “expert” and I was lucky enough to find one. At a little garage in Thirroul (I was living in Canberra at the time) we found a Triumph expert, Geoff Rutledge. The business is still running and still specialises in looking after British cars and it was Geoff who provided the solution to the bellhousing bolts dilemma.
I’m sure you’ve already figured out what it is. A steel bar with a socket connector on one end and a square connector on the other, effectively a very long socket extension. In operation it allowed me to lay down under the car while supporting the gearbox on my chest (yes, really) and lay the rod across the top of the gearbox. With a 1/2″ socket attached to one end with a 1/2″ bolt already in place, I could get both bolts started into the correct orifice and start tightening them up. Once this was done I could begin the process of inserting the other bolts and tightening them up in order. Simple and effective.
NOW, someone is going to ask me, how come that was the only way you could do it, surely the factory had a better solution. Of course they did and, had I been able to use it I would have done so. The solution is to remove the engine mounting bolts, lift the motor both up and forward and gain access to the two bolt holes necessary.
I don’t have a Triumph any more and I don’t think I ever will but the “make and do” tool still lives in the garage as a reminder of days gone by and simple solutions that we found to complex problems.
In similar fashion I often found “work-arounds” when doing my own motorcycle maintenance that saved me much money and usually time. You do what you have to do.
