Gearbox Gear Swop Project (Perhaps)

[AlfaLofa]

I've got hold of a Mk1 1500 Cortina gearbox and also a Mk1 Escort Mexico 2000E box.

I've checked the 1st gear ratio of the "donor" box and it is the required 2.9(72).

The plan is (over the coming months) to put the gears from the Mexico box into the Cortina box and thus end up with a spare Lotus box - albeit a semi-close.

It will give me something to do and I can sit down doing the work!

I shall attempt to follow the script in this article written by "The Vanman"

http://www.fordanglia105eownersclub.co. ... -a-change/

If I succeed "The Vanman" will deserve a medal

Any suggestions from anyone on the Board are most welcome - including reasons as to why I shouldn't waste my time.

[elanman999]

Go for it.
I have just got hold of the parts for the same project my self.
Cheers
John

[DeanG]

I look forward to reading the details

[Elan45]

I can't really tell for sure which 2000E gearbox you have, but if it is the later 3-rail gearbox with the built-in remote shifter, I would suggest simply trading the shift rails over from the old Cortina box into the 2000E, after removing the remote rod from the tail-housing of the 2000E box. You will need a made up cover to close of the hole where the remote was located at the rear of the tail-housing.

Alternatively, if the rear gearbox bearing is the same size, you could just use the tail-housing from the Cortina box. Most importantly, you must change the 3 shift rails. You will see the Cortina shift rails have their selector bosses facing up while the 2000E rails face down.

Roger

[AlfaLofa]

Hi Roger thanks for your response.

I hadn't realized that they share the same "light" casing - I just assumed (wrongly) that there were many more differences between the boxes than just the position of the gear stick.

Your knowledge and suggestion seem to make life considerably more easy.

I suppose "The Vanman" was discussing a major rebuild because he was intending to use the earlier Anglia box - and I didn't fully appreciate this fact.

This image is extracted from one of these documents available on the web:

http://www.c5martin.co.uk/marlin/Berli% ... rboxes.pdf
http://www.dominicbolton.freeuk.com/art ... rboxes.pdf

As an aside are all Lotus boxes now referred to as 2000E boxes?
Wherever I look on the net for gaskets or bearings or indeed anything associated with the Lotus box, the parts are always described as 2000E.

[AlfaLofa]

I'm reverting (sort of) to Plan A.

Still trying to work out what to do really.

The input shaft on the Cortina box is 17mm and that on the Mexico box is 15.

My S1 with its close ratio box dates from 1964 and therefore (according to Brian Buckland's book) has the 17mm shaft - so the plan is to (hopefully) use the semi-close gears from the Mexico box and the input and main shafts from the Cortina box.

BUT, the Robinshaw & Ross book states that the standard Cortina box has 17 teeth on the input shaft whereas the close ratio has 21.

So I have another problem. Hmmmmm.

What I do know is that if this ever comes to fruition I shall use the Cortina case, with its original dark green paint, because the case (not the paint) matches that which is already fitted to my car.

Edit:-
How do I mate a 17 tooth input shaft to an engine which currently uses a 21 tooth shaft?
What do I need??

[Elan45]

Steve,

Where do I begin. Ha!

I don't have Buckland book, I suppose, because it wasn't available when I got into EnFo and Elans in the early 70s.

I think you are transposing the 17mm (diameter) to 17 splines. As far as I know, there is only one spline pattern on the input shaft, and it is 7/8"-20. There are however 3 pilot bearing types using 2 diameters. 1st type was a large OD bronze type used on Anglias, Cortinas and others with the rope seal main and 4-bolt crankshaft. If you have the original engine/ box in your S1 Elan, you will have this. I believe this has the larger pilot bearing diam. The second type came in w/ the lip seal/ 6-bolt crank and was a smaller OD bronze bush and smaller pilot bearing ID. The 3rd type is same diam as the 2nd, just change from bronze to needle bearing.

The 2000E box you've described will have the later type and diam. Dave Bean provides a large OD bronze bush with the later small diam inside and I'll bet Burton's or someone else in UK does too.

I did a gearbox 20 years ago that was out of my wrecked Mk2 Cortina and went into my Mk1 Cortina, just as I described in my earlier post. I removed the remote shift tailhousing and took out the interior change rod. Then swapped out the upside down change rails with a right side up rails. Made an aluminum cover for the remote style tailhousing hole.

This was to get the 2.92 1st gear semi-close ratios for my Mk1 Cortina. Later, I sold the Cortina to California, but kept the box as a spare for my Elan.

Roger

[Elan45]

Steve,

Maybe I missed that you are talking about teeth on the input shaft inside the box. The reason there are different nos of teeth on the gears is part of how the closer ratios are obtained. You might change gears from one case to another, but you must keep all the gears together as a set, You can't change just the input shafts. The gears won't mesh.

Roger

[AlfaLofa]

Roger,

Thanks for the info.

Things are beginning to slowly (very slowly) make sense.

As you have no doubt gathered, I have never taken a gearbox apart!!

First some revised information:
1. my car currently has the close ratio box (1st = 2.5:1).
2. Brian Buckland's book states that the CR box uses a 17mm diameter pilot bearing.
3. the spare 1500 cortina box uses a 17mm diameter pilot bearing.
4. the 1500 cortina box has 20 splines on the input shaft and has a diameter of 22mm at the splines.
5. the 2000E box also has 20 splines with 22mm diameter but uses a 15mm diameter pilot bearing.

So assuming the number of splines (20) is correct for the close ratio box, then the input shaft of my cortina box should be the same as that already fitted to my car.

So if I can ask a couple more questions:

Q1
A previous owner of my car totalled the engine back in the early 70's - the "new" engine number is LP8178LAA.

I assume that this is virtually irrelevant regarding the mating of an input shaft to the engine, because at the very most, only the pilot bearing would need to be changed because of a possible (but unlikely) variation between the diameters of the shafts which fit into the pilot bearings. Is this correct?

Q2
What I would like to do is to take the full set of semi-close ratio gears from the 2000E box and put them into the cortina box.

Because the input/output shafts of the cortina box are in excellent condition I would like to use these shafts with the "new" set of gears. I presume I will need to use other bits and pieces from the 2000E to make this possible. Am I able to do this or must the 2000E gears be used with the 2000E shafts?

I ask because the input/output shafts of the "donor" 2000E box are in very poor shape (it looks like the box was out in the open and left at the mercy of the elements for far too long).