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Post by Flying Farmer on Sept 5, 2020 20:42:54 GMT
Ever since I fitted the last stag engine/ overdrive box combination to my TR I have had a horrible clutch action, really rough and sticky both on pressing and releasing gthe pedal. Engine off everything was smooth, but start the engine and it was quite a job to inch the car forward in traffic without stalling it.
All the bits responsible for clutch operation were new, cross shaft, release bearing carrier, fork etc since all the old ones were really badly worn.
I suspected an alignment problem and tried all sorts including the special aligment bolt from LD parts with no success.
The final straw was when the newish high torque starter motor decided to go on strike a couple of weeks ago. It is virtually impossible to remove the starter with the engine in the car but I reckoned I could possibly do it if I removed the gearbox and adaptor plate.
It was a nightmare of a job involving the manufacture of several interestingly shaped spanners to reach the adaptor to engine block bolts.
Before I removed the adaptor plate I tried measuring the distance between the gearbox bellhousing bolt holes and the edge of the flywheel and found the problem.
The gearbox was offset diagonally towards the top right of the engine by about 1mm. The starter teeth were also bottoming out on the ring gear which might explain why the starter was a bit noisy.
It appears the holes that mount the adaptor to the engine were the ones that were in the wrong place since the starter was also miss-aligned
The starter problem turned out to be a corroded connector. It was all put back together using the adaptor plate that was fitted to the previous engine that was in the car. Clutch is now perfect and the starter is quieter. I will source another adaptor plate for my spare engine/box
Many years ago I was talking to a guy who had a Dolomite Sprint from new that had three gearbox input shaft bearing failures while the car was still under warranty. When the third one failed they discovered the adaptor plate had been incorrectly drilled and replacing the plate fixed the problem. This had stuck in my mind but I never expected to find the same problem.
Neil
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Post by seaking on Sept 6, 2020 16:43:23 GMT
Nice one Neil thank you for sharing you findings always interesting to read your posts and findings
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Post by richardthestag on Sept 9, 2020 10:11:18 GMT
that is some impressive detective work there Neil
That problem must have been there since original manufacture of that engine plate!
Got to love BL quality control in the 1970s. and 80s and 90s
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Post by ugmw177 on Sept 10, 2020 20:08:31 GMT
Hi Neil, Good find on the adapter plate. BTW, this may have been asked before but I currently find that i have a spare build Stag engine and manual transmission but no Stag. I do however have a nice 73 TR6. I am contemplating swapping the v8 into the 6 and since you have done this prior was curious if you have templates for the mounts or photos or recommendations. TIA
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Post by Flying Farmer on Sept 11, 2020 21:03:10 GMT
I have a picture of the chassis when I was doing some repairs a few years ago. Not a very good picture, but if you can expand it you can see the engine mount brackets which are welded between the bottom of the TR mounts and the lower wishbone mounts. The bottom hole on the TR engine mount becomes the top hole on the Stag mounting rubber on the left side. The RH side is mounted slightly higher as can be seen by the holes. Can't quite remember why I did this but it will have been done for a reason, probably to gain a fraction of an inch clearance for the steering shaft. I set the sump height so it was level with the bottom of the chassis The Steering rack is offset to the drivers side by about half an inch for the same reason. I use solid rack mounts and one of them is reversed to allow the shift. The engine may also be offset to the passenger side by a small amount. Can't remember the exact details because I did it back in about 1996. The bulkhead needs cutting back slightly on the LH side to clear the water transfer housing
I have included a picture of my latest set of tubular manifolds I built while the body was off to give an idea of how it all fits in
Last picture is of the manifolds and system I removed when I built the new ones. A number of holes had appeared in the welds due to welding the stainless tubes with ordinary mild steel mig wire, but they are repairable and available if you want them, just needs a pair of silencers which were the usual TR straight through back boxes
Nel
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Post by ugmw177 on Sept 12, 2020 14:33:38 GMT
thanks so much for the photos and info. If I do this, my 6 is a NA Left hand drive car so steering shaft on left. I was planning to put the v8 in a tr7 but seems like the supply of cheap broken Tr7s are a fraction of what they once were.
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Post by Flying Farmer on Sept 12, 2020 19:26:07 GMT
Being LHD probably doesnt make much difference apart from the rack needing moving the opposite way. You would certainly notice a big difference in performance compared to the original USA spec car. The Stag engine transforms the handling too, same weight but lower centre of gravity removes the inherent understeer which is why I win the 8 cylinder class at the TR registerr autosolo every time I enter it (so far)
Neil
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