Engine steady / gearbox problem

[enthrall]

Took the car up to a mates place to take a good, close look at my ride from below in the pit.
We noticed that someone had used a couple house framing bolts to attach the trans to the engine steady. Not good!
Decided to pull them out before they broke and put in some proper bolts.
A quarter turn, and two of the three bolts on the engine steady broke off inside the trans case. :s
Thank god that didnt happen in the highway somewhere!
Only öne (decent) bolt is on the engine steady now, and as a result, the engine hangs too low to be able to shift into 2nd, 3rd, reverse.

The surrounds of two of the screwholes in the trans case are chipped and broken- and have busted bolts in them, almost flush with the outside. I think the casing may be buggered too badly to save. Some filing and A few washers may work though, to get a snug fit to the steady. Workable? Or dangerous?

The holes are in an awkward spot, so drilling them out and removing the busted bolts is going to be hard/impossible.
Getting the box out would be a pain, as itll be the first time ive done it.
Looking for an easier option!
Have a spare car, so i have options:
1) try drilling out the holes again without removing the box
2) replace whole box (box is good, so id prefer avoiding this)
3) replace box casing only.
Is it possible to get the casing off the box and replace it without removing the whole thing off the engine?
If i take the box off and replace it, id need to adjust the clutch, etc, and god knows what else, right?
It could take a number of weekends to muddle through!

Also, how critical is the eng steady? We have considered just welding the thing onto the case. This is bound to crack off over time tho... When it does, could the consequences at 100km/h be serious?

ideas appreciated!

[amraks]

how much of the bolt is sticking out that has snapped.

you could probably weld a spanner on the end if its got a bit of the bolt sticking out.

it would have to be a few spot welds.

Any other have any idea?

[amraks]

http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/671.cfm

pretty good write up on this situation.

[tassuperkart]

You cant remove that part on its own as that is the bellhousing half of the gearbox.
Doin it in place is just bound to be fucked up.
Pull the box out. Its not hard at all. In fact, its easier to pull the entire engine/trans out in one piece if you have an overhead shed frame or an engine crane.
Those bolt holes are quite deep so it would be acceptable to drill them and helicoil them back to M10 if there is enough of the casing left to bolt up against the mount.

However, it sounds like some morons have been working on the car if they are winding rubbish into the holes since those holes should actually contain studs, not winding in bolts which is how they were stripped out in the first place.

You can simply try the other box and see what happens or build one out of the two if your concerned at all but try not to mix and match case halves as this can result in incorrect bearing preloads and early gearbox failure can be your friend.

L8r
Oracle

.

[amraks]

remove the gearbox and it won't be awkward.

But like the link I posted left hand drill bit and it shall come right out.

[enthrall]

Cheers for the advice!
Yep, i can borrow a pit and the shed there has a gantry we can hoist the engine up with.
The intercooler and the random maze of pipework round the engine bay that accomodates it makes things a bit more tricky though.
The gregory's book says 'just slide the trans off the engine' hmm. Year right its that easy.
I can see that being a nightmare as the trans would be effing heavy, and working under the car wouldnt give much room for second chances in doing it right. *imagines box falling heavily to concrete floor, arm beneath*
There is a trick to doing the box removal safely i'm guessing?
Or am i imagining it to be more complex than it is?

The car is drivable as is, but i've not used it as a don't want to fuck it up. I'd be guessing right in thinking that driving about normally would do some damage, yeah?

Hmm. I reckon i'll start with the spare car to build up some skill first.
Work up from there.

The bolts are busted maybe 1cm into the holes, so no joy there with the spanner trick.
For future ref, Welding anywhere near the engine would need to be done with an oxy tho, right? Have an arc welder, but i can see that frying everything vaguely electronic in the engine bay if it was used. Or is earthing the car properly sufficient?

[dexi_styles]

Its Pretty easy to remove the box from the engine.

I weight in at 75kgs and i just removed and lifted the box all by myself. ask Poeticjustice88, it was his box.

It is easy to remove both at once, but once you get the nack of it. Should only take a few hours to get the box out.

Remove Starter Motor.
Remove reverse wires, speedo, clutch cable, earth strap
Drain oil from plug on bottom of box.
Remove CV's (can be done by undoing the large nut near the hub while wheel is on the ground. raise the car undo 2 bolts from strut to hub. twist the hub remove the shaft from hub and with a large flat screwdriver, remove the CV from the Box.)
undo both front and back engine mounts.
jack the engine near the gearbox as you remove the mounts to secure it.
undo all bolts from engine to box.
secure the gearbox with jack remove gearbox mount, bolt up chain & secure box with hoist (i removed gearbox mount from chassis and rapped rope around the box and my shoulders, slide the box out and lowered to the ground)
grab the box making sure the engine is secure on the jack (best having two ppl for this and I ) lift slide shaft out and lower box to ground.

took me bout 3 hours and I paced myself so everything was neat and took time sorting out where i put the bolts so i knew where they came from. (A cardboard beer box works a treat with a black pen.)


using a hoist is easier to put back in. for aligning the shaft to fit back in.

Its really not that hard.

Dex