Removing Bell housing from RX8 Gearbox

[adamwatson]

I need to remove the bell housing from the RX8 gearbox I'm fitting to an MGB to have 14mm milled off to allow the input shaft to properly engage. I've never dismantled a gearbox before so does anyone have a link to a guide or any pointers before I go for the bolt stuff until it comes off approach?

Thanks
Adam

[froggy]

As it's not having any work done I'd ring a couple of specialists for a price to split it for you . Without touching the assembly I doubt it's more than an hour to get the thing ready to machine

[93fxdl]

Home made fixture, a router and you can do it for yourself
www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/shaving-15mm-off-my-afn-gbox_topic81603.html
Ttfn Glenn

[eternaloptimist]

The Adam Watson I know wouldn't have thought twice before undoing bolts until the bellhousing just fell off. They're usually just bolted through to the gearbox case.

93fxdl - I like the use of a router and homemade bench. Compare that to Johnnybravo's machining masterclass and Retro Rides had genuinely covered all the bases!

[bjornagn]

Apr 5, 2017 12:22:19 GMT adamwatson said:

I need to remove the bell housing from the RX8 gearbox I'm fitting to an MGB to have 14mm milled off to allow the input shaft to properly engage. I've never dismantled a gearbox before so does anyone have a link to a guide or any pointers before I go for the bolt stuff until it comes off approach?

Thanks
Adam

Wait a second....What exactly are you up to? I hear RX8 gearbox and MGB in the same sentence, and I want to know more?

[adamwatson]

I went with the undo bolts till it comes off option. Seemed to go OK. £180 for the machine work not so much...


I'm fitting a Saab B234 2.3 turbo engine and RX8 6 speed box to an MGB. I've narrowed an RX8 rear end to fit with the LSD diff and am currently pondering the front suspension. There is quite a lot of engine in the way of the MGB front suspension so it looks like it'll be custom based on RX8 front end

[eternaloptimist]

Blimey - that £180 could have gone a long way towards paying for a milling machine!

[bjornagn]

Apr 20, 2017 18:55:01 GMT adamwatson said:

I went with the undo bolts till it comes off option. Seemed to go OK. £180 for the machine work not so much...


I'm fitting a Saab B234 2.3 turbo engine and RX8 6 speed box to an MGB. I've narrowed an RX8 rear end to fit with the LSD diff and am currently pondering the front suspension. There is quite a lot of engine in the way of the MGB front suspension so it looks like it'll be custom based on RX8 front end

OK, I can see where there is some appeal to putting this under the MGB body shell. I would be quite interested in hearing more about what you did to shorten the track width? The RX8 track is a full 10" wider than the MGB track.

Would love to see some pics of the installed rear suspension.

[adamwatson]

Apr 21, 2017 20:01:44 GMT bjornagn said:

Apr 20, 2017 18:55:01 GMT adamwatson said:

I went with the undo bolts till it comes off option. Seemed to go OK. £180 for the machine work not so much...


I'm fitting a Saab B234 2.3 turbo engine and RX8 6 speed box to an MGB. I've narrowed an RX8 rear end to fit with the LSD diff and am currently pondering the front suspension. There is quite a lot of engine in the way of the MGB front suspension so it looks like it'll be custom based on RX8 front end

OK, I can see where there is some appeal to putting this under the MGB body shell. I would be quite interested in hearing more about what you did to shorten the track width? The RX8 track is a full 10" wider than the MGB track.

Would love to see some pics of the installed rear suspension.

Its not installed yet. To narrow it we cut it in half and cut 160mm out and welded the 2 halfs back together. We've thrown the bit ali mount away and will make a new one, we'll have to get the driveshafts shortened as well. We're fitting sebring arches and much bigger offset wheels which gets us a bit more width in the back as well

[bjornagn]

Did you consider using a Miata rear suspension since the path to handling power via bespoke axles and differentials has been well mapped out by the Miata V8 converters?

The stock Miata track is 6 inches wider than the MGB, so I would expect the Seebring arches would cover it.

I used the Miata rear suspension with a Ford 8.8 in the back of the P1800ES project. The mounting of the diff is documented here:

miatav8.blogspot.ca/2014/01/rear-subframe.html

And the correct axles can be sourced from either Monster Miata or Factory Five Racing.

[adamwatson]

the RX8 beat the Miata or MX5 due to the factory LSD and the complete unit that we found for sale on eBay for £100 one night in the pub. We bought it with no planning whatsoever and it didn't seem to hard to make fit so we did. There is a certain amount of flying by the seat of our pants with this project. EG we don't currently know what we're doing for front suspension as there is quite a lot of engine where the MGB cross member goes. Current plan is to get an RX8 front suspension and see what we can do. Probably be a custom cross member with all other bits RX8 copying RX8 geometry

[bjornagn]

Once again, I am going to point you to the Miata front suspension as an alternative.  www.slowcarfast.com/MG/diary.php?UID=85



My reasons for going this way are that I have a lot of respect for the geometry calculations made by the Japanese Engineers. It seems logical that if I want to aspire to the ride and handling of the donor car, I should not start by throwing away the engineering that made it  work in the first place.  Not saying that narrowing will curse word up the final results, only that I am not a good enough engineer to predict what exactly I have changed in the geometry by narrowing the assembly. I do know that as soon as you shorten the RX8  front suspension, the rack is no longer going to work due to the rack inner pivot points being in the wrong place afterwards.

 This is a tubular cross member that is available for Miata  engine swaps. It not only makes more room up front, but it also would allow you to keep the rack that is meant to be there. You can see in the picture where I committed my own sin by lengthening the Miata chassis wheelbase by 7" and knowingly messing with the ackerman geometry.





Anyways,  you seem to be having fun and I am looking forward to more pics of what you are up to.