Picked up my gear box plates this last week.

I got them water jet cut at a place 2 miles

up the road from where I live - £80 including the 8mm thick alloy plate, it would have tak-
en me weeks to cut them and then they would not have been as accurate as these
This is the engine side – the teeth on the bottom are to allow me to install the sump bolts
at the rear of the engine. I asked for the centre as well so I could do this i.e. bolt it back
together to put in the lathe. The holes were cut at 6.6mm and I tapped them to M8.

This is the plate in situ on the engine with the flywheel gear in place so I can check clear-
ance. There is plenty

The next shot is with the ring gear off. You can see what the teeth are for now and see
that I needed to have a slot at the bottom to clear the sump pan. I’ll make a cover to
block this in eventually so shit doesn’t enter the clutch housing. I want to be able to
maintain the engine as normal so I am building in access as I progress

This is the gearbox side. By now I have scraped the hole in the centre for a perfect fit on
the gearbox flange and bolted them together. The M8 bolts are in place to fasten the en-
gine side in place.
This is the engine side in the vice with the centre boss I made to locate it accurately on
the gear box shaft. As a side benefit the M6 bolts for the sump are a good way of holding
the two parts together. The boss is made from an alloy casting I made years ago for a table
leg and I turned the centre out to take the splined part of a Dnepr clutch plate.

This close up shows the preparation I did for the welding – both sides are chamfered back
2mm at 30 degrees to give a 60 degree V for the weld to go in and ensure good penetra-
tion.

This is the whole lot bolted up to get it accurate prior to welding. I perhaps went over-
board with the bolts around the edge but I have it in my head that this will be part of the
look of the thing and that it does really need to be strong
This is looking down from the side – a bit blurred but it shows what is going on.

Finally this is just a mock-up of where the thing will sit eventually. The plate will be
wider apart than as they are now to accommodate the clutch but that is the beauty of this
method – I can alter the space between the two plates as I please, it will just be a case of
different size spacers.

I also made a new oil feed union for the top of the engine as the one that came with it
had been smashed off and damaged the head. It’s made from some 19mm (?! Probably im-
perial really!) Hexagonal bar that I had. I did have to buy an M12 x 1.5 tap and die which
set me back £35 though!