New gearbox in, and it even works...

Its been a week or so since I posted an update here. NOG continues to run about with her 'new' gearbox performing very sweetly. No grinding, no nasty whine, not even any bad vibration at high speed.
Cause of death of the old box appears to be the big nut at the back of the mainshaft having not been done up properly - hence the mainshaft had been slapping backwards and forwards with nasty results everywhere.

The mission for next saturday has been determined - when I'm not struggling with Bitsa I'll be tightening NOG's steering box up along with the associated bracketry, as it all gradually works lose, and gets more and more wobbly when left to its own devices.

We have the technology...

... and even the time off to attack the gearbox.
I've booked two days off, tomorrow and Wednesday, on the highly realistic grounds that I've swapped gearboxes in a day before, and so I now have a spare day for acidents. Famous last words or what.

I've also got the Bob Dylan on standby, for the moment when I have to swap the 6 cyl bellhousing for that on the "new" (Ex Bitsa) box... (regular readers of my blog may be aware that I once endured Dylan's greatest hits Vol 2 a silly number of times in the middle of the night, while trying to reasemble a box - actually, come to think of it, the very same box as I am now fitting - as I was too covered in Ep90 to turn it off)

Stay tuned for the sounds of the struggle this time...

The fun never stops...

Shortly after my last post, Glen and the spare diff arrived - I shoved it in the hole, and low and behold all worked and I had drive again. The interesting news is that the spare diff turned out to be 3.54 ratio... which means that top gear is now really high. Really really high. She still goes like stink on the flat, (I had to throttle back several times on the motorway for the Tdi 90 Glen was driving to catch me up again, and I could pull away from him with no problems at the traffic lights ) however hills now require use of gears that once were merely rumoured to exist - 2nd in particular. This would be Ok if 2nd hadn't developed a nasty whine that apparently fortells its demise shortly if I carry on driving it. Not good.

As a result, I have hatched a plan of cunning, courage and audacity - namely to take a couple of days off, yank the box out, stick the bellhousing on Bitsa's old box, and bung that in instead... wish me luck - assuming I get the time off.

Bang, crunch, bang bang bang...

Yes dear readers, you have guessed correctly. I'm currently sat in a rather broken NOG, waiting for help to arrive, in the form of a 'new' rear diff. I was merrily winging my way along the A523 towards Landranger services, there intending to further lighten my already light wallet, when I smelt burning, but couldn't work out from whence it was coming from. A couple of miles later there were some resounding thuds and bangs, and drive was lost. Having little choice, I pulled over, and found that NOG had eaten her third back diff in as many thousand miles. The operation which followed is becomming rather too familiar, but soon the dead diff was sat on the floor, with most of the nose bearing races in a heap next to it... Some rapid ringing sound the great OLLR machine followed, with the result that as I type the spare diff is travelling towards me in a very kind members motor. Thanks Glen. I'll post some pictures of the gore up on monday, as I doubt the phone is clever enough to upload its own pics...

Oh the fun of guessing

NOG, much as I love her, has several weaknesses. One of the most annoying of these centers around the fuel tank. The fuel gauge has never worked. The wiring is fine, the actual gauge works, but I've had a succession of dodgy senders. The original was notable for being rusted solid - the previous owner had spent quite a bit of time on the rest of the system, with no success, much to his bafflement. Yours truely, being tad more canney, replaced it with a spare which refused to work (twice). I've currently given up, presuming I need to actually pay for a new sender, and being rather skint. The lack of a gauge wouldn't be that bad in and of itself - I ran Bitsa for nearly a year with no gauge - but to compound matters, the tank leaks from the outlet pipe gasket when full. Que a certain degree of panic at intervals at filling stations, particularly when I've used less fuel than expected.

This is a test post

On NOG's new blog. Hopefully it will work....