Lagonda Rapiers

3 minute(s) of a 484 minute read

Having finally come to my senses! I am sending my gearbox to Peter Meyer, the world recognised expert on these gearboxes.
He estimates that it will take him about 20 hours to identify and rectify the problem.
I have spent to-day making the box for it to go from Australia to Germany and back again. I have some finishing to do on the box and to secure the gearbox inside. I estimate that it will be on its way no later than Wednesday before it leaves here. I still have some work to do still  on the box. I still have to cutout and install a centre piece to secure the box and take any load off the input shaft. add some more corner bracing pieces and make and attach the lid. There is to be a smaller box containing loose pieces to go in too and some plastic bubble wrap to cover the opening at the top. This will be securely taped down. There is probably another half a days work to finish the job.

2-11-2019

An exhausting day over and the box is well and truly "boxed and ready to make a (hopefully) quick trip to Germany and again hopefully back home again. I have built the box strong enough to cross the world twice while opening the box and extracting the gearbox should be relatively simple. I have barely lifted my head this afternoon, finishing up after 6.00 pm. It may all look at little primitive but I can assure you I had all my long foregotten Furniture Design skills hard at work. I am confident that the gearbox will not move in any direction. The Blue "Mail bag" comes somehow from the Swiss Postal service, how it got mixed up in my collection of (perhaps sometime) useful stuff is anyone's guess.
The lid is held down by a dozen easily removeable screws, as are four more screws, holding down the input shaft. Take those out and the gearbox lifts out easily. It was entirely designed and built without resorting to complicated drawings on sheets of paper. It all came directly from my aged head. With the lid screwed on it is impossible for the gearbox to move in any direction, back to front, side to side or up or down. Starting with two small pieces of "five ply" and a few short pieces of scrap timber that had been waiting until today, up in the rafters of "garage". There was virtually no waste apart from a small pile of saw-dust and a handful of tiny off cuts.  All the structual joints are "screwed & glued".  Sorry no "dovetail" joints!  Oh yes I must confess, it did take the best part of a day (two half days) to build it.