Thursday 26 June 2008

Pause - and an amazing event on the way to somewhere or other

in the middle of huge day. Started connecting it all up at first light
-ish this morning. Cold! First asess the job, sort the tools and clean
the threads of the 4 shaft coupling bolts and the engine mounts.
Wriggle past the side of the donk, clothes and ribs getting snaggerd
on the pointy bits, bolts and socket driver in hand ...is it lined up?
Some preliminary fiddling at full and contorted stretch and - totally
amazing - the first bolt engaged followed by the other three. So -
engine came out, jiggled around a lot, new gearbox attached, jiggled
around some more and remounted and exactly lined up with the shaft.
That sort of thing never happens to me! The gods must be preparing me
for something nasty. Everything else seemed to attach more or less how
it came off, although getting the gear cable and the throttle cable
attached and lined up and clamped was interesting and may still not be
quite right.

Am now in the hall of the GI warming my hands while I ring JW to check
that ATF Dexron 3 will do instead of 2 - nobody sells 2 here. Then off
to get some and back to fill the gearbox and take heart in mouth and
try to start the thing...

Dinner with Steve Tomkins tonight. Will try to report before we go.