[…Continued] Clutch or Gearbox issues, plus other surprises!

Having had the car recovered in early June, I’ve not really done anything with it since!
So far I have taken off the front panels, grill, and loosened the bolts that hold the front wings on. I have unbolted the gearbox and engine so they are ready to remove, and have inspected some of the panels and areas of the car that seem to cause problems.

Notice the undersill/step – it seems to be warped, why could that be?
Well, the undersill wasn’t attached to the A-post, and the filler that is there must be hiding something fairly rotten!

My first concern in terms of the car’s structure was the warped undersill which seems to be sagging. The step does not seem to be attached to the A-pillar at all, and where the join should be is just a large crack!

Strangely, the door on this side closes perfectly, whilst the door on the passenger side drops significantly, but there doesn’t seem to be any issue with either the hinge-pins or the structure around the door.

Now to look at removing the engine and gearbox…

The bumper is off!
It turns out that the person who last re-attached the front grill panel only used 3 of the 6 bolts along the lower edge, and they were all different sized nuts and bolts. Hardly a professional job!
After an hour or two trying to remove the heavily corroded and rounded bolts that hold the grill panel on, I finally got somewhere, revealing some bigger issues.
Ignore the unorganised pile of tools!
The passenger side tie plate is cracked, and bent quite badly, right near the point where the engine mount and tie-bar mount are located.
Although this image is mainly focusing on the crack in the panel, it also highlights how much the panel has been bent upwards!
Replacement front and left-side tie plate panels ready to be welded in.

It looks like what I had planned as a quick engine-out gearbox swap is turning into a bigger job than I can probably manage. It might be time to start saving, and to call in the experts.

2 thoughts on “[…Continued] Clutch or Gearbox issues, plus other surprises!”

    1. Hi Don, thanks for the comment!
      The car has been parked up since it broke down in June and I’ve done little other than dismantle the front panels, so the plan is that the car will be taken by a recovery truck on the 14th of October, bound for East Sussex Minors.
      I was going to attempt the gearbox swap myself, but with the amount of work that’s needed elsewhere I think it’s best I just let the professionals have a go for now.
      I’ll have a few updates hopefully within this week and will try and document my experiences with ESM.
      Regards; Michael.

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