Hoorah

What's the world coming to, eh? ;-)

Depending on your budget, I'd seriously consider paying someone to rebuild your existing box. Should be able to get it done for around 500 quid and you will then know it won't go wrong again.

They're on ebay all the time for £375 which is quite good. It's something I'd like to do in the future but I really cant justify it at the moment. Decent *sounding* ones do come up quite regularly and sell for £100-£150, which at the moment is a more feasible option. We'll see

Of all the money I've thrown at the 75, the best value came from having the box rebuilt properly.

I've gambled and lost with used boxes in the past....

my mate had an old fiesta (ok not quite the same) and his gearbox went 4 times! and each time he replaced it with one from the scrappy. he got fed up with the car once the 4th box started to go and gave it to his sister who was learning to drive. anyway 4th box gave up and she splashed out on a brand new one. 2 years on she still has the car and the new box she bought hehe drives him nuts.

Well done and congrats on a modded car.

I guess that during your testdrive you used all gears and that gear change goes smoother without the crunching noise of the syncro-rings.

Before you take the plunge on a other gearbox, flush the gearbox oil. If the oil is very dirty or thick, you might even consider putting some kind flushing product in. If you find fine brass or alu chips in it, the gearbox is shot.

Put new in and respect the levels. Drive around in a civil manner and check oil level again after 100 km. It might cure a lot of nasty things. Iirc there are some steel oil lines which serve as cooler, check them too: if one is broken , the box will indeed become very noisy.

Don't know where the oilplug is nor if it will come loose easily but a

Good luck.

Tom De Moor

Bah! just put the sound deadening back, job done.

A more modded car :)

Yep, the gear change is great now. Box is very whiney though.

Yeah, that's what I'm planning to do in the short term, just need to find some of the right oil!

Thanks!!

I have, and no the v8 drowns it out. Sweet :)

They all sound horrible. And you'll be hard pressed to find a better secondhand one. IIRC, the best thing is to re-build using later (LT77?) internals. And not really a DIY job unless you're pretty skilled with gearboxes. But see what it's like with the sound deadening back - all gearboxes are noisy without it.

I'd be wary of cheap re-cons. Mixing old and new gears always results in more noise than there should be and that price doesn't allow for all new internals. They may be perfectly serviceable but not as good as is possible. I went though all that with my P6 3500S on which the SD1 box is loosely based. I eventually got a low mileage box known to be good and stripped and 'blue printed' that. A hell of a job, but it worked.

Gearbox internals scare me, so it's not something I'd want to do myself :)

I'll just keep my ear to the ground and see what happens.

Isn't it the R380 thats the later, better version? Would be nice to be able to afford one of them, but I certainly can;t at the moment.

See my other post - I don't want to start messing with gearbox internals!! It's better with the sound deadening back (obviously) and the engine drowns most of it out, but you can still hear the whine.

I won't be putting much mileage on it which is good, so maybe I'll just start saving!

Straight cut innit ;)

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream: