Clutch build up

With the bell housing dialled in and the gearbox assembled I moved onto finally assembling the clutch to the engine.

First off I modified the block plate lower starter mounting hole to account for the alignment adjustment made by the offset dowels, Oh and painted the block plate red to match the engine! You can just see here how the heat of running the engine has changed the paint colour, they are both painted from the same can!


Next I pressed the flywheel dowel pins into place (glad I got that press!) and cleaned the flywheel, paying particular attention to the clutch surface. Oh and also the flywheel bolts and holes in the crank to ensure a good seal.

After a bit of wrestling with the flywheel I got it onto its register on the crank with all the bolt holes lined up. It appears it only fits on in two locations as although the holes look evenly spaced, they are not! Given the weight of the flywheel it wasnt fun battling with it to get it lined up and on!

Now its important to use thread sealer on the flywheel bolts as the crank drillings are open to the sump, as I found out on the dyno oil will work its way past the threads. So Loctite 577 was used as I know it fuel safe so I figured it would also be oil safe!


With the flywheel on the clutch plate was installed on its locating tool and inserted into the pilot bearing.

Finally the clutch cover was cleaned again to remove a traces of grease/oil and snapped over its dowel pins on the flywheel. The bolts thread locked with loctite and installed finger tight at first then 2-3 turns at a time wound in to bring the cover tight to the clutch plate.

Final thing tonight was to mount the bell housing to the engine with he clutch fork in place. I just wanted to see how the release bearing was going to sit against the clutch cover.


Luckily it all looks OK, also with the rubber boot on the clutch fork is naturally drawing the release bearing away from the cover so I that's stopped me worrying that the boot would cause the bearing to ride the cover.

So thats it, all I need now is the moly spray to treat the input shaft and I think the gearbox assembly can be mounted to the engine!

Gearbox adapter plate

Now that the gearbox was home and the bell housing alignment sorted I could get on and mount the adpter kit to the bellhousing. Now this is where I should have a picture of the kit parts laid out on the floor, but in my haste to get on and install it, I forgot - sorry!

Kit of parts as supplied by AK sportscars. - Thanks for your help with this.

Roller pilot bearing set in a machined extension.

Machined adapter plate.

Nylon centralising disc

Sleeve welded into my own release bearing (had to send it to AK before the kit was supplied)

1 - fit pilot bearing into the crank

2 - fit disc into bell housing, the odd yellow stuff round the disc is actually double sided tape! The disc was slightly too small for the hole so on AK's advice I wrapped it round once only with tape. (note I also drilled and tapped mine in two places so I could remove it, something Ive decided not to do at this stage)

The nylon disc fits tightly to the gearbox output shaft, this then also fits tightly inside the bellhousing opening and centres the gearbox to the bell housing.

Before mounting the bellhousing I applied a layer of RTV silicone to the gearbox face to stick the disc in place.

3 - bolt it all together!

The machined adapter plate bolts to the gearbox and then to the bell housing and thats it!

I could then assembly the release bearing and clutch fork to the fork pivot.

Ive decided to add some form of lubrication to the input shaft where the release bearing will slide, this needs to be dry and the concensus of opinion is to use molybdenum disulphide air dry filmspray.

After a bit of net searching I settled on Rocol 10025, not cheap but I know Mocol products are good and it was the only one listed as not being just for the break in period.

So on to the clutch - really I will this time!!

Gearbox fixed

CTS found the cause of the problem. Apparently a hub spring had "jumped". Not totally sure what that means, but following another 6 hour round trip to Markyate the box is back and now working!

The shift is now much smoother and all gears select fine.

While the box was away I located new reverse and 1st/2nd gear lock out switches. Turns out that although Jaguar have different part numbers for each switch they are actually the same. So after SNG Barrett found that Jaguar had no stock of the lock out switch I just ordered up another reverse switch!

Job done.