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Scott_Hower
Luke Skywalker
Offline
So I'm debating what to do with the gearbox in the Spitfire. It's out and sitting on my workbench. I drained the oil and removed the bellhousing. I'm trying to decide what I should do to service it. Front and rear seals are on the list, but what else should I inspect? It has 54k miles on it.
The oil was dirty, but not gritty. Gears all look good, no chips on anything that I can see, including the laygear. Reverse gear has one chipped tooth; maybe a 1/16 of an inch. The magnetic drain plug caught the fragment, plus some fine particles. It shifts fine, the shift forks and shaft are smooth.
Look like the rebuild kits include bearings and synchros and seals and a new layshaft.
I've never rebuilt a gearbox before, but I have rebuilt a few engines (successfully). I spoke to John Espisito at Quantum Mechanics and he suggested that so long as reverse is Ok, it might be best to just replace the bearings and seals and re-assemble it. How hard are bearings to replace? Do the layshaft too? Are the bearings pressed onto the input and output shafts?
Is the whole thing going to explode into a sea of tiny pieces when I remove the giant circlip on the front bearing? I have the Bentley manual and a good selection of tools.
Suggestions?
The oil was dirty, but not gritty. Gears all look good, no chips on anything that I can see, including the laygear. Reverse gear has one chipped tooth; maybe a 1/16 of an inch. The magnetic drain plug caught the fragment, plus some fine particles. It shifts fine, the shift forks and shaft are smooth.
Look like the rebuild kits include bearings and synchros and seals and a new layshaft.
I've never rebuilt a gearbox before, but I have rebuilt a few engines (successfully). I spoke to John Espisito at Quantum Mechanics and he suggested that so long as reverse is Ok, it might be best to just replace the bearings and seals and re-assemble it. How hard are bearings to replace? Do the layshaft too? Are the bearings pressed onto the input and output shafts?
Is the whole thing going to explode into a sea of tiny pieces when I remove the giant circlip on the front bearing? I have the Bentley manual and a good selection of tools.
Suggestions?
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