• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Question about engine-gearbox combinations

Share this page

TexasSprite

TexasSprite

Jedi Hopeful
Offline
Is there a table anywhere that expains what is involved in combining engines and gearboxes? I have a 59 BE, so if I replace my smoothcase gearbox with a ribcase and keep my 948 engine, which other style parts do I use? (release bearing, slave cylinder and the shaft that the release bearing rides on). The guy who rebuilt the ribcase transmission actually drilled and mounted a front cover from a smoothcase in my ribcase rebuilt. I am assuming that there must be a difference in the position of the release bearing pivot between the two models. Given the modification he made, I am assuming the transmission looks just like a smoothcase to the engine and all the stock 948 parts will work.

In the future, if I wanted to put a 1275 in place of the 948, what would be the correct set of parts for that configuration?

One last question: The BE MC has a 7/8" bore. Is that a problem with using a later model ribcase?

I think I can see all the variables, but just don't know how they interrelate to cause problems.

I'd hate to go though all the work of pulling the engine and finding our after it is reinstalled that I used a wrong combination of parts. Pulling it multiple times is even a worse nightmare!

Thanks for the help!
 
Can you explain what was done to the "front cover" from the smooth case. Did he do something to the rear engine plate?
 
By front cover, I mean the the little plate that bolts onto the front of the transmission on the inside of the bell housing. The splined shaft coming out of the front of the transmission goes right through it. The bolt pattern on the smoothcase cover must be different than the one on the ribcase, but you can drill holes in the smoothcase cover so that it will fit on the ribcase.
 
There is a transition plate that is different for the 948, 1098, and 1275, other than that, it all bolts together.
 
Probably the most knowledgeable person about such things that I know is Paul Asgeirsson of Morriservice in Portland OR. He sells a great 5sp conversion kit and has answered these compatibility questions for many years. He can tell you about modifications of the shift rod that is needed for one particular combination of eng/trans.

Glen Byrns
 
Back
Top