5^th April

 As Ethan was here i got him to sit in the car and see how things were looking, good job I did the back end was totally out of proportion so I had no choice but to cut it all off and start again. Just a couple of hours and it was done and looking much better. 

Note:- only drivers side finished ran out of 3/4" steel again :-(

6^th April

 On eBay (you got to love eBay) I found for sale the gearbox internals of a Suzuki bandit 600 I believe its a 6 speed box, buy it now £14.99 only local so id fetch it myself. Wasn’t to worried about the ratios as I would be using 15” diameter wheels a lot smaller than the bandit.

 First of all I started to make the casing using 1.5mm steel plate 

 This next part gave me a right headache lol trying to turn the gearbox into 4 speed with reverse I spent the rest of the next two evenings re-arranging the gears trying to work it out but finally got there I hope lol

9^th April

 Next I made the selector forks from some 5mm steel plate and some 10mm tube. After a lot of sawing, filing and grinding I had the three selectors. 

Time for a trip to B&Q need some 8mm steel bar to fit the forks onto. 

 10^th April

 I cut the 8mm bar into lengths drilled 3 x 10mm holes in one end of the gearbox casing passed the bars thru using a small piece of 10mm tube to act as a slider/guide thru the casing and another piece of 10mm tube inside the casing as the slider/guide at the other end of the bar, lined everything up and welded them into place.

Yes I know the selector bar looks out of line but trust me it isn’t when the casing is squared up.

11^th April

 Started to make the selector mechanism I used 2 small pieces of angle iron drilled 4 x 8mm holes in both pieces three across top and one underneath in the middle. The top middle hole was for the main selector (from the gearstick) the other three are for 1/2, 3/4, and reverse.

 I drilled three holes thru the main selector bar at different angles and inserted 3 rods to select each of the other bars as the main selector was rotated then cut out locating holes in the other bars to coincide with the selected gear,

 I hope you can understand this.

  You should have been this end, another headache coming on lol

 This part was then riveted to the top of the gearbox casing and pivoted bars connected the selector bar to the appropriate selector fork shaft. 

I’m going to have to figure out some way of holding the gears in neutral as they have a tendency of moving when the main-shaft is turned and so engaging more than one gear locking the gearbox up and I think I will have to take some material off the 1^st gear dog as there isn’t really enough clearance in neutral.

 If I do say so myself I’m pretty proud of this gearbox considering I only used a hand drill, bench vice (for bending the sheet metal) and an angle grinder to make it, no milling machine, bench drill, guillotine bending machine or lathe in my shedL.

I hope to god it all stays together there’s a weeks work here lol. 

 12^th April

 After a lot of thinking I came up with this idea to hold the gears in nutral.

 One block of aluminium and I drilled 4 x 8 mm holes in it 3 at the top  and one in the middle underneath to line up with the selector bars then drilled down from the top of the block into the 3 top selecter bar holes and one from the side into the bottom hole.

 Then drilled into the selector bars just to make an indent in the bar so that a ball bearing would sit into it holding the selector bar still and in nuteral, the ball bearing would be held against the bar under pressure by a spring and a braket to hold the springs in place.

Here are the components.

This was fitted ontop of the gearbox over the selecter bars 

All works fine, selector bars now stay in neutral.

Next job the gear stick and linkage. But that’s for another day. 

 17th April

today i started work on the frame that would hold the engine and gearbox in line and together i used some 2" steel "L" section.

trying to line them up was a nightmare but i got there. 

then i welded some brackets onto the side of the frame to hold the bushes i intend to use austin mini exhaust mounting bushes the cotton reel type 6 in total two on each side under the engine and one either side at the back end of the gearbox.

and finaly a coat of red hammerite.

 26th April i have today come to the conculsion that the gearbox casing is not up to the job i am therefore reluctantly re-making the outer casing of the gearbox.

watch this space!