Morris Minor Owners Club

The 'wailing' may have been slipping clutch - you didn't mention it had been slipping ... was it? And yes - I suggest that ebay 'box will need rebuilding before use.

is there still mileage in the plate?

That plate's useless.

Thanks as ever for all the advice

Panky - thanks, that will certainly make life easier.

BMC - no obvious clutch slip but hopefully the source of the noise. I'll find out this w/e.

Katy - the mileage I had in mind was how far I could throw it

The photo below is the other side of the clutch plate. Any thought on how the 2 springs (left and right) have come to be scratched/polished? Was this the noise source maybe?

Pete[frame][/frame]

What you are showing is the friction plate, can you show us a shot of the pressure plate(The one you call the clutch cover) and the face of the engine flywheel. It may be that the surface of the pressure plate is now scored as a result of the rivets on the friction plate rubbing on it,its also possible that the face of the flywheel has the same damage. I see you have the engine and box out,so to align the clutch you need to make up a tool to fit into the hole in the flywheel and through the centre of the friction plate so that you can centralize it before tightening up the pressure plate (You really need a manual to do this ,if you haven't done one before,download it from the web its there if you look).Once centralized with the engine and box out its easy to get the two to align and go to gether,just take the plugs out so you can turn the engine by hand and as they come together just tiurn the engine back and forwards until the box slides onto it. It's false economy to simply change the friction plate,unless you are sure of the condition of the. pressure plate,once out of the car,do want to risk doing it all over again.
Be careful with this its easy to damage the friction plate if you try to force the box and engine together,if its not aligned

Some of the 'new' pressure plates are 'less than well made' shall I say... If it's ok I would stick with the 'good' old one. A little bit of scoring won't do any harm.....

Advice appreciated thanks.

Kennatt - The alignment I was after is the tail of the gearbox into the propshaft as I was able to get the shaft into the flywheel easily enough thanks. Panky's advice to unbolt the prop from the diff should do the trick.

BMC - too late to reuse the old pressure plate as the new one's on and out of sight. I never throw anything away however so it may have a new life in 10 years time.

The sun's out so I'll give it a go and update.

Pete

Just to close this out and thank all for their advice.

The second hand ebay gearbox was no use.

I've fitted a new clutch, pressure plate and thrust bearing and refitted the original gearbox.

Disconnecting the propshaft from the diff made aligning the rear gearbox splines possible.

Everything works fine now so I assume the noise must have been part of the clutch, maybe the springs grinding as they are clearly scratched.

A few lessons learnt, thanks all.

Pete

Well done !