Morris Minor Owners Club

Hallo, I am returning late to the party after an absence of some 10 years which is when I took my traveller off the road for a little repair work...
In my previous time I downloaded a marvellous gearbox stripdown PDF from here. Unfortunately the link does not seem to work now! Am I doing something wrong, please? (sorting out gear jumping is one of my winter jobs!)
Manythanks, Pete (plate?)

There's a very good guide to rib case gearbox rebuild (I am almost positive the one you refer to) here:

https://www.dorsetmmoc.co.uk/wordpress/ ... ebuild.pdf

Stephen

svenedin wrote: ↑Wed Nov 19, 2025 6:27 pm There's a very good guide to rib case gearbox rebuild (I am almost positive the one you refer to) here:

https://www.dorsetmmoc.co.uk/wordpress/ ... ebuild.pdf

Stephen

Thanks very much! The link shown in previous comments came up with "Error 404" which just about sums me up!!
Your link looks great!
My main problem is removing the front cover held with 8 1/4 UNF nuts. In the past this has just lifted off as the various available guides describe. On this box it is very definitely not coming off, curious! I may end up butchering it off and replacing with a spare one

Thanks again, Pete

The front cover may be held on with some kind of goo. Welseal is often used but it is a devil to separate the parts later.

Welseal is actually shellac. It softens with heat and dissolves in alcohol. Try warming the front cover with a heat gun. As shellac solidifies as it cools you will have to try to get the cover off when it is hot.

That is if we are talking about the same cover because the front cover has 7 studs and nuts, not 8.

Stephen

Thanks again for giving me hope! I will launch my hot air gun at it when next I venture out in the cold! 7 nuts, my typo error!

If enough length available double nut and removing the studs may make it come off easier

Fitting a front cover with a iip seal is a worthwhile mod as well, easy to do if you have ascces to a lathe or you can buy them ready done.

kevin s wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 9:50 am Fitting a front cover with a iip seal is a worthwhile mod as well, easy to do if you have ascces to a lathe or you can buy them ready done.

Yes you can buy the modified front cover with modern lip seal from ESM.

What I would say about this mod is that it does need a bit of thought about whether you want to do it. The scroll arrangement tends to wear gradually and give a lot of warning that it is worn and leaking oil. The lip seal can fail suddenly causing an oil drenched clutch and failure to proceed. This happened to one of the cars on Minors on Tour to France this year. If you do change to a lip seal it would be advisable to change it whenever the opportunity arises e.g when changing the clutch. It is a lot of work to split the engine and gearbox just to change this seal if it does wear out and of course the seal costs next to nothing.

My car does have this mod but I am inclined to think that the scroll is more reliable and durable.

Stephen

All 3 gearboxes I stripped to rebuild ours had been leaking quite heavily through the scroll and given that I wanted to run a modern multigrade gear oil it was really the only choice. Properly installed and with oil inside a lip seal shouldn't catastophicaly fail they usually just begin to weep at the end of their life, after all virtually every car built in the last 60 years has used one in this application.