Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi. I have a Minor pick up with a Marina 1275 engine, clutch and gearbox, but the gearbox is making terminal noises. Is a triumph overdrive box from a 1500 spitfire a straight swap (other than the propshaft). I like the triumph boxes, but have read mixed responses - some say it is a straight swap, some say it isn't and I may as well go for something else - which seems expensive!! Advice really appreciated.

Russell

No will not fit, completely different, you will need a 1275 marina or Ital box

i know of one person how gave it a go i.e. just fitting a triumph box and it worked..

you will need to change the bell housing but the ital box and triumph box case are the same.

you might be able to get away with using your current prop as the ital box and triumph box are the same length.

he then used it the appropriate triumph clutch.

if you are interested I can see if i can get in touch with him and see if he is happy to talk with you as opposed to going through me ..

yes please - that would be ace!!

It will be far from a straight swop....

bmcecosse wrote:It will be far from a straight swop....

and your basis for this comment is?

Hi
it would be great to talk to your friend - the issue I worry about is how long the input shaft needs to be - will I need to have it machined to fit the bearing in the flywheel. I dont fancy the type 9 ford upgrade (expensive) and the Toyota boxes are like Rocking hose poo, and I like overdrive! I did wonder about using an overdrive on the Marina box, but that seems even odder a choice! I have had the engine totally rebuilt so want to keep that!!

Cheers

you can swap over the output shaft of the triumph box into the ital / marina box using the gears from the ital on the triumph output shaft.

this job is no worst than stripping and rebuilding a box..

i can send you a pdf covering all of this, if you are interested, that i wrote and was published in minor matters a few years back.

in your initial post you say that your current ital / marina box is not healthy the problem with that option is that you need to use the gears from the ital / marina which will not help you.

the reason for the swapping of gears on the shafts as i understood was that you could not get a triumph input shaft with the same number of splines as the marina / ital so you could not do a straight swap.

however when advising someone else on the swap he did a quick swap of the bell housings ( a straight swap 3 / 4 bolts ) and found that it fitted, this just left the clutch.. he purchased the appropriate triumph clutch and it worked.

I have looked through my emails and can not find an email from him.. so I have emailed his son..who i have not been in touch with for a long time.. good news the email did not bounce but i have no reply as of yet, as soon as i get a reply i will let you know by PM.

So indeed - not by ANY means a 'straight swap'........

bmcecosse wrote:So indeed - not by ANY means a 'straight swap'........

undoing 3/4 bolts

doing up 3/4 bolts

and fitting a new clutch

very difficult

And the shaft to be changed???

probably not required the overall length of the ital box and the triumph box are the same.

but is changing a prop really that hard?

Hi,
Only just caught this thread. PM sent.

Is the box in the car right now a Marina box, or a Minor box?

Marina boxes are not particularly durable (as you have found), 60,000 miles being the usual life. It would be worth rebuilding if you can get the parts, which I'd imagine are very thin on the ground now.

The marina box is a Triumph based one. The same single rail box fitted in Dolly 1300/1500/1850, Spitfire 1300/1500 and Midget 1500. See Rimmer bros for parts. I can only reference the overdrive box I had. The 1850 O/D box is exactly the same length as the standard Marina one, with the bell-housings removed.

russellgard wrote:Hi. I have a Minor pick up with a Marina 1275 engine, clutch and gearbox, but the gearbox is making terminal noises.

bmcecosse wrote:Is the box in the car right now a Marina box, or a Minor box?

if you had taken the time to read the original post before offering your advice you would have seen that the car has a marina box hence my advice.

you obviously no nothing about this conversion because if you had thought that the box was a minor one you would be mentioning some of the following issues that i would have written about..

changing the back plate to suit the marina box as the back plate needs changing to fit a minor gearbox on to a marina engine

modifying the marina bell housing

changing the front engine mounts to give enough room for the rack

modifying the gearbox tunnel to clear the gearbox

changing the clutch actuating mechanism from mechanical to hydraulic

moving the gearbox support

this is in no way an exhaustive list of what needs doing

and i certainly would not have been talking about undoing 3 /4 bolts to swap the bell housings over!

thank you daveyl for the comprehensive list of suitable gearboxes one thing i would like to add is that the dolomite sprint box is not the same and can not be used, in case you were wondering.. just do not ask me how i know

Charlie - I was in a far away place with very limited internet access - but yes I did see it stated a Marina engine and box, but this is unusual because they are known to be difficult to squeeze in between the chassis legs (and not very good boxes anyway..). It's not the first time we have talked all the way round a question only to find the initial statements have not been entirely accurate.... hence I asked if it is a Marina box. I never let the forums get personal.......

nice to see you back bmc

Well thank you Alex !