I don't think there is any good way to asses the gearbox visually without pulling it apart. Short of that, I would drain both boxes and see which one had better looking oil and less metal gunk on the bottom of the pan. I would spin all the shafts and inspect the gears for broken teeth or other signs of obvious wear. You might be able to listen to the bearings with a stethoscope and get a feel for how quiet they are, but not sure about that. Look for evidence of rust, which could indicate water contamination in the box. I would try to replace the seals on both ends of the tranny and replace the spring loaded cup components under the shifter. I have a scan of the 5 speed rebuild manual if interested. Shoot me a PM with your email address.
Kirk

My car seems to be made out of 6 cars
I'm ordering parts and was looking at definitely replacing dizzy cap and rotor, but my 1800 carb has a Hall sensor and I thought they were only fitted on 2000ie. Great, but the two small wires are brittle and I want to know if it's okay to solder new wires or replace the whole Hall sensor unit.



I found this cover in one of the boxes with parts I have, what's this for?

Nice work so far! however, trying to fix that distributor pickup would be pointless!!

replace it......

the cover looks like a transmission tunnel cover to me

It sort of looks like the cover that the shift lever comes through.

The part doesn't fit the shift lever hole, that was my first guess as well. Probably not from my car then...
Found two small cracks in the cam housings probably resulting from a broken valve restored by the previous owner. I ordered JB Weld to repare them, but I don't think that's even necessary.


I ordered new valve stem seals but can't fit them further than this without breaking the soft rubber. I'll leave them like this.


Cleaned my 34 ADF carburator but there seems to be a tube missing on the right, am I correct? I would find it strange if these things were asymmetrical. There are none of these in my rebuilt kit, so not really sure what to do here.


Oh and if anybody knows how to resize these images, that would be great!

MrToon,

A few thoughts:

The black sheet metal plate is the cover that screws down to the top of the body sheet metal above the transmission. The reverse light switch wiring goes through the small hole and the shifter and inner rubber shift boot go through the big hole. I'm thinking it's the same for almost all Spiders, but I could be wrong.

I would clean up and rebuild your distributor. Not that hard to do and the parts aren't that expensive. Or find another one. That one looks nasty.

I'm concerned about the cracks in your cam tower. Not for oil leaks, but for distortion to the tower itself. I'm concerned you'll end up with a stuck valve or valve shim bucket.

Let's see if anyone comments on the valve seal. If it's not installed just like the old one, it probably won't work.

No clue on the carb. I have FI.

Kirk

On my 34ADF, both those holes look like the one on the right. I think they are passageways to the top part of the carb.

The 34 ADF diagram doesn't show any tubes either, so I'll keep it out. Thanks a lot Nanonevol!
I checked the cam housing with a ruler and it does seem a bit deformed. I don't know what the specs are for that one, but it's warped more than the 0.002 inches used on the cylinder head. I thought that the very stiff and straight camshaft and properly gapped shims would be able to cope with things, but you're right.

EDIT: Some more fiddling with feeler gauges shows that it's within spec (0.002 inch or 0.05 mm) up until the last cam box-to-head bolt holes. Then it goes up to slightly above 0.10 mm. Sanding the very last part of the housing is probably dangerous but might work... The tappet also shows some play, so I've contacted a local guy selling some cam housings.

By the way, since you have it apart, you should remove those two air jets and pull out the emulsion tubes underneath them for cleaning. You maybe know this. They don't always drop right out although nothing is holding them down there. I had to use a wire with a hook.

Thanks, there was still some dirt in the emulsion tubes even after all the cleaning I had done. The carb is rebuild now, engine ready to be put together if I have the right valve shims. The specs are 0.43-0.48mm, but I only have 0.40, 0.45, 0.50 etc. I don't think it would need to be more accurate, but maybe someone has some more experience and can comment on that.

I'm putting new brake lines in before putting the engine in the car. Is there anything I need to take care of, like a certain way of going about this? I found that I don't have any brackets to hold the front brake lines. How is that even possible... I'm going to weld new ones tomorrow, resembling the rear ones. Does anyone have a picture of the right shape and position? Couldn't find anything on the forum.

My posting here is about as chaotic as I am when working on the car, parts just came in but having to order again because I forgot things

Is there a check valve between the intake manifold and brake booster? If so, what are the specs? I have bought some check valves for the fuel lines but don't know if they would work for the vacuum.

Does anyone know what these things do? I can't find them in the workshop manual. I have a 34 ADF carb and no charcoal canister, I was thinking maybe they were left over from that?

That's funny. Many of us have asked the same thing about those 2 gizmos including myself. One is a valve for setting high speed idle as a diagnostic and the other I forget but something emissions I think. Bottom line is they are not needed.

Hope these can help you

That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Brake lines are almost finished, still waiting for a vendor to reply and ship me my valve shims and brake repair parts.
Tomorrow I was going to start laying new fuel lines so I pulled the tank for a quick look and found it had some rust in it. What's the best way to go about this? I have read about filling it with rust remover and coating with tank sealer. Is that necessary in this case?


Oh and I started using vinegar to remove rust from brakes and pulleys. I knew about it but DRUMMOND's posts convinced me. Nice and cheap, but makes the garage smell like a greek salad