Sunday, August 28, 2011

How mistakes can turn out for the better

A while back I made a wanted "to buy AA bellhousing", because I wanted to put a Volvo M40 gearbox in Ole-Henry (like Artiki did: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168654), in order to get four fully syncronized gears. I kind of had forgotten it, untill suddently some guy emailed me and said, he had two, a 28-29 and a 30-31. Seeing the possibility of the A clutch housing on the B engine could be a permanent solution, especially if it was fitted with the M40, I thought I could use the AA bellhousings, or at least give it to some other 4banger guy, and made the arrangements to pick them up.
When I arrived, we first had to look at some spare AA gearbox parts, I couldn't use, since I'm only in need of the housing. Then the seller excused for misinforming me, because he had found out, that the second housing was not for a different year of the AA, but it was for the BB! My jar dropped to the ground, and suddently I saw the opportunity of getting a M40 behind my Kölner with the full alu bellypan! So I shook his hand, and the deal was made - from last sunday afternoon I am now the owner of both a AA and a BB bellhousing!
Today, a week later, I got to try if it woud fit the G28T (Kölner) engine, together with the B upper engineside of the bell housing, and it did!












Here with the belly pan:





But I need to make new rear motor mounts:





And the AA fited the A like a glove!






So now I need a couple of spacers, pick up two M40s from the Volvo shed, drill new holes to match them, and figure out a way to mount the torquetube to the back of the M40 or convert to open shaft, and make new pedal mountings.
But I'm not far from a couple of four speed Model A's!