Club 80-90 Forums

The van passed the MoT with no advisories so I am now a happy teddy.

Steampunk 2015 here we go!!!

Hardy engineering at Leatherhead a well known classic car and modern gearbox repairer said they could recondition a early automatic T25 aircool engine gearbox .Price aprox £1800.

Has anyone actually done this? Does it make sense financially?

I converted the caravelle from auto to manual but ditched the 2.1 in favour of a Subaru engine. The engine and original auto box had over 180.000 miles on it and I didn't want to spend money on them . Its a big job though as the dash had to come out and the brake / servo bracket must be replaced with the manual version and a complete clutch system has to be set up. Gear linkage and stick installed and few wires also needed to be changed .

I once talked a customer out of this, after pricing it up for him (and telling him IMHO it's a daft idea). Found him a good used box instead, and four years on he's still happily rolling along.

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Daft idea ? It worked out just fine for me.

In terms of cost/reward ratio, compared to just repairing or replacing the broken bit. He only considered it as he couldn't find a replacement box anywhere, and was desperate to get back on the road.
Didn't you have other factors in your particular equation which affected your decision, such as an engine conversion?

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I offered him the auto gearbox that came out of the caravelle way back when he first had problems, i was only asking for the shipping costs.

Offer was appreciated but I wanted van back on the road pronto and thought that a repairing the box already on would be the best bet. Picked a crap time of year to fail. had to hire a car over Christmas. It's at a different repairers now, I'm waiting for a diagnosis on what'd gone wrong this time. BTW do you still have the box?

I just scrolled up the thread, it was Bobster that I was referring to! And not 4 years then, but 2.5. My memory's going.

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Sir Brixalot wrote:Offer was appreciated but I wanted van back on the road pronto and thought that a repairing the box already on would be the best bet. Picked a crap time of year to fail. had to hire a car over Christmas. It's at a different repairers now, I'm waiting for a diagnosis on what'd gone wrong this time. BTW do you still have the box?

Yeah still have it, its been outside uncovered for a few years now .

Should have heard back from new repairers by now, I'll give them a nudge tomorrow. If the existing one isn't repairable, I'll need to find a spare. Thanks for letting me know