Reply With QuoteWhat a great idea, much better than resting the box on yourself! It looks like it's made from timber battens and plywood. Any chance of some more pics?
Cheers,
Shaun M
3 Grand Master
OT: DIY Gearbox lift
Easy enough to take the gearbox out on a trolley jack. Putting it back in is another question. If its a manual you have the splines to worry about-if its an auto (like mine) you dont want to install the TC crooked. And the auto is a damn sight heavier! My brother came up with this solution. The bottom 'deck' is on 6 castors so you can move it backwards and fowards, side to side. You can raise the box a midge's in any direction by turning the nuts on the six studs under the 'top' deck. The MK1 design enabled you to put the box on the lift, push it under the car, then raise it. I didnt think having the car that high was safe and the studs might bend. So we chopped them down and man-handled the box onto the lift once it was underneath. I've done a quite a few box swaps over the years but have never been able to screw all the bolts in finger tight from the off!
Major Contributor
What a great idea, much better than resting the box on yourself! It looks like it's made from timber battens and plywood. Any chance of some more pics?
Cheers,
Shaun M
3 Grand Master
here in 'murrica, we have a purveyor of cheap, lead coated chinese crap called harbor freight. after d*cking around with multiple trolley jacks, &c. &c., i went there and spent about $60 on a scissor operated transmission jack. this was cheaper than renting a trans jack for multiple days. my friend (the one helping me) insisted that I was being "ghey" and that we could do it without. 30 minutes after putting the trans on the jack, we had it mated up properly and 4 bolts in (and this is whith the exhaust in place). that contraption looks like it costed you more time than money, which is ok so long as it got the job done.
sometimes you need to bite the bullet and get the right tool for the job.
Major Contributor
[QUOTE=ryan roopnarine;305964]here in 'murrica, we have a purveyor of cheap, lead coated chinese crap called harbor freight. QUOTE]
That is why the greenbacks are worthless these days. By the same token it is also why people in the UK are paying a ransom for what they want to get they need to re-engineer a jack.
My garage is bursting at the seams with tools made in you-know-where.
'01 540it, 6/01
'03 325i 5 speed, 9/02
'10 535ix. 9/09
'10 mini 6 speed
'15 mini countryman 6 speed
3 Grand Master
£30 wont buy a decent trolley jackOriginally Posted by ryan roopnarine
. The only scissor type transmission jack I could find didnt have lateral adjustment. Whoever laid the concrete on the drive was thinking drainage, not somebody was going to be changing a gearbox in 30 years time
Last edited by whiskychaser; 07-15-2008 at 04:54 PM.
Major Contributor
£30 won't get you much tool-wise. A pair of axle stands maybe, or a spanner set, maybe a couple of loaves of bread lol!
ATB,
Shaun M
3 Grand Master
True
Major Contributor
Great!!
ATB,
Shaun M
Grand Master
... or 1/3 an E34 tank of petrol
Mine cost me 85 quid / 170 USD to fill up yesterday, and that was still with about 10/15 quids worth of fuel in the tank.
£100/200USD dry to full? Ouch!
Grand Master
Nice job! We just kinda bollixed it all together balancing on a jack, took us an hour of fiddling but it went in eventually.Easy enough to take the gearbox out on a trolley jack. Putting it back in is another question. If its a manual you have the splines to worry about-if its an auto (like mine) you dont want to install the TC crooked. And the auto is a damn sight heavier! My brother came up with this solution. The bottom 'deck' is on 6 castors so you can move it backwards and fowards, side to side. You can raise the box a midge's in any direction by turning the nuts on the six studs under the 'top' deck. The MK1 design enabled you to put the box on the lift, push it under the car, then raise it. I didnt think having the car that high was safe and the studs might bend. So we chopped them down and man-handled the box onto the lift once it was underneath. I've done a quite a few box swaps over the years but have never been able to screw all the bolts in finger tight from the off!
Swearing is an integral part of a gearbox job without the right tools
Wouldnt like to try it with an auto!
Posting Permissions
