Blimey, work has seriously interrupted things! Two weeks in Western Australia took its toll on time in the garage. Oh, and a week in FFNQ (far far North Queensland!) didn’t exactly help…

Some progress, however, has been made!

A couple of weekends ago, I loaded all those gearboxes into the Mini and drove them up to see Colin Dodds, aka “the Sprite Man” – what he doesn’t know about Sprites isn’t worth knowing, and as the gearbox is a BMC one (or four) from the Sprite (among others) he was a good man to speak to about such things.

Having poked around the various ‘boxes parts, he assured me that the close ratio gears from the ribbed box will fit the smooth case, the correct gear change is there (and I found the gearstick this evening in one of the boxes of bits!) and all I now need to do is bolt up the gearbox and engine to establish where everything will go, and grind back the smooth case to match the ribbed one (which basically means removing the cowel for the starter motor so it will clear the transmission tunnel). Then I take the whole lot back to Colin and he builds me a schmick (and incredibly light) close ratio gear box.

Meanwhile, today I finally picked up the front clam, and brought that home from Bruce’s along with a crank case I can use to bolt up to the gearbox, so big thanks due to Bruce and Nick for the loan of that! And I have agreed with Mark Natoli for him to start on the fabrication work on the front clam in mid-October so that’s a start in the right direction.

So here’s a pic of the clam on the roof of the Mini

And this is how the Eleven is looking after a first clean to try to remove as much of the sticky tape residue that was on it when I moved it – I think it has been held together with tape for most of its life so far!!