Stupid things I've done to a Hewland

[Brian]

I thought it would be fun, instructive and a good waste of time to have a thread about the stupid things people have done to Hewlands. Here's my list, not all of which I did, but all of which I have suffered from...

Forget to torque the side fill plug and spew Redline ghastly blue stuff all over the inside of a Merlyn Mk 6A sports racer rear body half. Took hours to clean...to be honest, there was still some on it when I sold the car two years later, if you looked close. Last time I used Redline ghastly blue stuff...

Have a new pinion installed, get the fifth gear endfloat off by about .100" and take hours to figure out why you can't engage 5th gear.

Have the pinion nut come loose and find out exactly what happens when you run for a while with the pinion wobbling all around (just prior to getting the fifth gear end-float wrong above). (what happens is you get a spare MK4 pinion useful to help set the shift forks on the next Mk4 gearbox you work on, which is approximately never)

Leave the circlip off of an output shaft and have the shaft walk out during a session.

On a one-off custom installation make up a clutch bobbin spacer out of aluminium, and have it run dry and gall itself to the input shaft. Take gearbox out, take diff out, get the input shaft out, beat the spacer off with a big hammer, clearance the spacer ID, file/scrape/chisel the spacer mung that's welded itself to the input shaft off, lube the crap out of it with anti-seize and put it all back together and make the next session. (lesson learned is that 6061-T6 is the wrong material to make a clutch bobbin spacer from - it will last just long enough to lull you into complacency, then fail,,,)

[RussMcB]

How about: When a Mk 9 is sitting on the ground (not connected to an engine), you're changing gears or whatever and you hear a solid clink in the diff area. Then you learn about the splined female-female spacer that connects the front & back shafts, and that when it slips apart a side cover has to be removed to get to it.

[Greg Mercurio]

Gear pattern 4-3-2-1

At least it was a test day.

[rardoin]

How about R-5-4-3-2-1.. The driver's mother remarked that her son was left handed. I thought she said dyslexic..Oh well!

[Brad Ellingson]

How about: When a Mk 9 is sitting on the ground (not connected to an engine), you're changing gears or whatever and you hear a solid clink in the diff area. Then you learn about the splined female-female spacer that connects the front & back shafts, and that when it slips apart a side cover has to be removed to get to it.

How about NOT hearing that, trying to drive and snapping the draw bolt. Uhhhh..I mean...I've heard of someone doing that once...

[abrussich]

I acquired a very tired Lotus 61 last June and spent the next 7 months rebuilding the car in order to have it ready for the February races at Texas world Speedway.
The car was purchased with a blown motor so there were no surprises there.
I'm relatively new to the wackey world of vintage open wheel racing and all the little things one needs to learn are still coming along.
The week before the event I was still having problems getting the clutch system to hold pressure. New master, new slave, new clutch and T.O. bearing, and no visible leaks in the line. I finally got it to where if I pumped it a few times it would get enough pressure to engage the T.O. and let me work the clutch.
I figured that would have to do and it would be good enough to get me to the grid and off the line. Once moving who needs a clutch.
All day Friday and Saturday the day went, bleed the system a few hundred times, pump, bleed some more, replace the master and slave, twice, on the odd chance that maybe I had just gotten a bad one. Two bottles of expensive brake fluid later and still no joy.
By Sunday my left leg hurt in more places than it ever did during any of my long distance running. In the middle of the last "let's try and bleed it one more time" session a mechanic from one of the smarmy high dollar teams came over and asked what was all the fuss about. Evidently he had been watching the ordeal quietly from the side.
After it was all explained he stood there for a second and then said, "oh that's no big deal. you just need to replace the bobbin"
What the hell is a bobbin?!!!

I now have a new one and a spare, and the left leg has finally healed.

Another time I will relay the tale of the leaking half-shaft seals and what came to light in the attempt to replace them. Not enough time to cover that fiasco now.

The joys of vintage racing.

[Robert J. Alder]

Then there's the dreaded 1, 2, 4, 3 stacking! Actually easy to adapt for up shifting, but a real bear to remember how to down shift.

And, of course, putting 4th in upside down (or any others) so it won't engage the dogs.

But the WORST -- forgetting to top of the one lousy little pint (only holds 2) after changing gears. It will burn up a box in one parade lap -- trust me. Arrrgh!

[ghoneycutt]

"and that when it slips apart a side cover has to be removed to get to it."

Or in my situation, the coupler fell to the bottom of the case and being that I was due to load the car and leave for the track ASAP and didn't have time to pull everything needed to get the side cover off, I used a magnet, long surgical clamps and my stubborn nature to retrieve and rotate the coupler horizontal in the case and back onto the input shaft via the layshaft hole. There was JUST enough room to do it that way. Not Fun

[cooleyjb]

Chasing a chronic leak, I Spent way too long cleaning the side covers. Went to the trouble of doing one side each day so the sealer could fully set before whatever residual oil was in the case could find it's way out. Only to find out that in an 89 VD the side covers have the ears pointed in the opposite direction (down instead of up) of the transmission you were using as a guide.

[Charles Warner]

a mechanic from one of the smarmy high dollar teams came over and asked what was all the fuss about. . . . . .then said, "oh that's no big deal. you just need to replace the bobbin".

Maybe "smarmy" is good?

[Jim Gustafson]

After changing ratios on a DG 300, I attach the rear wing, tranny cooler, engine oil cooler, puke can, let 'er down off the jack stands, and then realize I'm still locked in two gears, and it's like 1:30 a.m. the night before the race, and I've been working on the sh...box for 4 days and nights in a row.

Jim Gustafson
Racing Since 1970

[Lincspeed]

When racing at Grattan afew years back, I was talking with an S2 driver/mechanic (who shall remain unnamed) about his love life. He was telling me about this pretty cool lady that he had tossed him out for something he had done, or forgotten to do...
The big "aw sh--!" about this was that she could rebuild a Hewland better than he could!

Clark

[rickb99]

I don't understand why you guys keep doing that? Our instructions say to release the two engaged gears right after tightening the 2 big honkin nuts.

Now you gotta remember, we haven't learned how to do a gear change without reading the instructions yet.

[rickjohnson356]

no stinkin instructions!

If we can assemble a tricycle on Christmas eve without instructions why not a Hewland?

wanna bet?

a long time ago, I put the reverse idler (MK9) in backwards and wondered why I couldn't get the carrier back in that last inch. I rocked the wheel for quite a while before finding my mistake. (this was at Chimney Rock Hillclimb--1972 or 1973?)

Don't ask... I still haven't figured out why it was removed in the first place)

[Rick Kirchner]

4 speeds in reverse and 1 forward. on A/C supervees, the gearbox goes in rightside up - but the ring gear still goes on the left - the manual will lead you to assemble the gearbox upside down, then flip it over. DOH!

I actually called Craig Taylor on that one - and it even took him a couple minutes to figure it out!

[EYERACE]

Crossle 32F with a Hewland coming out of the chicane at Daytona, I heard a little 'clinking' sound that just had to be a tooth from a gear......so I immediately pulled into the pits, tore down the tranny and found the tooth. I could have brought gears with me [like I had been doing].....but.....nooooo...just a couple of weeks before that I had traveled very light to Moroso and gotten my first first so now I thought that if I was well prepped I didn't need many tools or spares......and.....I could have missed a qualifying session and simply driven back to Orlando for gears [maybe not even 45 minutes tops]....but I didn't want to miss a session so instead I borrowed a gear from an FC LD200 driver who didn't know any better either. What the heck, they looked just as thick. The tranny went back together, I went through the gears, engine running, with the rear up on stands and all seemed to work well. I even made it two laps before all heck broke loose in the rear of the car.........I should have kept the tinsel to throw on a christmas tree......maybe the tree could have been 8 feet tall. Craig Taylor got about $5,000. He was stunned to learn I'd made it two laps. And in the grid of 'Wings & Things' the FF would have been qualified maybe 29th of 33 cars....if I'd skipped the session, gone back to Orlando, then I would have been 33rd instead. Dumb

[Tom Sprecher]

Gear pattern 4-3-2-1

At least it was a test day.

+1

Sorry, Mark, but what do you except at a 2:30 in the morning?

[Dragnmorad]

first i did a million yrs ago. Sscrew the 4321 reverse... how about 1324. My driver loved me for that one. (my mistake was telling my current driver i did that once, now every 5th or 6th race he accuses me of doing it again when he doesnt like the step between gears)

The second one was a couple of years ago we got a racecar late in the winter & had to prep it for the april season opener. The car needed alot of TLC so the tranny never got torn down. The first race went without too many teething problems but one complaint was a weird noise in the tranny. No time to deal with it during the first weekend while we chased all the other gremlins of a first time raced car. When we got home I tried to disassemble the tranny. I put it in two gears but the tranny didnt lock. After locking the half shafts so they couldnt turn (dont ask how, it wasnt pretty) We finally get the nuts off the the case split to find the small reverse gear just floating around in the bottom of the tranny. The little bolt that held it in broke & it was just loose inside the case. Still havent figured out how it didnt get caught in the gears during the weekend & grenade that transmission!

[Don Denomme]

Don't remember who the scientist was...but his comment on being considered an expert:

"An expert is not someone who knows all that there is to know about a given subject. This is impossible. An expert is one who has made nearly all the mistakes in a given filed and has learned how to avoid them."

[rardoin]

I assumed the "DREADED CLINK" heard upon pulling the layshaft was an annunciator warning me that the ring and pinion gears were due for an inspection! LOL

[rudolphtg]

Don't remember who the scientist was...but his comment on being considered an expert:

"An expert is not someone who knows all that there is to know about a given subject. This is impossible. An expert is one who has made nearly all the mistakes in a given filed and has learned how to avoid them."

Niels Bohr

[D.T. Benner]

Many years ago a friend of mine did this in his Mark 9 just before Qualifying. We wondered why he was off his usual pace for the first few laps. When he came in he was laughing at himself and explained it took him a few laps to figure out what was wrong and adapt to the "New" shift pattern.

[Peter Horvath]

Thanks everyone, now I'm much more afraid of my LD200 than I've ever been before.

[Rick Iverson]

Sitting on the deck, enjoying lake life on a hot July evening, doing BBQ with the family and blowing the head off a few Rolling Rocks. Suddenly realizing the Road America gears are in and need to be replaced with BIR gears, down to the garage I stumble.

I am here too tell you this, and it is important - NEVER, under any circumstances, do a gearbox with a full head of Steam - EVER.

[EYERACE]

i'll bet i would have found mr. bohr facinating..........but here's how eye would have calculated the height of the building using his famous barometer, which is different from what he said......i would have photographed the barometer and the building in the same photo so that their heights were coincident from a ground level camera, then measure the distance from the camera to the building and camera to the barometer, measure the height of the barometer and then calculate the height of the building from the trigometric sine function angular subtense of the barometer's height and distance from the camera. however his final approach is best because it involves charity and preservation of the barometer....he would have given the barometer to the building supervisor if the super would simply tell him the height of the building!

uhhh.....ya'll have had the Email about how mr. bohr came to get his degree, right?

[Jon Jeffords]

"An expert is one who has made nearly all the mistakes in a given filed and has learned how to avoid them."

The word "expert" phonically sounds the same when said as "ex spurt."

Ex = a has-been
Spurt = a drip under pressure

[Gary Jarlson]

It's late Friday night before the race weekend and I'm reinstalling the engine/gearbox (which had to be done as a single unit.) The gearbox hadn't been opened, so I know everything is okay. But, just to be sure, I rock the car and can get all 5 gears. Light off the motor to check for leaks. Everything's great. Put this turkey on the trailer (it's now 2 a.m.). Roll the car out of the garage and low-and-behold, there's the clutch bobbin lying on the floor.

[Richard Hybels]

I've always been to scared to change gears myself so I let a buddy do it. I forget which nut he said was finger tight and I put the used cotter in. Of course it came off and rattled around damaging the threads.

[Robert J. Alder]

It's late Friday night before the race weekend and I'm reinstalling the engine/gearbox (which had to be done as a single unit.) The gearbox hadn't been opened, so I know everything is okay. But, just to be sure, I rock the car and can get all 5 gears. Light off the motor to check for leaks. Everything's great. Put this turkey on the trailer (it's now 2 a.m.). Roll the car out of the garage and low-and-behold, there's the clutch bobbin lying on the floor.

I can sort of one-up that one. Kinda' the same drill. When replacing a motor, this Engine/Tranny had to go in/out of the car as a unit. Also did some work on the tranny. No worries. Great. Even put in a new input shaft seal while at it. No issues. Got engine/tranny back in the car, everything hooked up (water, oil, lines, etc.). The hydraulics on the clutch had NOT been touched. Decided to exercise the clutch. Damn pedal went to the floor and didn't come backup. Side lever on cross-shaft WAY down. No leaks. I'd been very careful to put in the bobbin to avoid your grief. My faux pas? When installing the new input shaft seal, I'd removed the throw-out bearing to do so. Sadly I installed the throw-out bearing backwards. Crap. First hit on the pedal, the bobbin exploded the throw-out bearing, pushing its bearing race guts out. Swell. Pull the motor/tranny out enough to decouple from motor, put in new throw-out bearing facing the proper way. REPEAT install. Arrrgh!!!!

[TimH]

Don't know how I've missed this thread all these years. We'll skip right over all the occasions of finding a spacer or bearing race or draw bolt or something else left over after assembly. Let's get to the really stupid stuff.

1) Changing out, I think, a 19:32 for a 20:32 (or something like that) I mismatched the 32-tooth from one set back into the box with the other. It of course went back together beautifully, but on the way to the grid I sure didn't like the sound it was making. My consultant took a close look at the sets I had removed and suggested I fire the mechanic.

2) I bought a bunch of overlength cotter pins, so have to trim them after installation. Once left one so long on the layshaft that it nicked up against the reverse gear a little bit every rotation. Figured that one out just rolling back from the driveway to the shop.

3) Then I left one only a *little* too long and maybe didn't bend it down enough. When it turned into little pieces one of them jammed under the 3-4 selector shaft block around the third lap. Huge relief when I opened up the box and there was no other damage, the pieces never finding their way forward into the gear cluster.

I still can't afford to fire myself.