Project 2 tone: Who won the bet?

Well yes money did change hands but not in the way I was hoping. Never settling with doing jobs the easy way and due to the scarceness of aircooled auto boxes and engines to that matter. I opted to try and fit a later watercooled automatic gearbox to our ride. These are much more plentiful and for that reason cheaper - But would they work.

We asked all the experts possible before tackling the job and to their own admission, It wasn't a job either Pete at Cogbox (0208 842 2580) or Simon Baxter (www.Brickwerks.co.uk) had come across either personally or through their customers.

For that reason C&B had to try it. On a loan crusade to see whether all the people desperately searching for these ‘hens teeth' gearboxes could actually broaden their search to the very same watercooled box for their buses.

Well as you can see the engine is in and looking good thanks to Just Kampers (www.justkampers.com) and CCB (www.collinschemicalblacking.com) but the gearbox was another matter.

A few things to look out for are:
1: The different length shifter rods

2: That the central splined bar is properly bedded into the gearbox before fitting the torque convertor

3: That you have a hole in your tinware for the dipstick to exit.

4: And finally and most importantly, what to do when the cooling manifold fouls the chassis crossmember when all else appears to fit perfectly. We'll be showing you the fitting of this in full detail in future issues but as usual keep checking back on the blog to see where we are at.

For now I leave you £10 poorer with Ivan winning the bet, And with considerable back ache from having to do the journey down to Camp Bestival in our rock hard Panzerfaust microvan.