Finally the red car gets its turn for an upgrade. The CVH engine has been removed and it typical fashion it has revealed more jobs to do.
The MOT station always mentioned a gearbox oil leak but I thought it was an engine leak. Not so as it transpires. A drip of red oil on the box meant that the box had to be removed as well. Sounds easy when you say it quickly but it took nearly 1.5 hours to extract. The carpet had to come off the transmission tunnel which meant removing the seats and harnesses. Next the gearknob and handbrake had to be removed then the carpet could be removed. This then revealed some soundproofing that was glued to the transmision tunnel. Located and removed the screws holding the cover on then I had to cut the felt. Eventually I could just see the gearbox mounting nuts and was able to remove these. Removed the gear lever extension, reverse light switch wiring and the speedo and finally the 'box could be removed.
This then revealed my next problem. One of the bell housing to gearbox bolts had only half the head left - the rest having been cut off. This meant that the socket wouldn't stay on the remaining bit of head so I had to find a 19mm nut and cut/file it to take the place of the missing bit of the head. Finally I was able to remove the bolts and seperate the gearbox and bell housing. This then revealed the cause of the oil leak. There was no gasket between the two parts and oil seeped out over time.
A new gasket was made and then the engine upgrade started. It was a relatively straight forward install with just some minot tweaking to the nearside engine mount and a new offside bracket fitted to the chassis. The Megajolt was transfered from the CVH engine and it fired up and ran smooth from the start.