Mentioning MR2 and gearbox in the same sentence generally results in people running away as fast as they can.

It’s not a fun job due to the lack of space and the amount of parts in the way due to the mid engine layout, but I managed to swap the gearbox without pulling the engine out - which saves a bit of work by not having to disconnect all the wiring, drain the coolant, etc.

Some of the plumbing had to be removed to get access to various bolts, and the engine had to be dropped down on an angle to let the gearbox clear the chassis.

Once it’s out the space doesn’t look so small - but there are a lot of annoying hoses in the way from above!

The old gearbox appears to have an internal problem - most likely a bent selector fork. Note the leaves sitting on it - from inside the engine bay!

The clutch had started slipping badly in this car, to the point that the engine would drop to idle if the throttle was backed off while moving.

It was behaving weirdly under load though, sometimes gripping ok and sometimes slipping very badly.

On closer inspection, the pivot ball that the clutch lever sits on in the gearbox had broken, so the pivot point could change and not allow the clutch to release properly.

Unfortunately this required the removal of the gearbox, even though the broken part could be seen through the hole for the clutch lever.

The car had an aftermarket performance clutch which, on further inspection, was worn out - which is a possible cause of the broken pivot ball.

The car’s original flywheel and clutch were still available, and turned out to be in excellent condition - so they were installed. An old gearbox input shaft makes an excellent clutch alignment tool

After a good clean up, a new pivot ball, new throw out bearing, and new spigot bush, the clutch was done and the gearbox could be reinstalled.

After a bit of a hassle getting the gearbox back in due mainly to a very close fitting exhaust dump pipe, the car was back up and running, and the new (old) clutch felt much better than the old (new) clutch!

S15 Silvias (200SX) come with a six speed gearbox, which is very nice to drive with - but is not as strong as the previous model’s five speed.

In racing use with engine performance modifications the six speed is prone to breakage, so sometimes it’s best to change to a five speed box for reliability.

The gearbox, clutch, flywheel, tailshaft, gearbox mount, gearbox bolts, and even the exhaust bracket are different - but they can all be sourced from the previous model Silvias.

In this case we also installed a twin plate clutch, and the new gearbox has been rebuilt and strengthened.

Many Japanese import cars are hard to find with a manual gearbox, so often it’s best to buy an automatic car and convert it to manual.

This one is an S13 Silvia with a CA18DET engine.

The auto to manual swap is fairly straightforward as long as you have all the bits and everything comes apart easily.

Of course this time things didn’t want to come apart easily, and some of the parts were missing!

The conversion requires the removal of the automatic’s pilot bushing from the engine’s crankshaft, and its replacement with the manual version.

No matter what I tried, even using a newly purchased tool for the job, the pilot bushing wouldn’t come out of the crank.

In the end I had to weld a plate onto it to allow the puller tool to get a better grip!

Eventually it was all done, the car now manual, and there was a big pile of leftover bits!

Today was the day that the new batteries arrived.

Unfortunately new means second hand, and second hand in this case means pretty dead!

They’ve been discharged too far, which is very bad for these Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. Hopefully at least some of them can be resurrected. The ones in the photo are the best four, which are at the bottom end of OK in terms of voltage.

While pondering battery plans, the gearbox casing was machined down so it can have a plate welded on. Normall the gearbox is part of the engine on a motorcycle, but since I want to use it on its own, I’ve cut the engine part off - so it now needs to be sealed up and have mounts made for the electric motor.