Friday night with Hewland gears.

changing ratios

I have the impression that most people who read this can change the ratios of a Hewland box in about half an hour. Not me! I’ve only done it once before and it took me all weekend. However, I’ve decided there’s not much point in having this car unless I can run with the most appropriate gears for the events.  I might have the best ratios for Loton but they weren’t the best for Mira or Curborough and next weekend I’m at Gurston, which I believe is quite fast. So this has been my Friday evening.  Let’s hope I can get all those loose thingies back in and in the right place tomorrow morning!  And of course I then have to fiddle with the linkage again to get that operating smoothly – I’d only just sorted that out!

0 thoughts on “Friday night with Hewland gears.

  1. On a good day Bob, I can do them in 30 minutes. You need to have a method. I dont know how Martin did it but my method is to remove selector cover. remove bolt from gear change lever/selector shaft. Remove selector shaft, remove long centre bolt after removing both split pins lock in gear, top selector shaft in lower out, slacken both nuts and remove the left hand threaded one completely, remove all the 8mm nuts ease away from case to let it drain, then lift everything clear. Select from gear spares the ratios you require, put to one side, remove all the gears from shafts and tie together in matched pairs and put away, then fit new gears as required and refit all in reverse direction. I use a 10″ length of !” copper plumbers pipe to hold all the gears in position until I am ready to slide the assy into gear case. I use on the smallest smear of Hylomar to seal the cases, Fit a couple of the 8mm nuts and test to see if all gears can be obtained then lock and pin the big nuts. If you find Tony Wilsons *(Hewland agent) web site he has a word for word blow of how to do the job and he reckons that 1/2 to 3/4 hour is plenty. When secure put in 1 ltr of oil, 1/2 in the diff plug and the other 1/2 in the gear box plug. These are interconnected and will self level. Hope this helps. David.

  2. PS, you do not need a hammer to change the ratios, if you do, something is wrong. You are permitted a rubber mallet and that is all it will need.

Go on, leave a comment!