RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

5 SPEED GEAR BOX

Have you ever been in that situation where you’ve decided to do something, started it, then a myriad of obstacles suddenly appear making progress snail-slow.  At that point you feel like you wish you’d never started!  Well, there’s this five speed gear box ….!

No seriously folks, there has been a lot of hoo-ha, scull-duggery, rumour mongering, etc., so here’s what’s really happened!

Obviously the desire for a fifth gear in a Mini extends from early days.  It was originally attempted (and to a degree of success) by several persons – Felday, Colotti and Jack Knight, none of which were mass produced, nor suitable for general use.  When presented with the opportunity to market a modern design that theoretically worked, and then worked as a model – you can imagine we turned up our noses and turned away! Not many! This was at the end of 1990.

Deals were discussed.  Finished design, product and sales were promised, hence the appearance of the “first” modern five speed gear box at the Autosports International Motorshow, January 1991.  The response was overwhelming.  If we’d have had 500 boxes we’d have sold them.  So we pressed on.  Time targets started coming and going, more promised targets.  Then doubt, fuelled by disquieting rumours surrounding the other parties concerned.  These rumours (well founded) started to become reality.  Then everything went downhill at break-neck speed.  All the time we were trying to salvage the “wreck” so to speak.  Of course, we’d promised articles to mags, test drives, deliveries to customers.  In the end we had to scrap the idea and suffer the indignation quietly, and the loss of 5 months hard work – it was now June.

Enter the venerable Dave Hirons of Tran-X.  We have been dealing with Tran-X for some years, marketing their range of straight cut gears and LSD’s etc – all of which are premium quality, backed up by an instantaneous response to technical queries and any problems (of which there are very few).  After a few hours of discussions, a new plan of action had been decided upon, David Hirons doing all the design, prototype and production BUT not exact time for distribution to be circulated.

Starting from scratch, Dave Hirons drew, redrew, produced prototype parts, scrapped many and remade them, finally producing a full working prototype that went into a Metro Turbo in September 1991.  And it worked, with only one problem – but an expected one.  This was all achieved while Dave continued to run his business, day to day.  We were stunned, pleased, amazed, etc.etc.  We wanted to commence production immediately of course, but we had learned the value of patience.  We had to have it extensively tested.

The decision has always been that until we are 100% sure of trouble free motoring we would not let one out.  We want our customers to have the best, as usual!  The next few months were spent running the Turbo into the ground to test the gearbox.  Several thousand miles later the gearbox was pulled for inspection, in December 1991.  Incredibly only one or two minor mods would be required to make the gearbox 100%.  However, Mr Hirons has been fit to make a couple of other mods to improve the design further.  This inevitably has meant further delays for production – despite the possible availability dates suggested by us (you can always hope!).  Once again, it is a case of “until we are satisfied that no problems will be experienced, the gearbox is not for sale!”  It is OH too easy to produce something, sell to the demand, then try and sort the problems out later.  Others have already tried this!

After testing and appraising different fifth gear ratios, and considering the three possible gear clusters for the helical cut road boxes, the ratio of .901 has been selected.  This gives effectively a “two ratio drop” in the final drive, ie. 3.44 becomes 3.1.  The race ratio will probably be.950, giving more or less a “one ratio drop”, ie. 3.9 becomes 3.7.

In the meantime other companies seemed to have been pushed into the race for producing a 5 speed gearbox.  Competition seemed to be hotting up, but still we resisted the pressures from customers and media men alike.  It also gave us a chance to see what the “opposition” were offering.  Having seen their designs we are more than quietly confident that ours will be the best one. Indeed since our gearbox appeared in one or two mags, it is curious to see in later pictures of the “early runners” that something has been added here and there!

We have not, as yet, tested one in race conditions, but feel there needs to be one or two extra modifications to give additional strength to the laygear support shaft.  This will be detailed shortly, and thoroughly tested of course.  There is a simple way to do this, but it would be prohibitively expensive – bearing in mind our self assembly/cost effective prerequisite – by producing a new casting.  The alternative way is to utilise the excellent engineering approach continually shown by Tran-X which would keep the overall production costs in the ball-park.

So here we are in March 1992.  Continually inundated with enquiries.  We were hoping to be able to release the gearbox at the end of this month, but the changes that are being made require re-tooling then retesting to doubly ensure reliability.  When it is ready, there will be no doubt about its capability!

Importation rules regarding vehicles are very specific: Only those over 25 years in age may be brought in to the USA without compilance to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).