Today (Day 8) things have gone a lot better, I was able to have a good chat with Rick on the phone (thanks again Rick it was really helpful) and I followed his advice and I pulled the gear box back again, removed the clutch and followed his instruction to check for any damage caused by my 'botched' attempt yesterday. Luckily, I could not detect any deformity in the pressure plate. I tested this by putting it on the first motion shaft and getting my faithful helper to spin the propshaft. I held a steel rule against it and all looked well. I actually now think (as stated by Rick) that I was a 'country mile' away from getting everything lined up yesterday and didn't get any closer to the pressure plate, other than hitting it with the shaft.
I then refitted the clutch assembly taking a good forty minutes to ensure I did the best job I could. I am afraid the new Sealey kit was abandoned (all to loose) and I used a cheap Clarke one that was a much better fit. Then onto mating the gearbox and engine together....
This time I took things much slower and kept crawling from under the car, as per Rick's instructions, to ensure that the ever closing gap between the two was kept as even all around as possible. I did this by lifting/tilting the gearbox a little then inching it forward a little. Very time consuming, but lots more control. As stated in the thread above, the twist to clear the bulkhead is the difficult/heavy operation where things tend to get a bit crossed up!
Finally the gap was down to between 5 & 10mm. One more big push I thought, but it would not move at all and continued to bounce back off the engine. After 10 minutes of doing the same thing, and getting the same outcome, I got the torch and had a look at the small gap again. This closer inspection revealed that a metal dowel was not lined up accurately (I did not notice this on disassembly). I then made some fine (term is relative) adjustments and also used a big screwdriver though one of the bolt holes to get it lined up. Thankfully, I was then able to close the gap even more, but not close it completely! I then made a decision to put a bolt in on either side of the bellhousing. Luckily, and much to my relief, this had the effect of gently pulling the two parts together and eliminating any gap. The other bolts were then added and the two parts fixed tightly together!
My final job for the day (after six solid hours) was to refit the gearbox cross member. My arms were in agony at this point though
I have to work tomorrow, but hopefully I will get a chance later in the day to clean up the torsion bars, in preparation for refitting on Monday.
Regards
Alan