I set about yesterday to swap out the gearbox and was again hindered by the fact that my various (quality) sockets and open enders needed to be forced onto the nuts and bolts. Something has happened to them over the years it seems, they have swelled up (mild surface rust ) or perhaps they made them a tight fit from the factory?
The other thing that's very common on older Australian-made/assembled machines is the use of Whitworth [and less commonly BSF] fasteners on the chassis. These were the commonest local standards in the pre-metric days, not so much US AF-hex UNC/UNF/SAE. So you really need a few BSW/BSF spanners and sockets to work on them. Or 'universal' tools like the 'Metrinch' range.
Then a POXY circlip on the input shaft held me up for an hour as well as needing to find a replacement as well as buy a pair of small circlip pliers to reattach it.
It always seems to be just one small task that doesn't go well, and holds up the entire job!
