I was trying to keep the cost down as much as possible as this gearbox is just going to sit in the workshop in case I ever need another one. Hopefully not as the one I have just fitted in the car is a recon one, this is the one I took out when I did my engine swap and it had a very "clattery" first gear.
On strip down it had the usual chipped and worn teeth on the 1st gear ring and also on the lay gear. The layshaft had also picked up on the surface where one of the needle rollers runs as well.
I was lucky to find a brand new lay gear for the right sort of money as well as a very good secondhand 1st gear ring, so I then looked on ebay and found a seller offering a lay shaft and needle roller bearing kit at a cheaper price than the usual sellers, so I bought one.
When it arrived I did a quick trial assembly and it ran worse than the old ones I had just removed. So I did some comparison measurements to see why.
This shows the overall length of the new shaft on the right to be around 2mm shorten than the original, when installed it barely engaged with the front cover and it would not have taken much for it to start spinning in the gearbox casing causing a lot of damage.
The next one shows the diameter of the original shaft.
And finally the new shaft.
I sent these photo's to the ebay seller with an explanation of why they were never going to be fitted to my gearbox, and to be fair he gave me a full refund including return postage.
I ended up doing what I should have done in the first place and paid a little more for a set from ESM, I should have twigged sooner when I realised the ESM ones are listed as "Correct Length"
Phil