Restoration, 2025
Overdrive repair
There were no visible problems in OD and I tried to dismantle it but bolts were so stuck that wrenches bend and bolts started to deform. As I also wondered spare parts availability and maybe little bit of my skills too, I decided to send it to UK company OD Spares for repair. They found nothing broken, but 64 years wear had all seals and bushes worn so I guess it could not anymore make and keep hydraulic pressure. After OD came back, installation was much easier as everything was already ready. Of course I had to put everything I had dismantled back. On test drive (and after it) everything worked fine. Mission accomplished.
My overdrive has been misbehaving years and finally it stopped working at all. The service manual says that you have to remove engine/gearbox to get overdrive out, but as I have very small garage I tried to avoid that and hoped that if I tilt the engine backwards, there would be enough space to slide OD out. So I removed rear gearbox support,engine rear support and anti-roll bar and lowered gearbox/OD down but even I got OD off some 20cm/4" the axle from gearbox is so long that OD hit transmission tunnel before it could slide off the axle. I still wanted to avoid engine drop, so I also removed radiator, front engine mounts, carb links etc. and borrowed engine hoist and was finally able to tilt engine little bit more and OD slide off.