Some may know from the random thoughts thread and Facebook that my car suffered a gearbox failure while at Castle Combe the other week.
The day started well and I took the car out with my mrs for the first session. I like to drive a few sessions at around 80% to get everything screaming hot, adjust the tyre pressures etc. The car felt good, there was only a few laps when I turned into Camp and the rear of the car completely broke away. I ended up in a spin and through some luck I managed to keep it on the black stuff. usually if you spin you are black flagged, they let me carry on and I'm not sure why but hey ho. As I pulled away trying to leave my shame behind I noticed a load of smoke coming from the rear of the car. I suspected it was just tyre smoke from the spin. I did maybe another lap or two but the car felt awful, no confidence in it under braking, I kept missing gears and turn in felt poor. Eventually I noticed a loud whine coming from the front of the car. I was at the end of the lap so decided to pull in. As I was coming in, I had no gears so ended up having to be coasted in. Being a trained internet mechanic, I opened the bonnet and noticed smoke coming from the pressure release valve on the gearbox. Knowing at this point it was terminal, I got towed to the car park and arranged recovery to TGM.
I did notice that the little rubber valve was missing off the pressure valve, plus there was gearbox oil everywhere. Then I looked through some pics and noticed this:
I took that photo the day before Combe as I had to refit the cold air feed to the Mugen intake. What I've circled is what I believe to be the release valve without the rubber bit. Why it is missing I'm not sure.
I think what's happened is that due to this hole I ended up with gearbox oil on the rear tyres. This would explain the spin and the impending death of the gearbox due to it overheating.
Tom hasn't pulled it apart yet, or if he has he hasn't rang me to tell me what's left of the inside of it. I just hope my diff and final drive are salvageable.