The cylinder head for the TR6 engine is off to the machine shop and i've just about finished cleaning & repainting or plating everything else i can take off the engine: starter, alternator, water pump. The distributor is back from Advanced Distributors for a full rebuild and recurving, and it looks great. The radiator is out, but i'm waiting until i can give it a proper flush outside. 

It's zero degrees outside with many cold weeks of nothing to do. What's next? Take out the gearbox, of course. 

After a couple of weeks fretting about it, the removal was easier than i feared. It would have been easier with another set of hands. And warm temperatures. But totally manageable by myself, really. It's fair to say that it took longer to remove the interior (seats, carpet, tunnel, center brace) than to actually pull the gearbox itself.

Once way was clear and the gearbox unbolted i put a block of wood on my rolling jack to just support the weight of the gearbox. The manual calls for a jack under the engine as well, but the angle wasn't a problem and it pulled clear with just a couple of tugs. It might have helped that the exhaust system is already removed. One thing to remember is that once the input shaft is clear of the clutch parts you can just pull the gearbox up and to the side, and it's sitting on the floor of the car. It's not like you have to do a long deadlift to get it out of the car. 

It's good to see that the current pressure plate has pretty normal wear, nothing looks too bad so far.

Based on the date stamp and serial number, this should be the original gearbox for the car.

I'm going to do most of the work on this in my basement where it's not in the single digits above zero, but i wanted to get a couple of jobs done before bringing it in. First a basic cleanup so i'm not carrying a greasy lump into the house, just a fairly dirty one.

Next, removing the clutch fork and shaft. This has been working fine, but as is often the case, the pin holding the fork to the shaft had broken. I had to drill down into the fork to try to punch the remaining fork pieces out. Unfortunately, my aim was a little off so my thin punch started bending before the pin moved at all. 

So i got out the angle grinder and cut the shaft instead.

It seems dramatic, but that decision was easier when i realized a replacement shaft is only about $30. Once i had the pieces free of the bell housing i could see that i just needed to move the hole a bit further to the outside and i was able to get the pin piece free. The fork is reusable, and the NLA cone spring at the lever end is also still in great shape. I'll add another pin to reinforce this setup on the new shaft.

Now to bring this into the house and keep disassembling.