question about rear main shaft play

[bilbo]

can anyone tell me if there should there be any play in the rear main shaft? - side to side and up and down, not in and out. it's not leaking



also, any idea what might have caused the scoring on the bell housing? there's nothing detectable on the clutch plate



thanks, billy

[aircoolsteve]

hi billy. the imput shaft you refer to gets its support from the pilot bearing in the end of the crank so when the engine is out, it will lose its support and then will have a bit of slop in it.
i have no idea what those marks are on the inside of the housing. maybe has come to greif on something before it was built up. on the early cars, they had a spring clutch cover that had some thin support springs on them that located the slip ring the release bearing ran against. maybe one of thos springs has come off and marked the housing. looks like quite an early gearbox as it has no release bearing guide sleeve.
cheers. steve

[Editor]

Very odd marks - the side ones line up with the arms on the release shaft; some of the welding was suspect on the forks ISTR, so maybe they broke off - they did a mod at some point to the clutch release fork I think.