Transmission

Please ignore the CSC mounting details in this post as I have made some new discoveries. See a later post about the clutch


I sourced all of my transmission parts from Eurospeed in Brisbane. Geoff and Dan provided heaps of assistance both via email and on the phone. I settled on a rebuilt close ratio Ford Type 9 gearbox and matched it to a short throw shifter. The flywheel is mucher lighter at 4.5kg than the stock dual mass one in the Focus (at about 9kg). It's also about half the thickness. This has been bolted up with an Exedy heavy duty clutch disc and pressure plate. The only major challenges presented here was torquing the flywheel bolts (all new Ford parts) to about 112Nm, and getting the clutch disc centred between the pressure plate and the flywheel. Due to the much thinner flywheel postioning the ring gear closer to the motor, I will need to get the gear on the factory Focus starter motor machined down to about half its length to stop it from being constantly engaged on the ring gear.

The next challenge was to assemble the clutch Concentric Slave Cylinder (CSC) assembly and bell housing on the input shaft end of the gearbox. The CSC assembly consists of a new end plate for the gear box, spacer bolts, an adapter plate for the CSC to mount on to, the CSC, a bleed pipe and the clutch hose. Firstly I removed the stock end plate in the gear box and fitted the lovely machined alloy one supplied, including a new bearing. The new end plate is secured to the gear box by 4 bolts that also double up as the spacers for the adapter plate providing 4 anchor points. In mounting the end plate I had to also replace the gasket on the gearbox (best to order that when you order your gearbox!)

With the end plate on, next step is to mount the bell housing on the gear box. This is a custom bell housing specifically designed to mate the Duratec motor the the Ford Type 9 gear box. It also uses M12 x 1.5 bolts which are quite unusual (meaning I had to go and buy them separately). With the bell housing in place, the CSC adapter plate is then mounted to the spacer bolts in the end plate. This is where the fun starts. Depending on the clutch and flywheel configuration you have, you may have to shift the position of the CSC forward or backward to allow the thrust bearing to be properly engaged. This is where my lack of knowledge of how a CSC actuates the clutch is glaringly obvious. Abley assisted (and guided!) by my mate Steve (Shireman on OzClubbies), we came to the conclusion that we needed to have about 10-15mm of compression on the CSC itself when mounted to allow it to properly actuate the clutch when the pedal is pushed.

Through an exercise of trial and error (repeatedly assembling the finished gearbox to the motor and peering through the hole in the top of the bellhousing with a torch), we deduced that we needed to bring the CSC forward by about 6-7mm. We did this by adding a series of washers between the CSC and the adapter plate, and using longer bolts to secure the CSC. This has meant that the breather pipe and hose can "just" use the existing hole in the bell housing without any further modification. Once the final assembly was done and all the components were Loctited in and properly torqued, we were able to mate the finished transmission up to the motor and secure it with the 10 bolts. The final photo shows the finished package and you can also see the Birkin engine mounts low on the block, ready to go in. A huge thanks to Steve for his assistance and muscle as lining up the gearbox to the engine is definitely a 2 man job.