A couple of years ago I came up with a Daimler SP250 Dart that did not break the bank to badly, the gearbox was VERY noisy on all gears, specially first gear. Should I rebuild the original box which never had syncro on first and anyway right from the start they were not really strong enough to take the power of the wonderful V8. I decided I wanted to go my own way but not to change outwardly the look of anything. When Jaguar fitted the Daimler V8 into the mark 2 they did not want it to be faster than the Jaguar version. They strangled the fuel system side of thing reduced breathing and fitted and auto gearbox. I did know that a few manuals had been made but were very rare. So I started the big search for one. Eventually I found one but everything was in the wrong place for the dart engine. The starter motor position was totally wrong e.t.c The original dart box was gearbox and bell housing in one. but the Jag had a separate bell housing. The Jag gearbox had a long gear lever the Dart a short one. The mounting positions were all wrong e.t.c e.t.c. e.t.c I came up with a bell housing and started to mod it.
In between all this I rebuilt the V8 which I will show later. It now all fitted together but the next problem was clutch everything was wrong as the original Dart box operated the clutch via rods e.t.c and levers e.tc were even on the wrong side. Clutch splines on the new gearbox were different, and lots more I have forgotten. Anyway to cut a long story short and after much research I found a clutch pressure plate from an Austin Healey 3000 was just about right. Now for the clutch plates to fit both the pressure plate and gearbox splines, as most of you know I worked on pre-war Triumphs, and found that clutch plates from a 1934 Triumph Gloria fitted the bill, so I relined them and sorted a thrust bearing to suit and we were in business. Now to get the rebuilt V8 and new drivetrain into the car but of course the prop shaft was to long. So had to get that cut down and balanced. All together Hey presto!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next came how to make gear change with short gear lever. After much thought I designed and fabricated a remote. The pivot bearing I used were actually go cart track rod ends, Stainless rod and linear bearing.
Now from inside car all looks original, but the car now has Jag/Daimler strong all syncro box, I also did some mods in the box so that overdrive worked on 3rd and top effectively making it a 6 speed box. I can tell you it transformed the car to drive. As promised here are a few pictures of the engine
