So today I thought I'd see if the gearbox mount was going to be OK... and got a bit carried away (see pics *grin*). I'd read and spoken to a few people who told me that the gearbox mount could be made to fit the 1st gen with a bit of modding. The car was rolled out of the garage, jacked up and ready to roll. The gearbox mount that was sitting on the gearbox on the "mobile engine support tool" (see last entry) , so I undid the 4 12mm bolts holding it on, and had a look under the car to see what we had.
So, after finding that the shape of the mount was *that* helpful, it had to be changed a little to fit. There were two basic issues:
I tried to flatten out the mount to get the different sides parallel, firstly and somewhat ambitiously trying to hammer it flat (yeah, right. No chance!). So after that I bolted the mount onto the base of the car, and put a couple of threaded bars into the other side. This allowed me to run a bolt up the shaft, and tighten it, forcing the mount to flatten out. This worked a treat, and I ended up with a nice flat engine mount.
Well, once I got that in place, it was just too tempting to have a go at getting the engine in to see if it all lined up OK (which is where all the pics above came from). So it was yanked up into the air, and using the load leveller, moving the car forward and taking time, it was slotted into place. Once it was there, it was a simple case of doing up the bolts on the gearbox mount and all was fabulous and as you see above.
I do need now to get the front plate, engine bracket and sump to get the thing properly mounted, and when I've done that it will be ready for the engine bay to be prepared and the engine to be painted and tidied up...