Finally my cabby is back from the mechanic's.
Gearboxes have been swapped but not that easy and for a reason that wasn't predicable.
If fitted as it was, the gearbox arm wasn't able to move freely up to the max.
I assume that the 216 Honda engine has some slight differences and that the marks may not have been the same.
Hence my good man has to make a suitable bracket to adjust the gearbox & fully ease the arm rotation.
Moreover bolts hadn't the same thread thus he had to tap the holes.
But now the gearbox works fine: from now on the cabby is a very delight to drive without any rattle.
Besides it was the same tune for the other points to cure:
- the locking motor was compatible indeed, I may rather say adaptable: one of the plugs wasn't exactly at the same place hence there wasn't enough room for it and the good man has to change slightly the position & add a length of wires. He swapped as well the broken clips with a few good ones from my mate's 418.
- in the driver's door the contacts were completely corroded so that the inside light couldn't switch on. Carefully cleaned and greased.
- in the boot... 5 out of 6 wires were broken between the body & the lid. Often seen but I scratch my head to know what was the use of the broken wires if everything else but the boot light was working well. Methinks the man who did the MOT last August may have been one eyed!
And I kept the better for the end: my good mechanic who never miss anything twice praised me for the work I'd done on the E85 starter fitting. He added that he didn't like that much when his clients were poking around & tampering under the bonnet (it was very funny because saying that he was intensely & intentionally looking at another client owner of the BMW he was working on - I assume that he knew well the man and that the latter was easily accepting jokes & criticism), but regarding myself he told us that from now on he had no longer any concern!
I came back home driving on air! 🤭
Well I'm now ready for the Sunday rally... I wish I'll be able to make nice pictures of the vintage cars but the weather forecast isn't that nice...