Some driving and some spannering

Over the past week or so 't Kreng has clocked up a few more miles. Firstly there was our annual Poasjrit (or Easter Tour). A by now traditional opening of the driving season for a few like minded friends on the second Easter day. And as the weather forecast wasn't that brilliant I left the DHC in the shed and took 't Kreng instead.

But I only clocked up some 200 kilometres. Because I didn't have a navigator and Edje doesn't fit in 't Kreng's bucket seats, I decided to "volunteer" as his navigator. Luckily I'm rather accustomed to hairdressers cars, so it wasn't too bad to be driven around the Dutch, Belgian and German border area in a modern Mini Cooper S convertible. Needless to mention I forgot to take some pictures after I left 't Kreng behind on the parking lot ...

And with the Easter weekend behind us, it was time to start on the transmission of my Defender. The reason for this operation was a quickly increasing grinding noise which seemed to be coming from the gearbox while braking on the engine. Also with both the gearbox and the transfer box in neutral there was an ever increasing rattling noise emitting from the gearbox. And this might point to a fault inside the gearbox. Probably a bearing or maybe some of the gears inside?

So I dropped the Defender of at Jan Moorthaemer's place last Tuesday morning for a gearbox operation and headed back to the office, in the knowledge the car is in safe hands. Though he told me he didn't have the time to start on the car immediately. So when I received a picture from him of a rather sad looking central exhaust silencer box, on Wednesday morning, my curiosity was aroused. As I was preparing to take 't Kreng out for a short trip, the route was adapted slightly to have a look at the progress so far. And when entering the workshop I was greeted by my Defender on one of the four-post-lifts and a huge gap underneath were the transmission used to be:

And a few of the bits and pieces that used to sit in said gap. Clearly visible that I will at least need a new centre box for the exhaust system:

But with the box removed from the car, the first inspection of the gearbox didn't really show anything looking, feeling or sounding very wrong. So of for the next stage, dismantling the gearbox. But that'll have to wait for a while as it was time to enjoy 't Kreng on some local country lanes instead: