Gear box fun

On Wednesday our new mechanic arrived on the ship - a very experienced guy called Andy from Tasmania. Today, under his expert guidance, we did something we've never attempted before - remove and replace a Nissan Patrol gearbox. And my oh my, I now know why we've never attempted it before - it came out easy, but took 6 hours to put back in. We even had to hire in extra mechanics for the job - at one stage we had no less than 7 mechanics working on it. Of course, with no car lift or gearbox jack, and only the uneven cobbles of the dock for our trolley jacks, we were bound to struggle. We ended up lifting the gearbox into position with a strap hanging off a scaffolding bar which was lifted by 2 guys standing next to the drivers door, and 2 guys standing by the front passengers door. Right now the gearbox is back in place, but not tight yet - still plenty to do on Monday. Never again. Olly