Well all you Austin Seven gearbox experts, I would like some advice.

After 3 gearbox changes to our 1938 Pearl in the five days before the Yorkshire Experience I had to return the borrowed gearbox. I therefore decided to build up the Super Accessories close ratio gears that I bought in 1968/9 and had never used. I was interested to see if it would be tractable in the mildly tuned Pearl (large inlet valves, ported, Paul Bonewell cam and followers and Nippy carb and manifold). During assembly I had difficulty fitting the brass bush in the first motion gears. The hole seemed slightly oval. When the box was fully assembled it displayed a worrying tightness at one point of revolving the first motion shaft. I carefully checked for any problem with the new bearing and for any foreign bodies in the lay gears or other, to no avail (without complete dis-assembly). My thoughts were that the first motion shaft gear and/or lay gears had been distorted in the new gear production process.
I then proceeded to re-fit the box to the car and try it out. As expected the gearbox made a loud noise when first started up. I took the car for a short drive and the noise seemed to be lessening.
So my question is; will the gears bed in and in which case will it do any damage or am I wasting my time and start again?
I'm going for a longer drive this afternoon and will report back.
Thanks in anticipation
Martin

Location: Beautiful North Hampshire

Martin

Assuming your constant mesh close ratio set are straight cut?

I have such a close ratio box in my special. If the noise lessens with use, I dread to think what it was like when first assembled!.

I think what I am saying is either my gearbox is duff, or the noise stays.

Clearly its much quieter in top.

I have 3 Super Accssories gear boxes, one of which I assembled myself from a selection of bits and pieces I bought from them after the fire.
All 3 sets have helical 1st motion and are not welded.
My experience is that they run as quietly as a standard 4 speed syncro box.

Yes I've a superacc box too, and it's helical gears.
I know you don't want to hear this advice but if there's a tight spot, you really need to find out why, and fix it, because it shouldn't be there. It could be as simple as a burr on one of the gears, which might account for the noise, or dirt even, or it could be more serious. It doesn't strike me as a good idea to wait and see if it gets better