Sadly I have to confess to sitting under the car contemplating this with a cup of tea crazy3

Like you the thought of cutting the bellhousing casting off was tempting but that would leave a gaping hole exposing the clutch. Not ideal so some sort of semi sealed cover would be needed. All a bit too hard so I swiftly gave up on that and decided to just fill the step with my solid block. The cross member is equally awkward. Replacing it with something that has at least the same structural integrity would be very difficult, there’s so little depth to play with. Butchering the cross member to reduce some of its depth is a definite ‘no no’ too as that would remove critical strength. There is little scope to raise it either. The cross member sits quite close to the Mazda box anyway and you also need wriggle room should the box ever need to come out. All a bit impractical so took the easy route again hence the skid. One thing I did do re the skid was to thread the cross member for the fixings rather than use nuts. As said there is little room and the nuts might just interfere with the gearbox as it shakes around on the mounts.


But there is of course a very simple solution innocent

Just change to a pre 2011 +4 with a MT75 box grin2

[Linked Image]

Roger
2011 Plus 4