Ripped the box out of the missus KA today.
The new box we went to put in looked identical, even had the same part numbers stamped onto the casting of the box.

Except where the speedo drive fits on the old Box the new box has a bung in there?
We removed the bung but there's no cog to drive the speedo drive.

Before we go hunting for another donor box, does anybody know how many different types of boxes were likely fitted to the KA?

Bailes.

 

can you not swap it from the old gearbox?

 

Not without dismantling the whole gearbox.
There is nothing inside the gearbox to physically drive the speedo drive.

 

The crown wheel??

 

Yes! That's the badger.
The speedo drive and the er... "Pinion wheel??" slot in fine but there's no crown wheel in the box to drive it.

 

i'm fairly sure your gearbox has got a crown wheel in it

 

so what can you see when you look into the new gearbox?

 

Nothing. You remove the bung and all you can see is the oil floating about.

Remove the speedo drive out of the old box and you can see a crown wheel that drives the speedo drive??

 

I'm pretty sure it does too.
But there should be a separate cog or crown wheel to drive the speedo drive.

 

Had a Google.
It's more like a helical gear. Not a crown wheel!

 

After 3 different gearboxes we finally found one that fit!
First one didn't have a speedo drive.
Second had it's mount in the wrong place.
Third came off a SportKA but fits fine.

God knows what the ratios are going to be like

 

Later boxes won't have a speedo drive as it's worked out through ABS and sent to instruments/PCM via CAN.

 

Yeah that's what I assumed!

Just worked out the gear ratios.
Not too bad.
70mph with the standard box is 3300rpm.
70mph with the SportKA box is 3600rpm.

1st is slightly longer. All the rest are marginally shorter. No biggie really.