Laygear kit. The factory designed the laygear to be supported by two groups of 20 loose needle bearings. This bearing arrangement was replaced by sets of 12 caged roller bearings. This change increased the load on the layshaft considerably. Much has been written on how to deal with the situation, from adding more caged bearings to fitting a later MGB gearbox.
This solution goes back to loose needle rollers. The laygear is fitted with two sets of 20 needle rollers, each one being 3 mm in diameter and 29 mm long. This effectively doubles the number of load bearing needles from 4 to 8 at each end and because they are much longer, these needles distribute the load over a larger section of the layshaft.
