Felly Fav and Trum. *Wanna see a fupped engine?**

[Yoss]

The off centre one obviously stands out more but wether it is more aesthetically pleasing is a matter of personal opinion. I assume it was part of Bertones original design but Škoda soon decided a more conventional symmetrical design would please more normal people. I expect if Bertone had there way completely it would have had even more weird details. 

[Yoss]

For instance. 

[Yoss]

So I've had the new Fav a week now, so do I regret it? I must admit I was beginning to before I actually picked it up. During the day I was convincing myself it was a good idea but I was laying in bed at night thinking what have I done and praying somebody would outbid me. And then in the morning I'd calm down again and hope I'd win it again. 

Driving home it was obvious it needed some work, mainly there were any number of clonks and rattles underneath which I have been slowly working my way through. First thing I found was this lifting eye (?) on the end of the gearbox. 

You can clearly see a scuff mark on the chassis leg above it. So I simply loosened the bolt swivelled the eye round and tightened it up again. This helped but the big clonk was still there and its fairly obvious that if it is moving that much there must be a problem with the engine mount. 

Seen here alongside the eye. But there is also another mount underneath. I had recently replaced it on the Felicia so I took it off again. This is the two together. 

The old one is solid but quite obviously elderly, and actually has an Audi logo moulded in to the rubber, but seemed OK. I had to remove it to see the small end which also has a bush in but it's not visible with it in place. But really there was no problem there. 

So back the top mount. The rubber looked OK but is probably a bit soft. And the whole design is probably not up to the extra power. In fact it was modified on the Felicia, even the 1.3. It looks like this. 

The square bit you can see is a bit of raised aluminium cast in to the gearbox housing. Then in the bracket that surrounds it you can just see two bits of rubber so as the engine rocks sideways the the square casting bumps into the rubber thus stopping it moving any further. That is attached to a new bracket spot welded to the chassis leg but the same round rubber mount is underneath. 

So I found a bit of rubber and wedged it between the two parts of the mounting. 

Which I think can be officially called a bodge but it did the trick. No more clonk. So I have ordered a sheet of thinner, 6mm, rubber and will cut out some big washers, slide the bolt out and put one either side so there can still be a bit of movement but the rubber will stop the two metal bits clashing. 

Elsewhere I found these rusty marks under the bonnet. 

With corresponding rusty marks on the strut brace. So some self adhesive foam rubber on the strut brace and you can already see the impression the bonnet has made. 

So that's another rattle sorted. It feels much better now. You still have to take off gently but not because of the engine mount, simply because of the power. 

I also found the ECU. It is tucked away behind the battery. Just visible here. 

It was just a case of following the wires really. Quite a neat place

There's still a fair few little jobs to do but it feels good now. Much more grown up than the other Favorit, especially with the power steering, but not as grown up as the Felicia as it's still a bit of tearaway. 

I definitely don't regret it now. I mean I'd always said I wouldn't buy anything sight unseen off ebay but it is a one off and I think I would have regretted it if I'd let it get away. 

[Yoss]

So I decided to a job properlyish and ordered some thinner rubber and cut these out. 

The idea was to pull the long bolt out of the engine mount, whilst supporting the gearbox from underneath obvs, then drop one of these in either side and put the bolt back in again. That way they can never fall out. To be fair the original bodge hadn't gone anywhere but I was still getting a small clonk when backing off the throttle suddenly as the engine leaned the other way. I figured that was point the bit of rubber was going to fall out.

But then I looked at it and decided I was either going to have to drop the gearbox a long way or remove the part of the mounting that is bolted to the chassis rail so I went for a semi bodge and did this. 

So I now have this. 

Thick rubber one side, thin the other because there was a bigger gap one side. But they're a really tight fit and had to be tapped home with a hammer and long  quarter inch ratchet extension bar. They're never going anywhere and if they do I put a couple of spare bits in the glove box. I can now accelerate, brake or back off the throttle as much I like. 

 

In other news it is now designated dog car to replace Felicia. Now Chieveley travels quite well, he's happy to sit there looking out the window, then have a bit of a lie down, then get up and have another look about. But he gets impatient when we stop and don't immediately get out, he doesn't understand the concept of traffic lights. Then he starts wacking the door trims with his not inconsiderable feet and has put some big scratches in the door trims. I don't want him doing it to the new car so I have taken the door trims off the Felicia and overlayed them in the Fav. They fit quite well seeing as they are essentially the same door. 

So I put him in, put the door trim here and shut the door. 

[Stanky]

Top work, I have previous convictions with AEE engine'd malarkey and they are decent engines, but for a few foibles. The crankcase breather clogs up with mayo really badly in cold weather, never got it fixed, but removing the breather pipe that goes down the back of the engine and blowing it out with an airline fixed it, albeit in a messy way.

They fitted up to lots of different gearboxes, I will need to dig my info out, but following an ill-advised offroading event in a retail park in Brislington many years ago, I required a replacement gearbox. This was inconvenient, but since the clutch in the car I had at the time was on its very last legs, was not as bad as it could have been. I had the shortest ratio 5-speed AEE compatible gearbox fitted and the car (a Mk3 golf CL) was then quite a bit more lively. Not QUICK quick, but a lot quicker than before, and more enjoyable to drive about enthusiastically. It did suffer on the motorway though, with gearing in 5th equating to 20mph/1000rpm in 5th and topping out at 105mph.

That golf remains the only car I have ever driven that will rev to the redline in top gear and hit the limiter before air resistance stops play.

Lots of lovely torque for a 1600cc car, and probably a bit faster in a felicia than a mk3 golf (?). We've now got a Fabia with the AEX 1.4 with a 16v head and the noise it makes is identical to my old AEE, anything over 3000rpm and it sounds like a braying donkey.

[Yoss]

It's a weird engine, in that I spent the first three years convincing myself that the head gasket had gone. I mean all cars steam from the exhaust when it's cold but this one seems to do it all the time and the filler cap collects mayo. It does clear on a long journey but as it's normally used for work, two and a half miles each way, or popping to the shops it rarely does long journeys so the mayo rarely clears. I even had my MOT garage stick their gas analyser in the header tank which showed nothing amiss and it doesn't use water. It just seems to be dragging condensation out of the air and turning it into Baileys in the cam cover. I stopped worrying after about three years. We've had it nine years now. 

It seems woefully underpowered for a 1.6, at 75hp it's only 7 more than the Škoda 1.3 pushrod lump in MPI form. It's main advantage over the smaller engine being smoothness. The difference between that and the ARC (and almost identical AVY from the Lupo GTI) is incredible considering the block is almost identical but with a 16v head.

On a side note I would love somebody to explain to me the logic to VW engine codes. Like I say, the ARC and AVY are practically identical and completely interchangeable. I know, off the top of my head that the 1.4 16v version of the same engine is AFH, so they all start with A but the next two letters appear quite random. 

And lastly, I've mentioned it before but Škoda had their own 1.6 8v ready to go at the time of the VW takeover but weren't allowed to use it which seems a crying shame. It had 101hp but was also all aluminium so would be lighter than the AEE so would also improve handling. That seems like the perfect engine for a car of this size. This ARC engine I have in the new Fav is 125bhp and is proper quick and great fun but some people (Mrs Yoss) might*say it is too quick. The 101hp Škoda engine would have been perfect for a warm hatch and a noticeable step up from the 1.3 which the AEE isn't. They had got as far as some prototypes, I don't know how many but there is one in a Favorit in the Škoda museum. Perhaps there were other reasons for not putting it in to production other than sour grapes from VW which is what I'm imagining. 

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

15 minutes ago, Yoss said:

sour grapes from VW

That's also why we don't have a Fabia vRS anymore, I reckon. The Monte Carlo outdone it due to the massive issue with the CAVE engines shitting themselves.

[Yoss]

2 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

That's also why we don't have a Fabia vRS anymore, I reckon. The Monte Carlo outdone it due to the massive issue with the CAVE engines shitting themselves.

Yes, I also have a possibly irrational mistrust of VW where Škoda are concerned. I have no evidence to justify it but it's there just the same. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

59 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Yes, I also have a possibly irrational mistrust of VW where Škoda are concerned. I have no evidence to justify it but it's there just the same. 

Glad it isn't just me.

[Yoss]

So I've done my first mpg test for the new Favorit. A three day trip round Dorset with brief forays in to Devon and Somerset. A mix of fast dual carriage ways, A31 and A35 plus the five miles of M27 before it fizzles out, but mostly trundling around the Dorset lanes and town driving. 

Brimmed it before leaving and brimmed it again this morning. 

211 miles. 

 

22.81 litres. Which is almost exactly five gallons. This works out at almost exactly 42mpg which I'm very happy with. I think it would do more on a steady run. 

I honestly think this might be more economical than the standard car. Mainly because it is so understressed in normal driving in such a light car. I'm just tickling the throttle in most cases whereas in the 1.3 I'm flooring it most if the time. If I drove the new one the same way I would soon drive in to the back of something. 

 

[Yoss]

My friend turned up with his trailer today. 

And took Felicia away. 

It's not coming back this time unfortunately. I've already stripped a lot of useful parts off of it but as it was in the garage I had to keep it as a rolling shell otherwise it would be stuck in the garage which is at the back of the house. So my friend has a lot more room than I do (and a trailer, and an Audi 80 2.6 quattro to pull it) so I said if I could finish stripping it at his house he could have the proceeds from weighing in the shell. 

It does seem a shame to scrap it, but it stopped working two days after I bid on the new Favorit, lack of spark, and the usual things produced no results and there are some good bits on it but the laquer peel now makes it look quite scruffy. So any attempt to sell would probably only net a few hundred and I suspect if I did it would still be dead within two years. So I might as well have all the good bits myself as they'd be lost forever if I sold it. 

The electric windows are particularly rare so they have been carefully stripped out complete with all the wiring. In fact they are so rare that none of the wiring was integrated in to the loom, just lashed on to it with cable ties which was handy for removing it. I am hoping it can all be transferred to the new Favorit at some point. The glass is the same, the mounting points appear to be in the same place, I just have to drill three holes to mount the motor. But that's for the future. 

But the removal of the Felicia means the Triumph has been able to get back to the safety and comfort of the garage and for the first time since I bought the new one, both Favs are parked together in the drive which is visually very pleasing. 

Complete with bonus Matiz next door which must be proper bona fide shite by now. 

 

I have literally just noticed, whilst proof reading this that the rear wipers point opposite ways. That's another difference between the mk1 and mk2 that I didn't know about. There is almost nothing interchangeable on these two cars. 

[Andyrew]

Any chance the fellys front wings are rust free?

[Yoss]

The offside one is. The nearside one has a little rust just in front of the wheel above the bumper where they usually go but it might not have gone through. I don't actually know I was making a point of not poking it while it was still in use. Are you interested? 

[Andyrew]

17 hours ago, Yoss said:

The offside one is. The nearside one has a little rust just in front of the wheel above the bumper where they usually go but it might not have gone through. I don't actually know I was making a point of not poking it while it was still in use. Are you interested? 

Ha, perfect timing. Id just bought a pair of new ones but a decent pair in the same colour as the car would be less hassle! 

Possibly after a couple of other bits too. Ill drop you a message.

[tom13]

What a lovely pair. Some of my fave colour cars right there.

[Yoss]

Been round my friends stripping more bits off the Felicia. She looks a bit sad now, definitely past the point of no return. 

Some interesting stuff keeping it company. 

Yes, he's a VAG man but there's not a pineapple in sight. The Audi 80 and A2 are bog standard the T2 is a bit lower and has some period alloys on but that's it. And I have to say the ride quality is brilliant, it really is smooth. Its a day van not a camper and I have to begrudgingly admit it is a nice place to both sit in and travel. There's a V8 Morgan sitting in the other corner too. 

He lives in a village on the edge of the New Forest where everybody knows each other. He was attempting to wash the 80 while I was stripping Felicia. First an old boy trundled up in an Austin 7 for a chat. Then somebody else arrived in an Omega (bit more Autoshite) with a stash of original Trico stainless steel wiper blade arms that he'd found somewhere. Then a third guy turned up in a modern but apparently he owns a TR6. It's like that all the time round there. 

 

Now I am obsessed with the electric windows on the Felly as they are so rare and was determined to remove them in their entirety and intact. I finally did it but the car looked like this by the time I'd finished. 

I am hoping to eventually fit them to the green Favorit but I will certainly simplify the routing. Though one of the things I had to remove was the seat belt pre tensioners because the plug that plugs in to the motors wouldn't fit through a hole they shared. That won't be a problem on the Fav.

So this is the whole loom spread out in the loft. 

The thick blue black wires go in to the doors and attach to the motors. The thin red wire on the left ends in a white plug that takes a standard four pin relay (which is currently still attached to the car as I couldn't reach the self tapper that attached it to the bulkhead but I will get it). Two of the wires coming out of the relay went to the fusebox. They are the only wires I cut as they went in to terminal blocks shared with many other wires.

The switch pack has a few extra wires as they light up but it's all self contained. This sits in the centre console. 

The long brown wire on the left went to an earthing point on the steering column but it could be earthed anywhere. And that's it. Just about the simplest electric window system possible. 

The whole lot, windows, mechanisms and loom are now carefully marked up and sitting in their own corner of the loft. 

 

[Yoss]

So I ignored the Felicia today and had a go at the Triumph which has a poorly sounding gearbox. I had already stripped out the carpets and parcel shelf. Then there is a big rectangular tin plate in the bulkhead that gives access to the back of the gearbox. 

I had already removed the input shaft by the time I remembered to take any pictures. 

 

I was hoping this bearing at the top was the culprit as it sounded noisier at the top. 

Also I have a brand new one. 

In a nice British Leyland box

 

Close up. But to remove it I have to take the back off the gearbox. 

Which involves putting a trolley jack under the engine/gearbox, jacking it up enough to get rear engine mount out and then it's just about ten half inch bolts around the outside. And you have this. 

That bearing is a push fit in to the centre plate. There are some bits of selector fork that unclip then you screw a slide hammer in to a hole in the centre plate to tap it out but before I got to that I thought I'd clean the back plate up a bit. 

That's when I found these bits. 

Well that's fucked then. That's bits of teeth and notice the metallic grease on the rag at the bottom of the picture. That's in the oil. So even if I find the offending gear the the whole box will need stripping and cleaning. New gearbox time then. We'll, not new but I have a spare one, although it is currently stored in a friends unit but I think I'll be giving him a ring. 

[Yoss]

Just found this wedged behind the passenger airbag bracket on Felicia. 

I think its fairly safe to say that's been there since it was built. It was a strange place to just fall in to, almost as if it was put there deliberately. Worth about 15p. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

34 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Just found this wedged behind the passenger airbag bracket on Felicia. 

I think its fairly safe to say that's been there since it was built. It was a strange place to just fall in to, almost as if it was put there deliberately. Worth about 15p. 

Car's paying for itself now.

[Yoss]

3 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Car's paying for itself now.

Does bring to mind the old Škoda jokes doesn't it. How do you double the value of your Škoda? Tuck a 5Kč coin down behind the passenger airbag bracket. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

13 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Does bring to mind the old Škoda jokes doesn't it. How do you double the value of your Škoda? Tuck a 5Kč coin down behind the passenger airbag bracket. 

They really do hold their value.

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, Yoss said:

Just found this wedged behind the passenger airbag bracket on Felicia. 

I think its fairly safe to say that's been there since it was built. It was a strange place to just fall in to, almost as if it was put there deliberately. Worth about 15p. 

are you sure its not actually part of the design/doing some vital function? LOL 

 

It reminds me of people servicing old apple laptops ones with DVD drives still, would always find a Penny in their optical drive

https://fossbytes.com/mystery-coins-inside-apple-macbooks/

I seem to recall reading that someone figured out it was stuck there for vibration dampening, but I cant find that article so maybe I was just imagining it

(I do still use an older 2012 MacBook Pro with optical drive, next time I service it I should have a look and see LOL)

[Yoss]

So I removed all the seats in blue Favorit, or all bar the drivers seat if we're being pedantic, and filled it with as much flat and soft material as possible so something must be going on. 

 

As mentioned a couple of weeks back the Triumphs gearbox is dead and a friend of mine was looking after my spare gearbox. He took it in nine years ago when I was moving house and I was trying to get as much stuff out of the way beforehand as you really don't want to be lugging shit like that around on moving day itself. 

I have mentioned it several times over the years but he said it wasn't in the way. He does have a nice big unit, big enough for four cars so I thought I'd let him look after it. Well now it's time to go and get it back. He also has an engine crane he said I could borrow which is handy. This is why the front passenger seat had to come out too. 

Hence one gearbox and one engine crane. 

And the view from the drivers seat. 

Perfectly safe*. We used the seatbelt and some big cable ties to keep it steady but even so I was cornering very gingerly. But its only ten minutes away so not too bad. 

A Triumph 1300 gearbox is just about the heaviest thing I can lift on my own but even then only for very short periods. This is the sole reason I own this set of sack trucks. 

Even then they had been sat outside since 2015 which was the last time I had the engine out and the wheels were seized solid so before I went and picked the gearbox up I had to strip the wheels off it and clean up and grease the axles, which are actually just bits of tubing. 

You can tell Chieveley came from a Mediterranean climate, he will follow the sun round the garden. 

[Yoss]

Anatomy of a Triumph front wheel drive gearbox if anybody is interested. It's a big bugger as I already mentioned. Unlike the BMC FWD stuff it has separate fluids for engine, gears and diff. 

 

The gears are on the left in this picture and the diff on the right. The big rectangular hole is where the engine sits so that is effectively the sump. And the little tube on the left carries the clutch release bearing. 

 

The clutch itself sits on this shaft, that's where the back of the engine sits. 

 

And if I slide the other end of the shaft out you'll see these splines. These carry all 75 bhp down to the gears themselves. And if they look feeble, this is the uprated 1500 version. They're about 30% shorter on an original 1300 box and would quite regularly strip their splines. 

 

From above you can see this big tube running through the sump. This carries the main shaft from gearbox to diff so the sump is effectively just those two holes either side of the tube. 

 

And all of this is cast iron so you can see why the bloody thing is so ridiculously heavy. Look on the bright side I guess it helps the centre of gravity. 

Here I have test fitted a gear stick just to see if it still selects gears. That is all there is, no other linkages so as long as you fit new bushes in the base of the lever it is a lovely slick gear change. That's the extent of my testing. I could strip it down and check all the gears but this is the only box I have so I don't really have any other options so I may as well bung it in and see. 

 

Gearboxes are supposedly filled for life, though I don't think life was expected to be 53 years. So there is no drain plug, you have to tip the gearbox on its side and pour it out of the filling hole. On filling you just keep putting it in until you reach the level of the filler hole. The old oil was still a lovely golden colour unlike the black stuff that came out of my other box so I'm hoping for the best. 

You can also see here that I have cleaned the sump out as best I can but I've had it 12 years so it's inevitable there's a lot of crap in there. I shall certainly be doing frequent oil changes to start with. 

 

On the car itself I have undone everything that needs undoing and I am now hanging the engine/gearbox lump off of the crane. I'm using this blue rope as I find more convenient to adjust than chains. It claims to be able to carry 950kg and I've doubled it up so it should be fine but to be on the safe side it is hanging there now and I'm leaving it overnight. If it hasn't snapped by the morning I doubt it is going to. 

 

And all this was achieved with minimal blood loss. 

 

[Yoss]

Well I've got the engine this far but I think I might hit the ceiling. It has to come out at this angle for the back of the box to clear the bulkhead. 

I might lower it and reposition the hook so the thing is level, might give me enough room. Other wise I'm gonna have to pull the car out of the garage and start again. 

But whilst it's up here I've swapped the inner driveshafts over. Rotoflexs couplings aren't in the best shape but I don't replace them until they break. New ones are getting silly prices as they are shared with Vittese, GT6 and I believe at least some Granadas. I have a few in stock. 

 

The gearbox change also means I will be getting rid of this broken corner. I don't think it really caused any issues but I knew it was there. 

 

And Chieveley is still offering moral support. 

[Yoss]

So in the end I had to roll the car out of the garage. It just made life easier. 

So this is the whole lump just after removal. 

Then it's a case of undoing all the sump bolts, or what would be called sump bolts on any other car, and then hoisting it up again to let the weight of the gearbox separate the two. Except the gasket was so good it actually held the weight of the gearbox so I had it hanging about an inch off the ground and went round with a block of wood and a stout hammer and it soon dropped off. 

Then came the worst job. Cleaning the old gasket off the bottom of the block with it hanging off the crane. There are no pictures of this as it was too tedious. But once done the new* box was wheeled in under the engine. 

This is where the sack trucks are a godsend and why I keep them. I consider them a special tool just for this job. Joining the two has to be done very carefully so as not to disturb or damage the gasket. Gasket is also coated in Wellseal. This is much better than any silicon sealant as it never completely dries and is harmless if it oozes out into the innards of the engine. 

These gaskets are getting rare now as they are unique to the FWD. RWD cars with this engine use a much thicker cork type gasket. I still have a couple in stock but I don't want to be wasting any. So I lower the engine to within an inch or two of the gearbox then use a trolley jack under the sack trucks for the final minute adjustments. 

Once it's really close but not quite touching I get a couple of bolts in either side. 

First bolt makes contact :

Once these are in by just a few threads I know the worst is over and I should be OK from here and can lower the engine the last centimetre and refit the rest of the bolts. 

 

Then refitting is the reverse of removal. So the engine and new box are now back in the hole and all* I have to do is join everything back up again. I forgot to take more pictures as I had a deadline in that we had a load of washing in and I needed to get the car back in the garage before the washing finished as I was doing this work under the washing line! 

But here it is all tucked away back in the garage. I still need to realign it to get the engine mounts to line up but the worst is done now and the major potential for mishap hasn't happened so I I feel a lot more relaxed. 

 

Chieveley was in his usual spot. 

 

Until I put everything away. Then moved to gaurd the garage doors for me. 

[Yoss]

I was talking to @Andyrew the other day, mainly Škodachat but the subject of this gearbox swap came up. The main question was why? Why did Triumph do it like this? My theory is the Mini and then ADO16 had just been released and Triumph wanted some of the FWD action as it looked like the future. But how to do it quickly as possible using as many stock parts. So it had to have the Herald/Spitfire engine and the gearbox internals also have some common parts with the Herald. But that engine was never going to fit sideways in this upcoming saloon so it had to be in line. And this is what they came up with.

To be honest it is all a bit Heath Robinson and is the weak point in the whole car. Whilst chatting I remembered that years ago I heard Saab actually based their gearbox for the 99 on this contraption but developed it so it worked. They did the same with the engine of course. Early 99 engines are a direct copy (under licence, they didn't just steal it) of the Dolomite 1850 slant 4 but again Saab developed it over the years and later ones look rather different. Their 16v had twin cams unlike the Dolomite Sprint. 

Dolomite. 

 

Saab 

 

But the last time I heard about the gearbox thing was so long ago I didn't have the Internet so it was all hearsay, to me at least, so I decided to go and have a look and, bugger me, they really did copy the concept, if not the actual gearbox because it's a bit shit. 

Triumph 

Saab

 

Diff end on the Triumph. 

And the Saab 

 

 

The most notable thing, to me at least, is that it appears to be aluminium so it is probably quite easy to manhandle. 

 

Input shaft on the Triumph 

And Saab 

 

Though the Saab uses a big triplex chain to get power from the shaft to the gears... 

Whereas the Triumph has a series of gears. 

 

But the biggest difference is that Saab install it the other way round so that the clutch is at the front. In this respect I think triumph got it right as most of the weight is behind the front axle and whilst the clutch is at the back it is still easily accessible from the engine bay. 

 

This sums up Leyland stuff really. They came up with loads of good ideas and were technologically miles ahead of Ford and Vauxhaul but never devoloped anything properly. Any flaws that made it through to production stayed in production for the duration of the model. Just my observations anyway. 

 

[Fumbler]

It makes one wonder how compatible the Saab gearboxes are with Triumph engines, and whether that would make any noticeable improvements.

[Yoss]

Indeed. It wouldn't be a straight swap, at the very least, the engine mounts would need to be fabricated. It wouldn't be worth it just to put the 1850 in, that only has 91bhp and I've already got 75bhp in the 1300TC so it really wouldn't be worth all the hassle for an extra 16bhp. 

But if you fit a whole Saab engine and box it could be fun but of course it's back to front. So you could possibly turn it round and drop it in the hole but I've no idea how you would then get the gears to work. 

I would love to get rid of the Rotoflex couplings on mine though. I see the Saab has normal inner CV joints. But there are probably easier ways to do that. 

[Asimo]

The SaaB 99 used gears initially, they changed to chains in about ‘76.  It is actually 3 separate single row chains. The VW K70 also featured a similar box under the engine arrangement. 
A significant problem with all of these layouts, and the Issigonis & Peugeot engine-over-the-box models also is the additional inertia of the gear train between clutch and gearbox: the poor synchromesh has to change the speed of all of those gears / chains instead of just the clutch plate. Not good for either gear change quality or synchromesh life. Compare to (almost all) motorcycles which have their gearbox parallel to the engine: clutch is at the gearbox end of the primary drive. Always.