[ROVERNET - UK] Starter Woes/Weepy Engine Side Cover TC2000

[rwacek at comcast.net]

Season's Greetings Rovernetters.

I'm the guy who lost his starter spring and nut down in the bellhousing. After hours of fishing for it I took Ruth's advice and drilled a hole in the bottom of the bellhousing (after finding a metal holesaw) just behind the flywheel. There the culprits were! Problem was the hole was 1 1/4 inch and the spring was about 1 3/8 inch. So I drilled another one right next to the edge of the first one. I then rasped away the excess. I now have a rectangular hole 1 1/4 inch by about 2 or 2 1/8 inches. It's rectangular but with rounded inside corners if you can imagine. I then obsessed about finding a rubber hole plug to fit. Googled "rubber hole plug" and went off in another universe. If I had just drilled a 1 1/2 hole to begin with it would have been a much easier task to find a plug. I know there is a plug somewhere in the world that will work. The biggest issue is the 3/16 inch thickness of the bellhousing. Anyway what I wound up doing was gluing a thin aluminum brake caliper silencer pa
d over the hole. It actually looks like it could be a factory cover. We'll see how long that will last
Meanwhile while I was under there I noticed that the RH engine sidecover was "wweping". The LH is OK. It looks like if I removed the RH engine support and then braced that side I could remove the sidecover although with inherent difficulty. Anyone done this? Then there would be the matter of finding another sidecover. Didn't I read years ago on this list about someone who had stainless ones fabricated? All advice would be massively appreciated.