BUGATTI REFUSE TO SELL ME A GEARBOX TO FIX MY BROKEN VEYRON

I bought this Bugatti Veyron for £900 ,000, but there's one big problem with it.It has a broken gearbox.Which means it simply doesn't work.My car was split in two four years ago, and it's still not been resolved.The obvious solution would be to buy a brand new gearbox, but after weeks of calling Bugatti, they won't even give me a price.So that means we're on our own.

We're going to have to fix this mess without Bugatti's help.So we then reverted to buying a second hand gearbox.But as you would have seen in last week's video, that did not go well.We've probably been scammed.Which left us with only one option.to get my gearbox fixed.

Well the good news is I think we have the perfect man to repair and fix the issue.A very clever Dutchman called Pascal and after stripping it down he found some critical issues.We see some extreme wear on the clutch plate.If we replace this clutch will it solve the problem or is there a deeper reason that has caused this damage?So there's only one way to find out and that's get this gearbox fixed and get it back into this car.Let's get this Bugatti Veyron working.

Now, in the last video, I had the chance to buy a second -hand gearbox.Unfortunately, that turned out to be a scam.I was robbed out the £3 ,500 worth of deposit.But we do have some updates from our least favourite person, Andrew, a little later on in this video.And I'll just explain now, the whole situation has turned even more ridiculous.Of course, losing that money was a hard pill to swallow.

But the bigger problem is, I no longer have an alternative.So we have to get my gearbox fixed.And the main bit that we are waiting for is the clutch.We can't just order a new one from Bugatti.But Pascal in Holland thinks he can make a custom replica.But the downside, it's a huge job to research materials.

CAD draw the sizes and then find someone to manufacture such a small bespoke order.But four weeks since we have saw him, Pascal has an update which is the good news that we have been waiting for.I can't remember how to say hello in Dutch.Hallo!

I swapped the camera.

Okay.

And look what we've got here.They have arrived and we did a pre -assembly.So that is all looking good now.I can't say spot on because I don't know what the spot on, what it should be.But according to my experience, they feel damn good.So I'm happy with that.

So they come spot on to what you asked for, but you don't know what you asked for was right.

Yeah, that's, yeah.

This is amazing.We have delivered and ready -to -fit clutch plates, which we think will be the same as the original Bugatti parts.But the problem is we can't be certain that they are identical.And the guessing doesn't stop there.We obviously had to strip the gearbox to clean and check all the parts.And that means the gaskets need changing.

But we can't ring Bugatti and order anything, even a simple gasket.But luckily, Pascal has done this all of his life.And he's right.he has a massive Dutch brain.get that back.

Here are some gaskets.This is a 3D print, just obviously for testing purposes.This is a special paper gasket, and this is a high -pressure gasket.Now, we were still a little bit guessing on what the exact pressure rates were.

As we know, Bugatti will not sell us parts, so we are having to makeeverything we need, which is why this is taking so much time.All we have to work off is the broken parts.We don't know the materials, we don't know the sizes, the tolerances or even the specs.We just have a team of great engineers using their previous experience to manufacture what we hope is right.But as usual, you guys watching this video have all chipped in.

We found out due to how many people have watched your video, over 2 million I think.So we had some people reaching out to us.And one of those was able to mention us the clutch pressure.So we are now at about 30 bars where we have to design.

Gaskets come in various shapes to match the casing, which we can easily copy.But the bit we can't be certain on is the material and the spec, which needs to exactly match the pressures of the Bugatti gearbox.And our only option is to guess.But the problem is, if we guess wrong, at best it would mean oil leaks and us having to split the car again.But worst case would be a catastrophic failure, with internal metal gears being smashed into pieces.So if this guy hadn't gone in contact, were you going to go less pressure than that?

we're on a higher pressure I think it was 50 bars or something what we what we designed it and that was very tricky to get a proper gasket for that we know now that we are we should be very safe so That is great news!

We now have all the parts we need to get this finished.But there is one thing still stopping me getting super excited.We still don't know for certain why this gearbox failed.And without finding the root of the problem, I worry it will happen again.And as soon as I drive it, we will be back to square one.So my first mission is to find out why this clutch burnt out.

We find out later in this videothat my car already recently had a new clutch.So why did it fail immediately?

The person reaching out to us about the clutches, he had a lot of experience with these typical clutches.He also mentioned that the clutch could be our smoking gun with the reverse problem.So if the clutch is dragging, then the gears will keep on spinning.The control unit will try to engage the reverse gear, but it can't because the reverse gear is, due to the dragging clutch, still spinning.It does three attempts and after the third attempt it stops because it says, I can't engage.That makes sense and Jamie also this morning confirmed the car did three attempts to go into reverse and then stopped.

Conversation with Jamie, together with the conversation I had this morning, he also confirmed that reverse gear problem is always the first indication for a clutch going bad.

And a clutch going bad would be because of what?Just mileage, age, wear?

You can see here are the outer and the inner plates.They're all aligned.And you can imagine there is a, yeah, that's what they call the stack height and the stack height clearance.If the plates are burnt and they are warped a little bit, so not straight anymore, then you will get that the stack height is less and the inner and outer plates will not release and keep on dragging.

Okay, finally we are getting some answers.We know we have a warped burnt -out clutch, which we know would stop reverse from being engaged.And brilliantly, we now have a solution.But my worry is we were toldthis car was previously fixed.It was fitted with a new clutch, only a short time before.

There is a lot of doubt to this car's background, and it's a lengthy repair.If they were changed, why has it instantly burned out again?Does this give us any indication to why we've got like a single burn mark though?

No, but Ed told me that this was not the first time he has seen it.

But no reason why.

So we're going to leave Pascal to work his magic and assemble this gearbox back together with the shiny new clutch and hopefully that's the end of the issues.But we have no answer to the reason this clutch has got so hot and we ended up with these terrible burn marks.Before I own this car, the clutch has been exposed to extreme heat and that is my worry.Are we fixing and replacing this clutch for it to just burn out again?The effort we have been to is huge.Sending the gearbox to Holland, making the clutch from scratch, making gaskets, making shims, making new seals, shipping it back to the UK and the mammoth task of rebuilding, reuniting they and Ron.

Sadly, are we wasting our time?Are we heading into a big never -ending circle, which each time takes a year?Ideally, we need to figure out the root cause.If something else is wrong with this gearbox, or wrong with a car, causing the heat and burning this clutch out, we need to know what it is.We need to know whether it's safe to fit this gearbox and start to rebuild this car.So, it's clear solving the why question is not a job for any of us.

like me.And when we spoke to Pascal, he said that without the people who originally made this gearbox, it would be nearly impossible to find what the problem is.Who exactly made this very special, complex gearbox?

OK, now just think how hard it is to get 1 ,000 horsepower onto the road, OK?Imagine how strong the gearbox has got to be.Now, this was built and designed by a British company, OK?And I've watched the man who ran the project become an old man.

The company who made this groundbreaking gearbox was Ricardo, a specialist design and manufacturing facility making state -of -the -art gearboxes.And this is where the power of our YouTube channel helps us so, so much.Because after we made the last video, we received this email.Hi Mark, my name is Rob Barnes.I wrote the gearbox software for the Veyron.If you need any information about the gearbox or the clutch, please give me a shout.

Right, he sounds perfect.Right, let's get in touch.This is a real gift for this high -risk project.Rob was not just at Riccardo when this gearbox was built, he was part of the design team.So, fingers crossed, he is the answer to getting this gearbox fixed, which is so pivotal to getting our spaghetti Veyron back on the road, but importantly, for a very, very long time.Do you have any idea on cost?

Like how much it cost to make this gearbox?I know roughly what the price of the original project was and...Yeah, it was a lot of money, 40, 50 million pounds.

How long did that take for this gearbox, for one gearbox?

I started towards the end of the concept stage, but that was 2001 and then the end of the development was 2006.

So this took six years to even make?Yeah, five, six years.

Rob is the guy who watched the video and reallyout to Pascal to kindly offer his help.One of his main roles at Ricciardo back in the early 2000s was the clutch.So if anyone can understand the problems, it has to be him.

So what was Bugatti's brief?What were they asking for?

They had a bunch of headline figures, obviously.So they had the acceleration to 60 miles an hour or 200 kph.They wanted as fast as possible.They wanted the top speed.Once they were going to a dual -clutch transmission, they wanted the capability of an auto -smooth gear shift.

So back then, what was the double clutches?

No.

So there was no double clutch?No.

Back in the early 2000s, most cars on the road were manual gearboxes, with not a lot to go wrong.And a fast supercar back then was kicking out 500 horsepower.That's less than half of the Veyron.But why did the Veyron need a double clutch and a gearbox which was so complex?

The way of imagining it is imagine that there's two separate gearboxes connected to the engine.I know that obviously it looks like there's one, but really there's two separate gearboxes.If you imagine that the output from the engine goes into two separate clutches.and then it goes through two four -speed gearboxes.And what you do is you kind of say, there's first gear, and I'm going to pre -select second gear on the other gearbox.I'm going to close this clutch and drive in first gear, and then I'm going to swap to this clutch and drive in second gear, and then change this one to third, and so on.

Understanding that these gearboxes are hydraulic systems, not gearboxes, that's the important part to get across.

So it's almost a step forward to a gearbox.

The gears are an interesting part of the hydraulic system.That's the only way of looking at it.

The Bugatti Veyron was so ahead of its time.The more I learned, the more I am dedicated to it.to get my car back running again.It was faster, quicker and somehow still smoother than anything before.So to tick the brief, they had to engineer and rewrite the rule book with a dual clutch.So now we know this gearbox is so complex, innovative and very expensive, it's even more important to find out why my gearbox and clutch went so wrong.

To recap.When Pascal originally stripped the gearbox to search why my car could not select reverse, he was expecting to see damaged gears.But everything looked perfectly fine.there was no obvious reason why it wasn't driving backwards.But what he did find was some swarf in intricate oil cooling channels.We think the initial problem was a garage services car, and in that service, they needed to change the oil.

But the sump plug, the drain plug at the bottom, a galvanic reaction.Basically, they rounded the head of the bolt trying to get it out.And the only way to unscrew the bolt was to literally drill it out.And that is where the problem started.We think some debris went inside and started this catastrophic four -year story.This was our initial theory.

And to be honest, it was our best case scenario.Human error being the cause, not a mechanical gearbox failure.So from now today, we're going to have no swarf, no debris.So hopefully, surely no further problems.

You've seen my spot burning.Yes.On that clutch.Yeah.What could the reason be behind that?

So yeah, watching the original video and doing your armchair engineer thing, which even I do, it's not necessarily the hotspot itself that causes the problem.What it has a tendency to do is it has a tendency to cause the plates to either cone or they pringle.

Yeah, so why would they warp like that?

It's normally down to heat and it'sgot too hot?It got too hot.The question is why.Pascal obviously is found swarming the centre plate of the transmission.There's a number of different valves elsewhere in the transmission and one in particular is the cooling valves.

If those cooling valves are jamming or if they're not working properly, the clutch will be getting hotter than it should do.And there's no feedback until you end up with this failure that's caused by thermal damage.

But why has that clutch overheated?We only found a small bit of swarf inside that gearbox.Well, I think first we need to understand that this is far from a normal gearbox.Usually the oil is stored at the bottom, a wet sump.The gears act like a paddle and splash and throw the oil to lubricate and cool the vital parts.takes energy, which reduces the car's power and speed.

But of course, that wasn't good enough for the ultimate car.The Veyron has a dry sump.There is no oil sat around.With the Bugatti hydraulic box, the oil is sprayed to only the areas it's needed, controlled and calculated.

For things like launch mode, we're pumping 30 -odd litres a minute.through the clutch to keep it cool.We want to get the oil away from the clutch as fast as possible.If you don't remove it from the clutch, very quickly that oil goes from oil to milk.Just that frothiness.Exactly.

It looks actually like, it begins to look like Guinness.

So we're basically saying that swarf could go into a small hole, stop the oil from being sprayed, stops the clutch being cooled, clutch overheats.Yes.So we're thinking it is that swarf.

Yeah, it's certainly a good possibility that if there's been a swarf in one place in a transmission, it will be in another place.

So this is good.Rob is saying that that debris is the culprit.So in theory, now we have a cleaned out gearbox, we should be all good.But there was one crucial thing that we had overlooked.

If we clean outthat gearbox, we put a brand new clutch, then are we good to go?

Pascal's got the gearbox, but he hasn't got the oil tank.If he's going to clean one out and he finds problems in one, he needs the oil tank as well.

So that literally swarf could be here, here, here, here.

I don't think could be, will be.It's a certainty.It will have made its way back to the oil tank for sure.

Well, I think that can be sorted.It's a big job, but we can remove all the parts in the hydraulic system from the car and make sure they are super deep cleaned.But Rob has some concerns of our newly manufactured replacement clutch, which is about to throw this whole project on its head.

The material, it had a process that was performed on a surface that meant that you had a lot of fibrous the components are actually small pieces of carbon sticking up from the surface of the material.When you put it into the car and you start to close and open the clutch it smashes off those pieces of fibre.They then block the filters in the tank and initially when these these clutches are put together, what we would do in part of the rig test is that the clutch is opened and closed a number of times.Those fibres will then end up going through a separate filter system.It's kind of a bedding -in process before the car.With every clutch?

With every clutch, yeah.

So our new clutch in the first few seconds is going to chuck fibres back in?It's certainly going to be quite dirty, yes.

The original clutch's fibrous material was really... it was something to behold.It would block a very large rig filter within one test.

Right, the problem.Pascal has just fitted a new clutch, a clutch which needs to be bedded in.A bedding which happens immediately when I drive it down the road, which will break off all those fibres and fill my gearbox full of small debris.which will make the clutch burn out.And we start this whole nightmare again.And the consequences of the clutch not getting proper cooling are disastrous.

BorgWarner tested the clutch without cooling flow and within 60 seconds it was destroyed.60 seconds?Within 60 seconds.It's a wet clutch.So you can't, you know, you can't treat it as a dry clutch.So if my valves are blocked, then the thermal damage is done quickly.

So it might last minutes if it's not right?Yes.

And then we start again?Yeah.For **** sake.No wonder this car has been apart for so long.I have no doubt the replacement clutches this car has had before lasted a very short time.It was done by a garage who obviously would not have had access to Bugatti's spin test rig.

I think we have found our answer.

How would we get around that?How would we stop the fibres and make sure every single valve bit is working?

I think your only route to do that is actually to put it on a spin test stand and spin the drive line, get the pumps working with oil and with sacrificial filters in line and actually almost run it as a flush cycle on a test rig.

So I guess my only option is to try and use the Riccardo test rig?It would be the best option, I think, yeah.And I guess that's that there.being used once every month?

I guess so at the moment.To be honest, I'm not that in touch with the driveline guys at Ricciardo anymore.But it's sat there?It would be sat there, yeah.At least one rig and potentially two would be sat there, yeah.

Still got a key?

No.

So by the sounds of it, fitting a new clutch and building this car up immediately just isn't an option.

We will have a never -ending cycle of damage, so we just need toto find a test rig which fits the Bugatti Veyron gearbox.No idea how easy or hard that is, but I guess we're gonna find out.I feel like this is dead simple.Just get a message, Ricardo.

Just send them an email.Just send them an email, just say any chance we can use it.We'll probably set them a date.Let's tell them when we wanna come.

Okay.So I sent them a pretty heartfelt message begging them for us to use their test rig.I feel like Ricardo is our only hope.They are the key to getting my car back running again.Each and every replacement clutch Bugatti change is done at Ricciardo and every gearbox is run in and flushed on their test rig.So we have to get Bugatti on our side, especially as our plan B of buying a spare gearbox from Malaga on the last video was an epic fail.

Now, in last week's video, we got robbed by someone in Malaga, Andrew, pretending to have a replacement second -hand Bugatti Veyron gearbox, which obviously we are pretty desperate for.It was a 2016 with 3 ,000 miles.With all the electronics, it was like all my Christmases came at once.But then we chased Andrew and his gearbox all over Europe.He wasted my time, my family's time and my friend's time.Since then, of course, it's not stopped.

And I'd imagine a lot of you are keen for an update on Andrew.You would have thought that he got the money and ran.And surprisingly, he definitely hasn't.He's still flat out on the WhatsApp.But now he's gotten even more ridiculous, which we will get onto very shortly.I've had so many messages from you guys.

Locations, run -ins, victims.Pretty much, we have a timeline which shows that this is not his first rodeo.

He's taken the money from supporters.wrong people also, which is not good, but the police have listed him and he's on bail, but he's still around.But when I seen your vlog with him on it, I knew immediately when I seen that building with the green shutters, and I thought, I know that building.I was watching your programme, seriously, and I kept thinking, This is the same MO.He goes into great detail.You know, if you're going to scam someone, take the money and run.

Yes, exactly.

That's what, that's what, that's what, that's what, like, on the video, we just don't get it.Like, the second I'd have got that three and a half grand, I'd have changed my phone number by gone.

He's taken the money from some of the wrong people.They will not mess around with him.There's no saying sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not going to cut it.Amazing.He's not going to cut it.

Giving the money back is not going to cut it either.No, he's already made his bed.

Yeah.Hopefully from last week's video, you can learn how these scammers operate because his process and chat was better than anything that I've ever seen before.And more WhatsApp messages from Andrew coming up later.And if you haven't seen that video, please check it out after you have finished this one.Right, back to our gearbox and we have a reply from our begging email.

Right, we've had a response from Riccardo.Dear Mark, many thanks for contacting Riccardo regarding your Bugatti Veyron.In line with our contractual, contractual, contractual, what?In line with our obligations to our clients, all after -sales support for the gearbox must be coordinated directly through Bugatti.Once Bugatti has reviewed and approved your request, we are happy to discuss the support you need and how we may improve.be able to assist.

So all we've got to do is contact Bugatti who don't answer our phone calls.So unfortunately that's a big fat no.Downside is, I'm not sure what we're going to do next, if I'm honest.

This isn't right.We know from Rob, it is very important that we bed in this clutch away from the car.Of course, we could gamble and put it straight back in the car, but that sounds like an extremely risky option.but I can't tell you how frustrating it is that the only people in the world which can easily fix this problem of spinning it on a test rig are only 15 minutes from my house and they are not allowed to help.It's literally perfect and we can't get our hands on it.I'm still a little miffed to why Bugatti are so against working with us.

This isn't structural, it's by no means dangerous, it's definitely not safe to critical.All I need is this gearbox span up for an hour and the new clutch fibres filtered out.We have to find a rig to go further with this car, so...

Let's start with some Googling.Right, good news.I found quite a few different people who do gearbox testing.First of all, Incotech, which are in the UK, so gearbox test rigs.We've also got this one, which as you can see, make an actual rig totally there.So, and you can see here, RENQ offers individual transmission test rigs.

So that is absolutely perfect.And that would also require another work trip.Yay.

Can't help it, Jane.We're doing a video.

These are, again, in the UK.That's only like Malvern Way.So that's not far away at all.And they've got a pretty cool video.So obviously, look at that.That looks cheap, doesn't it?

Yeah.

There we go.So we found some people who can do it.Send off a load of emails, get some prices back for 3 ,000, 4 ,000 pounds, and we'll be away.None of that looks cheap.

I bought this car for £900 ,000.I have a huge amount of wiggle room to spend on this car compared to its true value when it's working.In fact, that's about £600 ,000.And in theory, that's a huge amount.But if building a test rig cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, that wiggle room that we had might soon disappear.I see comment after comment telling me that I've messed up how I should have bought a clean working Veyron.

But I suppose we will all find out soon if I have made an error when we hear back to how much it is to make this crucial test rig.We had no choice.This is where we're at.Riccardo and Alpus, Bugatti.

will definitely not help us, and we need to run this clutch in.

We've got to bed this clutch in.We've got to get those fibres out of the system.

So hopefully, with one of these guys, we'll be able to do this job properly and get this car working fast.

This test rig is super important.And whilst we waited for some replies, we received a very exciting call.

Good morning.

How do you say hello in Holland?

It's just a scam.

Gearbox is doing well.We've completed it, so it's ready to pick up.

Our work trip.

Yes, there was a work trip to Amsterdam.

Don't ever tell Jane you're nowhere near Amsterdam.That's our secret.

Here we go, some positive news.After over a year in pieces, my gearbox is back together.Built to perfect condition, new clutch, new gaskets, new seals and shiny and clean.I'm itching to get this bolted back in the car against my engine.So let's get this on a test rig sharpish.We found out as well that Rob, the guy who spoke to you from Riccardo,

he came round and he's telling us we need to really well flush out all of the other system as well so that oil tank and all the pipes would you be able to do that yes yes i think that is very um wise to do that because the debris, what we found in the gearbox, is probably also in the lining, in the pipes, in the oil tank.

We are able to flush it, we have a special liquid, we flush the whole system with so it's as clean as possible when it goes back so we can eliminate the fact that there are maybe particles in the tank as well.

Perfect, okay.I will just get the okay from the boss and I'm pretty sure she's fine.I'll get the passport and we'll be over the weekend then.

See you the weekend.Get the Barbie on.Do you have Barbies in Holland?

Yes, we have barbecues.Yes, yes.And it's nice weather.So yeah, we do barbecues as well.

See you in a bit.Take care.Right, sit yourself down.

I don't like this.

Nice leggings.Thanks.Pascal gearbox is finished and ready to collect.

Is it?

So me and Risa are going to have to go over there and get it from somewhere in holland on a holiday no a work trip a work trip it's nowhere near amsterdam that's all you need to know not even close to amsterdam not even anywhere near amsterdam so don't worry anything about amsterdam why are you so fixated on amsterdam it just makes me want to say like schmuggled a pancake there's like there's no

you're going to Amsterdam.You've got parental duties to do this weekend.

I'll go.

On your own?

Yeah, I'll go.

Is your mum going with you?

No, I'll go on my own.

Right, we're on the way to our work trip.

Amsterdam.We're in Mark's X5.And we've got a business card, so everything's free.Everything's free.And we're supposed to get there at half four, and we're already really late.So this is it, Reece is heading to Pascal's and I'm at home getting more crazy messages from Scammer Andrew, which I will share with you shortly.

We are all vulnerable to getting scammed, especially when we're buying something as expensive as a car.And that's why it's so important to check its history.And I'm going to show you exactly how to do that.In the meantime, Reece did a pit stop at Furlongers to collect all those extra parts of the car which need cleaning.

Right, good to see you.Thank you, mate.Right, what have we got?Right, so we've got the oil tank, high -pressure accumulators, we've got the hydraulic pipes for the gear change system, and then we've got the main oil cooler pipes, so Pascal will be able to take all that, flush it through, clean it all out.

When my Bugatti goes back on the road, it will be a clean car.Because using CarVertical, I have checked my car's history.And if all the lights were green, it would tell me that my car has no mileage fraud, no outstanding finance, it's not wanted for theft, and it's never been reported as damaged.But a bad report would look like this.And you can even see real photos of when the car was auctioned off at the car crash auction website.So if you had bought this car without knowing about that crash, you definitely would have been scammed.

So if you are looking to buy a car, make sure that you participate.

and check out its history.And you can use my discount code, MARK, at checkout to save yourself some money.In fact, you can save up to 50 % if you do a bundle deal.Link is in the description.And thank you, Car Vertical, for sponsoring this video.So with recently at Pascal's, let me tell you what scammer Andrew thought of his starring role in our last video.

He's seen the video he obviously loved every little bit of it and he sent me a message and honestly it gets even more ridiculous okay so he is suing me okay so um apparently it's not a scam there is a gearbox and he's gonna sue me um so i have still not received the details for the refund Yes, he did, okay?

In respect to the gearbox, what you have done is changed the whole aspect and we are currently taking legal action.If and only if I decide now you can have the gearbox, this will be the terms, okay?So it's coming in hard here, okay?So everyone sit down.Gearbox will be in a secure location with an agent.So that's the imaginary gearbox will be with somebody.

I can view the gearbox apparently.Once viewed, I have to pay in full, but the price has gone up, okay?Additional costs for the TCU and the oil tanks and pumps, okay?So we've seen the video, we've said it's a bargain, now he's put the price up of the fictitious gearbox.He has nothing more to say, refund or box at secure location, dad choice.So, in preparation for us being sued, contacted a lawyer.

Hi Harry, thank you for your time.I'm getting sued apparently by a man with a fictitious disappearing magic gearbox.

Right, okay.

We're trying to figure out why he's doing what he's doing, why he's carrying it on.

Yes, I do.Well, I'm a criminal defense barrister.I've got 29 to 30 years of experience of dealing with people like this.Well, it clearly sounds like a professional guy, quite calm with people like this.They just, they will always take the phone call from you, which is always bizarre.So every time you ring, he won't pick it up.

And he's always given an excuse.And what he's trying to do is that if anyone goes to the police, And therefore, he will always claim, well, listen, I was not dishonest.It was beyond my control.I've got to listen to all the calls.The police, he's going to say, well, you know, I've never been dishonest.I was not dishonest, because that gearbox was real.

And something's happened along the lines, and it's not my fault.So that's why he keeps taking your calls, giving you excuses or excuse.So he's obviously in the back of his mind.He knows that the forefront's on his mind.He knows if no one gets the police involved, Now, it all makes sense.

I get it, he could long this out forever.Really, this guy is a master scammer.Let me know in the comments what you think if it's worth battling this out in court.But at least now we know that we don't need Andrew's gearbox, which, to be fair, didn't exist anyway, as Pascal has got my original gearbox back together.Good to see you.Good morning.

We've got some goodies.

Yeah, I see it.Nice.So many fancy parts.So the plan is the gearbox is now closed.There's a bit of cleaning here with all the bits and pieces.So we'll make sure that all the debris is out.

This looks amazing.And the first time I've actually seen it in one piece after owning this car for nearly six months.Inside the casing is a new clutch, clean channels and solenoids tested and refitted.Happy days.And now he has the rest of the complex system to decontaminate and make sure no swarf is sat inside.So the only thing that we need to sort is a test rig.

Hi Paul, you okay?Yeah, that's exactly what we've got to try and clean out.So, do you think you can help us?thanks anyway I appreciate it like I know that's gonna be the problem is it's because it's like we're only gonna use this thing once so obviously we're gonna end up a test rig which we can use a thousand times but we haven't got a thousand gearboxes right we've also had a reply from renk the German company which looked really really good and they're just saying that for them it's too intricate for a one -off which I get you know it's I suppose You know, although it's going to be a lot of money, are they actually going to make any money out of it and all the hassle and the problems which are going to go along the way?So they're out as well.Right.

We've heard back from Hagen.Thanks for your message.Unfortunately, we do not have a suitable test rig for the application.

Damn, they're a good company as well.Right, next one.Yeah, it's a big job, Mark.It really is quite a big job.There's a lot of reverse engineering that goes into it.

Generating 1 ,200 horsepower with an electric motor is an expensive exercise.1 ,000 horsepower electric motor is going to be 70, 80 ,000 pounds just for the motor.And if you use that on the brake side as well, you're looking similar numbers.You could be very careful about how you test the gearbox and you'll end up with second and third gear engaged at the same time.And that thousand horsepower will make very short work of that gearbox.I wouldn't recommend going down that road.

You know, you could easily end up at half a million pounds to get the rig up and running.

What are we going to do?I'm not sure where we go from here.Every corner we turn with this car seems to kick me straight in the nuts.Normally, we can get round this stuff, work hard and find a solution.But this time, I just had no idea what to do.If we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a test rig, I might as well bought a 1 .5 million pound car six months ago.

For me, that figure is just way too big.This test rig is only ever going to be used once.So we've got to find a different solution and one which doesn't cost half a million quid.Right, I've done a load of Googling and no other car manufacturer uses anything like this Bugatti Veyron hydraulic gearbox like Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren, it's just not even close.

But I thought outside the box, no pun intended,hydraulic gearboxes and transmissions are used in heavy machinery, construction equipment, marine vessels, and industrial applications.So I found out that there's two massive things which use this type of gearbox.Number one is forklifts, number two is diggers.And who is the biggest digger manufacturer in the world?They're in the UK.

Yep, one of Britain's finest and biggest manufacturers, JCB.Good afternoon.

Hey, good afternoon, handsome.I'm here and ready to help.Just let me know what you need.

Can you please explain to me about a JCB hydraulic gearbox?

Of course.So a JCB hydraulic gearbox is essentially a system that uses hydraulic pressure to engage gears.

Would it be similar to the Bugatti Veyron gearbox?

Yeah, in a way it is.Both rely on hydraulic systems for incredibly precise shifts.The Bugatti's gearbox uses hydraulics to switch gears almost instantaneously, while a JCB digger uses them for smooth control power delivery.So the principle is pretty similar, just scaled to different needs.

JCB make diggers which crawl along at 30 miles per hour, but they have also made this.JCB isn't your average digger company.They love a speed record, and this car does 350 miles per hour.It was designed and built by JCB, but you will not believe who helped them.

And engineering consultant Ricardo.

Yep, Ricardo, the same people who built my gearbox in the Veyron.And now we know that both use a similar hydraulic gearbox.These guys might just be the saviour to this entire project.Can they help us?

So what similarities would you see in this compared to the problems which we've got?

The Veyron needs to cope with multiple launches every day.But this gearbox will have to cope with driving into piles of stone or piles of soil every day.So it's that similar sort of spike in pressure required to...

That spike, does that generate heat?

it can do yeah the problem we've got is on the steel plates on the clutch we've got like a real burn on the top would you have seen something like that before we call that hot spotting phenomenon it is burning as you said and often That happens due to lack of cooling or lubrication to the clutch.

So that would be the amount of oil going in there?

Exactly, yeah.

So a JCB has a hydraulic gearbox, which cools the same way as our Veyron gearbox.Instead of oil sitting at the bottom of the box, there is also lots of small channels which sprays high -pressure oil onto vital parts, like the clutch.This design is to reduce power loss from the drag of the gearbox and this process also helps to disperse heat.These gearboxes are like twins but definitely not identical ones.

These oil channels are tiny so they can get clogged up easily and if you have a problem where the solenoid valve or the control valve for your hydraulic system has got contamination in it, I've got a solenoid valve here, The clearance between the spool and the valve body can be as small as 5 to 15 microns.And a human hair thickness is about 60 microns, so it's a fraction of a human hair's clearance, essentially.

And the measures they take to make sure these gearboxes are clean is bonkers.

Yeah, so this is all sonic wash that cleans the casings before they go onto the line.Every single one?Every single one gets washed, yeah.And what's that high pressure about?what?Um, ultrasonic vibrations, sound waves, go through.

Sound waves?Yeah, go through the liquid and dislodges any contamination that's stuck in the galleries and then it's flushed through with fluid then.It's like if you were to clean a diamond ring in a jeweller, they use the same sort of method.The filtration system on this flushing rig have filters that can clean down to three microns.are sort of near almost the size of bacteria.So it's like very, very, very fine filtration.

And it's that important?

Yeah.

It's clear even dust particles naturally in the air around us cannot be allowed to be trapped inside this box.And that's the problem we have with my Bugatti.We don't have access to anything even close to this.Can we use JCB's test rig?Can we run my gearbox up after assembly?So when the clutch does bed in, the small fibres that are chipped off can be flushed out, ensuring the inside of the gearbox starts its life cleaner than an operating theatre.

So is he changing gears there?

Yeah.Yeah, so we need to make sure that all the solenoid valves are working.There could be a fault in manufacturing of the valves or anything like that.

I can see how intricate a test rig is now.

Yeah, so you can see all those hydraulic lines coming out of the top of the gearbox and measuring each individual clutch pressure.As the gearbox is running and going through all the gears and all the speeds, it's constantly being flushed with these filters.It keeps throwing out any contamination that dislodges from new clutches, from anything really.

But this must be hundreds of thousands of pounds to build it.

Yeah, it will be, yeah.

Is this the answers to our prayers?It's exactly what we need.Will a Bugatti gearbox fit on the JCB test rig?If it does, this will certainly work for us.We can run in the clutch, flush, clean, and it can be done.its life with zero debris in those tiny channels.

We spoke to Craig, the boss man here in Wales.Hopefully he will be able to modify the test rig so that we can bolt on the Bugatti gearbox.

So how long you've been making hydraulic gearboxes?

I think it's about 14 -15 years now since we've been doing them on site here.

And how long have you How many have you put into machines without cleaning them?

None, absolutely none.Absolutely none.We wouldn't do it, can't do it.It jeopardises everything we stand for, quality and endurance of the gearbox.

What's the chances, we've learned that a test rig is fairly important, cleaning is fairly important, what's the chances of borrowing JCB's test rig?

If we could, we would.JCB would love to help, but there's that much difference in the oil, the setup, the drive chain for it.It just wouldn't work.If we could, we would.

I suppose even the electronics, everything, pressures.

Electronics, the way it works, the diagnostic side of it.It's completely set up for our product legacy.If we could, we would.Unfortunately, it wouldn't work.

Well, thank you for being no help.

Pleasure, absolutely.

Now, thank you so much for just understanding exactly That test rig, we need one, don't we?

Yeah, test rig, cleaning, cleanliness, filters.It's absolutely critical to the gearbox.

Any good news?

You've got a Bugatti.

We have made great progress.We have our gearbox finished and it has a new clutch, but we need to get this on a test rig.Number one, to bed in the clutch, and number two, to make sure everything is working before we take on the mammoth task of rebuilding this car.You guys know I'm nearly a million quid deep in this car, but we do need Bugatti and Ricciardo to help us.

Right, as it stands at the minute, if we put this gear down,in the car, it's going to self -destruct within minutes and then we'll be back to square one, back to where we were six months ago.

Surely somebody at Bugatti or Ricciardo can help in some way?

Yeah, that's the frustrating thing is we're not asking for anything for free.I don't mind paying at all but like it's 15 minutes down the road, it's not being used and it solves everything.

Daddy, when's the spaghetti rear end going to be fixed?

Well hopefully mate, we're going to ask everybody now if they can help us.

Everyone can please help us.Done.Forever.

There we go.Right, so if you can help us in any way, what we need is a test rig with a filtration system.

It's got to do 6 ,500 reps. It doesn't have to.No it does mate.But we need somebody to be able to write the software.

I can.

We need to be able to change gear and work the clutch, obviously on that test rig.

Right, please, everyone say please, do your begging first.

Beg you, beg you, please.

So if you can help, the email is on the screen now, or drop us an Instagram message, markmccann64.Right, so thank you for watching this video, do it.

See you next Tuesday 6pm.