[red-beard]

Labor for a rebuild does not vary much, as long as none of the major components are failed. If they are, consider the transmission trash and move on. Labor shouldn't be more than 8 hours.

By Major components I mean the intermediate plate, actual gear sets, ring or pinion and case.

The replacable components: synchro bands, dog teeth, sliders and bearings. What these will cost depend on what needs replacing. On 901's many of the components from the upper gears can be mixed with components of the lower gears and good used parts can be had cheap from 914 transmissions. 915, the upper gear replaceable components (3rd 4th and 5th) are still the same as the 914 and 901 stuff, but the lower gears, it is unique to the 915, meaning expensive.

It sound like to me that you need to replace as a minimum the 3rd gear synchro. Most likely, if it's been grinding a while, the 3rd/4th slider and the 3rd gear dogteeth are damaged. On the whole, not too bad a problem. Unfortunately, I usually find a bad bearing in every other or every third transmission.

I would question exactly what you get for $1200. That said, I did see someone mention another shop which is $550 plus replacement cost of whatever is actually wrong. Shop was out of West Virginia. I'll dig around for the name.

James