6 Speed Gear Oil Change

[Jeff Higgins]

My first post on the Boxster forum...

So, as a long time Porsche owner ('68 911, '79 SC, and now a '72T 3.0 liter powered hot rod), I added a 2002 Boxster S to the stable some years ago. Love the car by the way, it's the perfect complement to my '72 track rat hot rod.

Anyway, I guess after all these years of enjoying about the easiest gear oil changes imaginable on my 911's, I'm astonished that Porsche would require us to remove that pan and the two braces just to perform such a simple task on the Boxster.

As another point of reference, I'm into Land Cruisers as well (what the hell does that have to do with anything?). Well, they have skid plates (that are remarkably similar to this pan on my Boxster) under the transmission and transfer cases. There are holes in both through which we can easily access their drain plugs.

So, that leads me to ask what to me is an obvious question - why on Earth is there not a hole in the pan on my Boxster??? Would it be considered sacrilege to hole saw one into it now that I have it out, so I don't have to do this every time I want to change the gear oil?

[mistertate]

Yes some of the cool guys drill a hole in the aluminum cover but you shouldn’t have to change the oil a lot unless you’re tracking it a lot.
Search here and 986forums. JFP has all the answers but there is a specific Porsche branded gear oil you want to use. Not Redline or Swepco.
986 synchros kind of suck compared to 944 but if you’re used to Porsche synchros then you can handle it.

[Jeff Higgins]

Thanks for the "sanity check" regarding drilling a hole. It seems so obvious, that I thought I might have been missing something. Gonna go ahead and hole saw it.

The car now has 160k on the clock. I know all of its previous owners (two of them, one my own son), and it came with all receipts from day one. It appears as though it has never had the gear oil changed. I don't track it (that's what the 911 is for), but I feel that's just too many miles.

The shifting started to get noticeably "notchy", and it finally would not go into reverse with the engine running, unless it was slowly rolling backwards. I replaced both the master and slave cylinders (Wayne's 101 Projects book does not do these tasks justice, they are far more difficult than he portrays). I then bled it per the factory procedure (30 seconds on the power bleeder with the pedal on the floor followed by 60 seconds of pumping the pedal with the power bleeder still on it) and cured that problem. The clutch just wasn't fully releasing.

That addressed, it's still "notchy". My research indicates a common cause is too low a gear oil level, or just old gear oil. I intend to use the Porsche gear oil, I can get it from a dealer five minutes from my house. $30 per liter, though? At that price, "installation" should be included...

Funny, though, even as "notchy" as it now feels, it is head and shoulders above my 915, even with its Rennshifter and other mods. I still shift it as slowly as I shift my 915, so I guess old habits die hard. I bet most folks wouldn't even notice this "notchiness", it's still that good, but it does feel just a bit "off" to me. And, besides, it couldn't hurt, after 160k on the clock.