915 Trans UN-STUCK!!! Many thanks to JW, rcecale, Grady, others...

[TWJ]

Maybe 6 weeks (or so) back I started a thread regarding my 915 trans that I thought was stuck in reverse. If you do a search on my user name (TWJ) over the last 3 months you will find about 5 threads I started all having to do with this issue with the last one being the real key.

As it turned out the solution was not difficult but since I had not done transmission work previously it took a lot of thought and "testing".

I want to pass on a HUGH THANK YOU (!!!) to John Walker, rcecale (Randy), Grady Clay, KTL, djmcmath, and all the others who contributed to the threads.

Without a doubt a learned a great deal and thanks to you all I was able to correct my problem.

Just to recap:

-After posting a picture looking up throught the pivot plate hole it was determined that it was actually stuck in two gears at once (thanks JW), 3/4(?) and 5/R.

The solution was:
-first drain the gear oil and remove pivot plate.
-align notches in visible shift rails, thus unsticking the trans from 3/4 first...
-then remove backup light switch and push in pin (I had to fashion a small wooden tool to allow me to lever the pin) to free-up or "un-stuck it" from 5/R. Sequence is critical, thanks again JW.
-reassemble, fill with gear oil.
-DRIVE!

[sammyg2]

The amount of real Porsche knowledge on this board is truly scary.

Q. How lucky are we to have access to it, and how long would it take one person to learn as much on his own as we learn on this board?

A. Very lucky and I would only hope to live that long.

[Bill Douglas]

Ah, I just love a happy ending! Well done guys.

[rcecale]

Way ta go, TWJ! Good on ya!

Randy

[yelcab1]

How did it get stuck in the first place if that is the sequence you had to go through to get in unstuck?

[analogmike]

I had the same thing happen on my '73. I think it got stuck due to poor shifting into reverse, the linkage needs a bit of adjustment.

To get it out, I CAREFULLY put it firmly into reverse and then wiggled it back to neutral a few times. That did it!

[john walker's workshop]

usually it's due to one or two detents being improperly placed during the last trans repair. it can happen again, so try to work the H pattern carefully, rather than slop shifting.

[Peter Zimmermann]

I had to "un-stick" a handful of 915s at my shop, over quite a few years, and after fixing them I would do my best to learn from the owners what happened just before the trans became stuck. More often than not I think that the problem occurred by the driver shifting out of first, and into a forward gear, while the car was still rolling backward. I've sat on a stool staring at a partially disassembled 915, wondering how and why it could happen, and never came up with an answer that I was satisfied with. I've driven 915s more that 300,000 miles, and have never had it happen to me, so...

[PorscheCanada]

Thank you for this post! It helped me….

[blur911]

Originally Posted by Peter Zimmermann

I had to "un-stick" a handful of 915s at my shop, over quite a few years, and after fixing them I would do my best to learn from the owners what happened just before the trans became stuck. More often than not I think that the problem occurred by the driver shifting out of first, and into a forward gear, while the car was still rolling backward. I've sat on a stool staring at a partially disassembled 915, wondering how and why it could happen, and never came up with an answer that I was satisfied with. I've driven 915s more that 300,000 miles, and have never had it happen to me, so...

There were two threads on this forum about that same problem recently
As I mentioned on the other thread, I bought one out of a wreck a few years ago, head on collision, and the tranny was in reverse, but the shift rod wasn't in position to take it out. I think inertia of the reverse gear made it shift itself in the crash.