916 Transmission Oil Pump Gears and...

[ajserrano]

916 Transmission Oil Pump Gears and Tail Housing Gear Cover w/External Oil Cooler Fittings. Read on...

Unfortunately for me, I fell victim to someone I loaned my original 916 transmission. Once upon a time, in 1987, as a favor (I received no compensation or benefit), I loaned my original 916 transmission to a shop for "demonstration purposes only"(Huh?) and that's what I was told as I write everyting down : ). It turned out to be that the shop owner was actually interested in reproducing some of the unique components of the 916 transmission. These parts were going to be packaged as a “kit” to later be made available to others as a conversion. I didn't have a problem with that since I was helping out others that were interested in a 916 conversion kit that was as close as possible to the original 916 design. The months past and after numerous telephone calls to the shop to make arrangements to pick up my 916, countless weeks of aggravation, I was finally "granted the right” to be allowed to come by and pick up my 916 transmission.

That episode should have been the first clue that something was wrong! When I did get my 916 transmission back, I then made my second mistake by failing to re-inspect the 916 transmission to insure that all the rare and unique racing components were still there. At that time, I did not know any better. I was the “naïve” Porsche owner who had “no reason” to suspect a shop owner which appeared honest and advertised in your regular national Porsche publications (that’s where I found him in the first place!). I was your typical Porsche owner and not your frequent "POC weekend racing warrior".

After finally being able to pick up my 916 from “that” shop and taking it home, RELIEVED, I stored the 916 trans. away until I could continue with my life-long dream, my "914-6 GT project". The years went by, a new business, a wife and 3 kids later, and now it was time to pick up the GT project again. Recently (last week), I decided to take my 916 transmission out of “moth-balls” to have it inspected for gearing, etc., by a trustworthy, very knowledgeable and respected friend, Carl Thompson.

Before taking the transmission for inspection, at home, I decided to take off the “oil pump gear cover” located at the “tail-housing” of the 916 transmission. It was then that I discovered the results of my “2nd mistake”, as both small “oil pump gears” were missing from the tail-housing!

HERE WE GO AGAIN! #@!?S...!

Until something like this happens to you, no one can put into words and really explain how it feels to have been violated in such a way. It did not take me very long to figure out what had happened back in 1987, as the week before I picked up the transmission from the “that” shop, the "shop owner" and I removed the “oil pump gear cover” and there they were, we both saw the two small “oil pump gears” installed in the tail housing of the 916 trans under the cover. Maybe some say, “are you sure you had the gears installed?” Believe me, if you had the money to spend on an original 916 transmission and you purchased one, you WOULD KNOW what these gears do, WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE and IF YOU HAVE THEM installed or not!

Well, I am not “David Copperfield”, so I immediately ruled out the possibility that I was the one responsible for making these gears disappear. Also, knowing that the 916 transmission went DIRECTLY from “that” shop to my “protective custody all these years” (my home), the possibility of it being someone else who could be responsible, was ruled out as well.

The shop owner WON! Not only did he talk me into trading him (at no cost to him or benefit to me) my rare “916 Tail-housing oil pump cover” with the "built-in external oil cooler fittings” (a nice racing piece to have, no longer available, which allows you to run the external transmission oil cooler), but before allowing me to pick up my 916, he also helped himself to my oil pump gears as well. Nice touch!

There you have it! I now own a very nice original 916 transmission with no internal forced lubrication! For all I know, I may not even have the "internal spray-bar" and will not know for sure until I take the transmission further apart. Very soon to be done and documented...

The shop owner calculated that with my level of expertise, I was not going to take my 916 transmission apart and check it, if I did, unless I took it to someone that really knew and was familiar with the 916s, no one would ever notice. How many Porsche mechanics do you know that have seen an original 916 transmission? Not many! As a matter of fact, the 916 transmission is not even mentioned in this website which is one of the best sources of Porsche information around. This shop owner was fortunate enough that the sequence of events turned out this way. It would have been nice if he had asked for my permission to have the gears reproduced using my originals, but just simply helping himself to my gears was just too hard to resist and the easiest way to go about it! Talking me out of my 916 rare racing oil gear cover as an even trade for a standard cover DID NOT HELP THIS SITUATION NOW EITHER! I can now put "2 & 2" together and it does make sense why he was so insistant in allowing him to swap my "oil-pump gears racing cover" for the closed-in regular cover at "no cost" to me. He wanted the pieces for his own car!

For those of you who don’t know, the 916 transmissions are very rare racing transmissions as I was told no many were made of these units (I can not verify the validity of this statement, but I know they are very rare). As quoted by Bruce Anderson, “The type 916 transmission became the replacement for the racing transmissions in 1969 because of the added demands placed on the transmission by the 3.0-liter 908 engines” (Porsche 911 Performance Handbook, Second Edition, Chapter 7, pg 226). By the way, you can see photos of the "oil pump gear cover" with the external oil-cooler line provision on page #228, top left and right photos in the same book.

I can understand why someone armed with “this knowledge” would want to "take a shot" at the opportunity to take advantage of someone LIKE ME. To explore the possibilities of just how many pieces can be taken off of my 916 without the owner consent, or noticing. Can anyone relate to this so far or am I the only “idiot” out there that this has happened to?

I want to apologize for the lengthy "topic". Maybe I am doing this to take some of my frustration out in the open. I think it is important to share my story with you and to let others know what happened in my situation. Many years have past, but these memories still haunt me. No, I will not disclose who did this to me, as I don’t think it would be the correct thing to do (yet). Too many years have passed and the “statue of limitations” has probably "poofed" just like my 916 oil-pump gears did! (Any attorneys out there have a comment and/or clarification on the statue of limitations period on something like this?).

Maybe those of us with similar situations can be a little more “cautious” and “careful” than I was and you will not suffer a similar misfortune. I know I am by far not the first, nor will I be the last. Have you ever wonder how many new and expensive racing parts end up in someone else's car?

To those who took the time to read my story, and are able to help, I will be forever grateful. If you have these parts, please contact me regarding the “oil pump gears” and the “racing oil pump gear cover” with the incorporated “external oil cooler fittings”. My hope is that someone is going to come forward with the parts and offer to help before I resort to other more significantly costly options...

I can be contacted by email at ajserrano@msn.com

Thank you all again!

Note: As luck will have it, I just located a long lost contact! For the last 15 years I have been sort of trying (on and off) to contact Walt Adriance who was the one that sold me the 916 transmission back in 1984. Walt had moved to Oregon in 1985 and I could not find him. I was so Psssed Off when I found out about my missing Oil Pump Gears, that I picked up the phone and started calling every town around the city of Portland and found him! I told Walt my story and he pretty much called me an "idiot" (rightly so as ignorance should not be an excuse!). But, I now have a witness! Since Walt sold me the 916, rebuilt it and knows it very well, I may have him inspect the 916 to determine if anything else may have been tampered with, removed, missing or swapped (Internal spraybar, mainshaft, gears, diff, etc.). I hope this is not going to be the case…

[chrisreale]

Somebody's putting together a 916 tranny kit. Do a search, it was discussed a few weeks ago. Might or might not be your ticket. Is the 916 tranny that different from a 901 or a 915?

[Bleyseng]

I think a "916" tranny is the term for a factory modified 915 to side shift and mid-engine use, the type used in the 916's. 914/6 GT's used the 901 trannys. I think the "916" tranny was also used in some race car projects by Porsche, hence the oil pump with internal spray bars.
I would call Otto's to see if he could supply or make the missing pieces.
Geoff

[Rich Hilgersom]

I will not take a stab at who ajserrano is talking about but it cant be Vellios as his kit predates 1987 by a long shot.

He has the parts you may need. See page 6.
http://www.vellios.com
Vellios is not the fastest on turnaround but most likely the best source for the part you need.

The other kit mentioned turned out to be
http://wevo.com/wevo915sideshift.htm

Oddly Wevo does not show or mention any oil cooling options.
Maybe they have them but just dont publish them.

-Rich Hilgersom

[ajserrano]

Here are some recent photos of the tail-housing of my original 916 gearbox when I found that the "OIL PUMP GEARS" were taken (stolen) from the 916 transmission while it was in the pocession of the "last shop". I have yet to take the rest of the transmission apart to see what else could be missing...



Here is the photo of the tail-housing of the 916 with the "oil pum-gears" cover off. Obviously the gears are missing!



I closer shot...



Oil Pump-Gears cover on. My 916 came with a different "Oil Pump-Gear" cover that had provisions to allow you to connect external oil-lines to a remote oil cooler. The nice guy I am (idiot), I allowed him to swap my "racing part" for the standard cover you now see. Oh well... Hey, if you can take advantage of a situation, why not! You can tell I am a little sour about it still...









AJS

[mike mueller]

Any chance you have part numbers for the gears?

Porsche could have used off the shelf pump gears from another application.

[ajserrano]

Not yet... I am meeting with Carl Thompson (used to run the Racing Parts Dept. at Vasek Polak) and he has a lot of Porsche Racing documentation.

I am still hopeful that someone has the oil-pump gears in a box somewhere, maybe even ones that were taking out of service for wear, etc. Thanks for the suggestion and do please keep them coming.

AJS

[Jeroen]

Hey Armando,

Check this site: http://www.914-6-club.de/
These guys have a lot of hard to find parts among them

Cheers,

Jeroen

[sammyg2]

I'm curious why you don't name the shop after they screwed you so bad. is it for possible legal reasons? I'm scratching my head to try and figure out who it might be........

I hope I never have to deal with someone like that.

[ajserrano]

I am building my case if I still do have recourse against the shop, remember, this happened back in 1987 and I then stored my 916 until recently. Besides, the 916 still has to be taken apart for further inspection.

AJS

[jabb]

There is a guy here in CT that does a lot of porsche transmission rebuilds. His name is Gary Fairbanks (203) 866-2466 worth a call maybe he can provide a lead. There is also a guy from Germany that use to be on the board, his name I believe is Roland maybe you can drop him and Email, I have not seen him around lately

Good Luck

[ss6]

I hope these aren't the guys you're talking about, but Patrick Motorsports has some kind of 916 conversion kit, I suspect he'd sell you just the parts you need to make your own tranny whole:

http://www.patrickmotorsports.com/915-6_mid_engine_trans_conversion.html

BTW, the guy in Germany jabb was referring to is Roland Kunz. He had some health issues, hope he's OK.

[Zeke]

One more name: Alwin Springer, pres of Porsche Motorsports North America. They are currently involved in prep of vintage race cars. And another name: Jerry Woods. You wont have to look far for contact info on these two, they're heavy hitters.

I think you should at least name the city in which your alleged perpetator of theft is in. That would take any suspicion off many and there would be less guessing like the post above. Also, there is a network of people around any shop or individual and they might come forth to solve the mystery as to where your parts are. As it is, this is looking for a needle in a haystack.

[Brad Roberts]

Nice Shoes Armando.

B

[douglas robbins]

Wow. Interesting story AJ. I'm sorry it turned out so badly. As to the issues you raised:

1. Statute of Limitations : I do not know absolutely for sure but likely the statute has not run. You would likely have a few causes of action in tort. One of them might be fraud. In most states (I do not know in California) the statute of limitations does not begin to run on fraud until that time when the fraud actually is discovered or that time when a reasonable person acting diligently would have discovered the fraud. Since you did not discover the fraud until recently and a reasonable person would not have necessarily stripped down his transmission upon its return looking for missing pieces, I think you likely have a decent argument that the statute of limitations did not begin to run until you found out your pump was missing. That means your claim agains the shop is not necessarily extinguished.

2. Damages : But the second question you have to ask yourself is what is this pump worth? If the pump were irreplaceable and the transmission was a rare machine and its rarity lends it significant economic value, then you might want to persue the suit. But it sounds like the pump can likely be replaced. And even if you can't replace the pump the transmission may turn out to be, like one poster implied, just a modified 915 tranny. So you have to figure out how much this thing is worth. Is it a $1000 tranny, or some rare, irreplaceable, historic $20,000 tranny? You do not want to go through the trouble of suing someone just for $200 in pump parts. It's not worth it.

Get Roberts in on this discussion. I think I saw him trying to amass a 916 parts collection in order to fabricate. He might know the value of this stuff.

3. Name the Shop : Go ahead and tell us the name of the shop. It's not libel if your claim is true. Truth is an absolute defense in America (unlike Britian: did you hear about the McDonald's case where activists claimed that McDonald's food was bad for you and got sued for slander?).

Douglas

[Zeke]

Douglas makes some good points, however I would not feel compelled to name the shop or individual. But indentifying the region or city I think is a ggod idea now that this is started. I'm repeating myself here, but by pointing out who it is not by the process of geographical info would eliminate damaging speculation. I think it is irresponsible to say, " I hope it's not these guys or these guys because they know about things like this." End the mystery for chrisake or be quiet. Don't start something you are not prepared to finish.

[roadtrp204]

This is a long shot, but have you checked the deminsions of engine oil pump gears (type I,IV, 911)? It seems to come up time to time that the race side didn't stray to far from part already in production. If they are get some center shafts made and move on the the next step.

[ajserrano]

I can appreciate all your comments about disclosure, but again, at this time and until I finish the inspection of the rest of my 916 transmission, I can't name the source. I much rather try and find the "oil pump-gears" (if that's all I'm really missing!) which is what was taken without my consent. Paying for these gears is the cheapest route with much less aggravation.

Back in 1987 when this incident happened, we didn't have the Internet and I am sure a lot of individuals got away with a h... of a lot more than my two oil-pump gears. Today, bad exposure (truth or lies) can really hurt a business. With that in mind, I don't want to hurt the reputation of a company for one individual's action and I remain hopeful and will continue to try to find and purchase my stolen 916 oil pump-gears. For now...

Believe me, it is hard for me to keep silent with as much anger as I have in me.

I truly want to thank you all for your help and leads for these parts.

Armando

PS: It would be nice if these gears would just simply "appeared" at my door step one day so this will not have to go any further... Wishful thinking?

[ajserrano]

Brad,

I suppose that if I commit an "act of violence", they can say that they now have a photo of my shoes...

I also now that if that happens, I have the option available to me to say;

"That is not my body attached to those shoes!" or

"No, I don't own any Bruno Magli shoes! I don't even know what that s.... is!" or

"That entire photograph was recreated using today’s technology and no, I never purchased those ugly-ass shoes" (That fit like a glove)...

AJS : )

[JWest]

Don't take Brad too seriously - he always comments on the "shoes in the photo" shots!