I think I have asked this before and it's a real stumper... and I will try again here seeing as there are a lot of people in this thread that know these transmissions...

Why does the front of the transmission have a bellhousing shape when it never bolted up to an engine? Why not just a small opening for the input shaft? Were these trannies originally cast to be adapted to a mid engine car too? Seems like a lot of wasted aluminum up there.

Bazar01,

Thank you for your thoughts.

I have to somewhat sheepishly admit that I found the problem last night. And it was an external problem, not the internal one I had thought. But it sure had me puzzled for a while.

The external shift linkage that attaches to the transmission case is rather complicated, and involves motion of several links that have to hinge, slide, and rotate. I had missed that there was binding in one of the joints -- shown in the photo below. That component is an aluminum sleeve that has to rotate slightly on a steel shaft every time the shift lever is moved laterally in the neutral gate. This aluminum sleeve is an aftermarket racing part that replaces the factory nylon or plastic part (apparently to reduce slop). It has to be able to rotate with minimal friction on the stub shaft that mates with the (long) shift rod. If it binds, it inhibits the function of the shift lever centering springs, which are indeed on the shaft you showed. I took it all apart and found -- somewhat to my relief -- that the internal components were all fine, including that shaft you identified, the centering springs on that shaft, and the reverse lock out mechanism that is part of the shaft. The reverse lock out, by the way, is a bizarre mechanism that defies description. It's very clever, though, and prevents going directly from 5th to reverse without first going into the neutral gate. Anyway, it was during this scrutiny that I realized what the problem was, and that I had missed it earlier.

The problem I had is unlikely to plague the average 944 transmission, because it involves an aftermarket part that's uncommon. What happened is that the aluminum sleeve had galled on the steel shaft. It needed to be disassembled, sanded, and lubricated. It was likely a progressive problem that coincidentally worsened at the time I rebuilt and reinstalled the transmission, so it had me worried I had made a mistake during the internal assembly.

Here is a pic of the problem part. Its the gray aluminum colored part in the upper left of the photo that the shiny shaft slides through. Sorry, I don't have a photo editor handy to show an arrow with...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1210714199.jpg

The reason for the "bellhousing" shape is that these trannys were originally designed and used for a front wheel drive car - Audi 5000. In that application the tranny did bolt up to the engine. A ton of stuff on these cars is pulled from the parts bins at VW/Audi - specially the early cars.

Finally I found my answer.

I never thought to think it was front a FWD car. Just doesn't seem like it would work, but then again the 5000 was sort of a boat so, makes sense.