[spuggy]

You should probably get someone familiar with the marque to drive the car/prod various things before you start planning to spend money.

Shifting a 915 is sloppy, compared to almost everything else built in 1980. It's just the nature of the beast - and part of the charm, along with the old school synchros. But you probably can't evaluate just where yours falls on the spectrum without a mental map of a "good" and a "bad" 915 to compare it to. So if this is your first 911, get someone who knows what they should feel like to check it out for you.

It would be useful to go through the receipts you got with the car to answer the other vital question/other part of the puzzle; how many miles on the transmission since it was last serviced?

Many appear to be in denial about how frequently the 915 should be serviced, but if you want the tightest/crispest shifts it can give you (which still won't resemble any modern car, but will be a lot better than a worn-out box), then you should consider that any 915 will probably benefit from a refresh around 100-120,000 miles unless it spent all its life on the freeway. Wear inside the box won't be fixed by any manner of messing about with the shifter, coupler or the bushes.

Shifting my 1st 915 (with 230K on it, and opened at least twice before I got it) was like moving a stick around in a bucket of rocks.

Rebuild/swap in a late 915 later, totally different experience - with exactly the same factory shifter and bushes etc fitted (because they were good to start with). Additionally, I can report that, contrary to popular belief, a 915 in good condition will happily shift into 1st while still moving. Considerably above 3 MPH too...

Although once you've seen the invoice for the synchros, dogs, bearings and rebuild labor, you'll probably only do that in conjunction with rev matching/double-declutching...

Hope you get lucky. A 915 rebuild done right can make a WEVO shifter and gate shift kit look cheap.