Gearbox is back in the car.
I really don't consider myself a transmission guy, and I flipped back and forth on whether to ship the box out and have someone rebuilt it or do it myself. My previous gearbox experience, includes Formula Ford Hewland gear ratio changes, easily done, these boxes are meant to come apart and go back together at the race track, between sessions, simple box. And previously changed a ring and pinion on a VW bug transaxle, a long time ago!
I decided to do it myself, opportunity to learn, opportunity to buy more tools (which may never get used again)
Before rebuilding, 1st was a little bit tough to get into gear occasionally. But the 1 -2 shift was best achieved by a very very slow shift, any quicker and it would grind. So at the stop light you had to be prepared for a quick start away from the light, then the slow slow slow up shift by which time you would have the following vehicle all over the back of you, thinking dumb P-car driver can't drive a manual. I also wanted a better top gear for highway cruising, too many flat roads around here before you get to any place interesting. The box also leaked oil.
Overall, I would do it again, it wasn't that difficult. There was a OMG moment when I had two gearboxes all apart on my bench, "will I ever get all this back together" The 911 box and the 914 box which I was salvaging the taller top gear from.
I think the most difficult part was deciding which parts were too worn to reuse. Mike Dr. Evil DVD’s, gives some good advice on what parts from a donor box can be transferred from the less wear higher gears to the lower gears. For the syncro bulk rings, it was easy to decide, there is a wear spec in the manual, Under spec toss it. The sliders were the difficult decision, no experience on what is passable,and the parts are expensive.
In the end, I ended up replacing the following with new parts, 1st and 2nd bulk rings, 1st - reverse slider, 2nd - 3rd slider, 1st syncro teeth. Moving the used 911 5th gear, syncro teeth to 2nd.
In the past, this box has had a failure of the clutch fork pivot ball. A poor repair was done, where they made a t -nut installed from the diff side, But the nut was longer than the hole it past thru so the ball stud never clamped down on the housing, so it moved around. It was good to catch this issue before it caused any damage.
From the donor 914 case, I made the fork setting fixture. I was going to cut down the 914 input shaft and save it for a clutch alignment tool but found the VW type 1 input shaft I have works for an alignment tool.
