Agreed 100% with JW that the vertical detent doesn't need to be removed. But if you've done any major cleaning of the middle case section, especially media blasting (which should be soda so it dissolves), then you'd be advised to remove that detent assembly.
My limited experience with this issue is from inheriting a scrap 915 complete case from a friend who had planned to clean it up. It's scrap because it was run without oil and all sorts of damage occurred to the gear shafts & differential. So the case sections can no longer be trusted. He was planning to do something like display it in the garage and therefore he blasted it in a cabinet at work.
Cases look pretty on the outside but the vertical detent was all crapped up with media on the inside. Those detent parts were a serious pain in the butt to get out of the bore. I was glad the case is junk because i'm sure the bore is boogered up pretty good from removing the parts. I wasn't being careless just because the case is junk. I worked for a long time to free the pieces from the grit.
I wanted to salvage the detent pieces for spare parts and use the case as a "cutaway" section for checking/setting the forks and clearance of the tabs on the rods
Thanks to Jerry Austin (Porsche84 here on the forum) for the idea
