Thanks for the props guys.
Tough week, though, I haven't touched the car since Monday. I've been out in the back country working on a car commercial, having worked in TV before it was pretty funny to "bridge the gap" between realistic operations and TV dreaming.
If you haven't already bought the juice, you should use Swepco gear oil. The P crowd swears by that stuff for the Porsche designed synchros.
I haven't pulled the trigger on gear oil yet. All my Audi / VW boxes run Motul Gear300, but I've definitely read about the early Porsche boxes working well with Swepco. I may just put the Motul in for now, and if it doesn't work well swap to Swepco. I swap my transmission oil 3-6 times a year when racing a car, so if Gear300 works it's going to save me significant $$$.
Back to catching you guys up...
-------
Had a pretty productive night in the garage. Second night in a row that I've gone in at about 5pm, found myself really hungry only to look up and realize it was now midnight!
Started off by grinding away all that POR15 I had laid on the pan (sigh). From there I welded on the mounts for my front transmission mount.
They allow me to use the urethane transmission mounts, or factory beetle transmission mounts, to secure the front end of the transmission to the pan. And with that sorted out I moved onto closing up the gaping holes in my floor pan. Originally I was going to use a CV joint boot as a seal, but that turned out to be too large. I figured a boot from a power-steering rack would be perfect, but turns out I don't have any kicking around anymore. In one of my bins, though, I did find a brand new set of balljoint boots. It's a perfect fit, but will be a PAIN in the butt to deal with at a later date if I use the wire clips. The wire clips will ensure a full seal though. Hmmmmm...
Behind the boot, holding it on to the sheet metal, is a .5" section of 1.25" exhaust tubing. Just enough to hold the boot on. The boot is pretty stiff, so I may only use a wire clip on the pan side and let the shaft slide in and out of the boot.
Tomorrow I will seal up the torsion bar housing, and then tear it all back down to paint it. I have a couple of items to finish on the actual transmission, then I can finally flip the pan over and sort out all the other issues. I still need to move the accelerator cable and clutch tubing coming out of the pan, solve the clutch release arm hitting the frame horn, finish modifying/sealing the speedometer gear and then I can move onto rear suspension.
--------
Feels like I'm picking up momentum again, as I near the completion of the transmission swap.
Trans mounted:
But had to deal with the Clutch cable tube (yellow) and Accelerator tube (blue). I knew from other forum posts that they were going to interfere, but with my trans being further forward then most...it's a bit extreme. From the camera angle it looks like the clutch tube is close, but it's just an illusion, the bowden tube wouldn't fit on it. The accelerator cable, is a definite problem!
Cut the sheet metal around the tubes, lightly bent them into a new position, and welded a new plate on. Simple simple, but yet another job that needed to be done. Oh, and here's a future problem, the bowden tube is 3" too short. I suspect I'll be making a custom bracket to use the shorter tube.
And, finally a lick of paint. Tomorrow I hope to flip the pan over and start working on some topside issues. With the body done at the painters, I'm on a time crunch to get it picked up.
--------------
So the last step on the transmission was to determine how I was going to hold the bellhousing mounts in. Initially I wanted to avoid the countersunk screws, but after considering a few options determined that they really are the way to go. Only problem? My countersink bit was broken on the last job. Small town Squamish doesn't have a whole lot available at ten to six on a saturday...but Home Depot did have these...
...yes, that does say wood and plastic. Aluminum is soft, right?
A bit ugly on the first go, but after cleaning up with a stone they worked fine.
And with that, the pan is right side up and ready for me to move on. From here on out most of this post is for archive purposes...should someone be searching for help on their own 901 install.
One of the things I was finding tough to plan was how I was going to do the shift rod. This isn't a well documented part of the swap, I suspect because everyone's transmission is going to end up in slightly different location fore-aft. The transmission I bought came with a modified 911 shift rod which was in a notchback (supposedly), but the bends were way off for a beetle pan. I also really wanted to use the Beetle shift rod as I'd have better (and more affordable) shifter options. So with that in mind I started off on the shifter. I knew I needed to remove the bushing mount temporarily for setup, which means grinding off the pan finish. If I have to grind a bit, might as well grind some more...so I cut a big access hole to make life easier.
There are six spot welds holding in the bushing bracket / shifter mount
From there I propped the beetle shift rod up in place, and then measured how much "drop" I would need at the back of the shift rod. To bend the rod I used a propane torch to heat it until it was red hot, and bent it over a section of exhaust tubing. The shift rod will still crimp, as you can see in the photo, but I just welded tabs over top when I was done. If I had a second factory shift rod, I actually would have started again, putting the bends closer to the middle of the rod. with the bend as far back as I have them the rod was hitting the heater flap cable tubes.
With the bends correct, I moved onto the length. You'll need to decide if you're going with the Porsche shift coupling, or the beetle shift coupling. I actually think the Porsche one is a better unit, but with my transmission pushed as far forward as I have it, I'd need to cut out the VIN to be able to put the one I have in. Thus, I went beetle. A quick weld on the end, and I was done...ish. I could get 2/3rd no problem, and while I could get into 4/5 it was binding against something. Turns out it was the tubes for the heater flaps under the rear seat. Well, I'm not planning on using those...so out came the tubes, which in itself was a royal pain the ***.
following the tube removal, I still couldn't get 1st or reverse. Something was hitting the shifter...and when I finally found it, well lets just say incredible. How did I by chance just happen to leave this little tab? My cut and sheet metal work went through half the welds holding it in. Ever try and use a die grinder inside a tunnel? Not fun!
Thankfully I can now hit all the gears...though it did seem to require a bit too much muscle for my taste, using the stock beetle shifter. Tomorrow I'll work out what else is binding in my setup.
...porsche trans, not a 'quick' project!
-Dave
--------------
Ugh, what a frustrating day. It started off well enough, modified the clutch release fork to fit the car...and got that dialed, but from there, it all went downhill. I knew there was something binding up in the shifting, and figured it would be a relatively straight forward process for eliminating the issues. The weird part was I could get 1st, 3rd and 5th no problem, but reverse, 2nd and 4th were binding something fierce. I tried a stock VW shifter, my 'proto' short shifter and then made up a handle that I could attach right to the end of the transmission to use my hand. At one point, I was soooooo close...
But 20 minutes later, this was my garage:
yup, tore the transmission down a second time...and confirmed the problem:
We didn't actually measure how bad it was out, but after the first big pull to straighten it we measured it at 80 thou out. No wonder it was binding. Guess this gearbox was dropped at some point! Anyways, with that fixed and the transmission back together I spent the evening resetting the shift linkage, re-welding the bushing support in and confirming that it was all dialed. I'm was actually about 1/4" short with my shift rod, but that was easy enough to deal with since I was welding a bunch of the stuff in. Got it all done around 8pm, just in time for a late dinner. Just one last job, the shift rod bushing below the shifter.
Oh crap. Complete brainfart.
That bushing is replaceable with the stock setup, you simply pull out the shift rod, slide the bushing in and replace the shift rod. However, once you put a Z bend in the shift rod for a Porsche trans...no dice. That left me with a major dilemma. Leave the bushing missing, and deal with a rattling shifter...or yank it all out and start over. Can you guess what I did?
Of course, putting the bushing in meant the assembly didn't move around enough to actually slide it into the tunnel. One more heater control tube sacrificed itself in the name of progress, and I could
just get the assembly in through my large access hole. Then it was back to testing, adjusting, testing, adjusting, and finally welding. My transmission tunnel has suffered badly, and I'll need to run either carpet or the rubber mats (kind of my plan anyways)...but I can now say that I have all the gears and a reverse lookout.
An entire
day spend on shift linkage!!!
-Dave
---------------
A friend on the German Look forum comments...
What a fight with the shift rod!
My plan is to fit two shift rod bushes. The stock one at the front and another (stock) at the rear end of the tunnel, set at the correct height for the gearbox selector rod. Then cut the shift rod in two places (between the bush locations) and fit two universal joints. This would give a more accurate shift without a bent rod flapping about inside the tunnel.
A bit late for that suggestion but if the current set up doesn't work that might be an option.
I think the front bush setup is worth a try as I agree with Ricola's analysis and so did the rally engineers. However, I'd check the mounts annually (use a pry bar to check the stretch) and expect them to need replacing periodically. The rally car had modest amounts of torque compared to a big Type4 but the drivers did a lot of engine breaking as the brakes were cooked most of time (which stretches the mounts).
Funny you should mention that Bruce. Ideally, I think the dual-universal joint system is the way to go. When I initially measured the drop I didn't think 3.75" was 'so big', but by the time you bend the rod and put it into the tunnel you realize just how tight it really is. When I was redoing the shift rod for the 3rd time on Sunday I actually pulled a steering shaft and it's joints out of a box to see if they might be useable in this application. Unfortunately too big, so I need to go and find some smaller ones.
For the moment I believe I have a well working shift system, but it's really hard to evaluate that while sitting on a bare pan! I've decided I will go with carpet or rubber floor mats, instead of a bare tunnel, so that leaves me the option of cutting into the tunnel down the road to improve on this. For now I've tack-welded my access hole shut, and will search out another VW shift rod and bushing support for improving it at a later date (if this doesn't work well as is).
I've also been thinking a lot about the front bushing setup for the trans. If this were a typical street car where you build it, and then it's "done"...I'd probably be quite concerned. In fact, I think I'd be redoing the system since failure is likely to occur way down the road at an inopportune time. But, I'm not building a street car. With my race cars I have a system where before and after each event I go over the car from bumper to bumper. It's put up on axle stands and all fluids are flushed, all mounting points checked, major component (engine, tranny, suspension, brake) nuts and bolts are checked. I average one event every 3mo, so I think that is probably a good enough window to discover a problem. With my Audi, after the first season I had a good record of how long things like rod ends and upper suspension mounts lasted. So after the first year I just rotated those parts out on a shorter window...whether they needed it or not. At $20 for two mounts, I think I can afford that here! :-)
The other thing I've been thinking about is the skid plate. I know I need to protect the nosecone / shift rod on the transmission, so there might be an opportunity to build in a 'failsafe' when we do the skid plate. I tossed this plate on just to see the coverage / get an idea. The real one will involve lots of trimming, etc. But for visuals, this will work as a start:
I'm thinking if I design the mounts for the skid plate well enough, I should be able to place this left over urethane piece I have in between the skid plate and the front transmission mount:
If the mounts fail, the nose of the trans would drop and rest on the urethane and skid plate vs. hanging off the shift rod.
I still need to think this through though. In order to be effective the Urethane mount needs to be within 15mm of the transmission...but that means the skid plate needs to be strong enough it won't bend up INTO the trans. So, maybe not a good idea...but a start!
-Dave