theiceman

I see the problem .. you are using the grand Cherokee manual :-)

SeattlePorsche

Ice,
Wha Hah! LOL!

Dude I was eating my lunch when I read that and scared half the office when I roared with laughter. I changed my jeeps oil 2 days ago!

I just got off the phone with JW. He said he would diassemble my main shaft for me (the one with the big nut) and inspect 3/4 gears. He said he thought it was good I have him do this since I don't really know what I am looking for except for really obvious things. I asked him to look at the big race that popped out. I think I will try to disassemble the pinion shaft gears tonight since there is no big nut in the way. Then at least I can inspect the entire 1st gear including brake bands, spyder, and other things I have only read about.

Pete, the race that fell out is for P/S 1/2, right? It is the larger of the two. So it is good that my race behind #4 is ok, right?

Peter Zimmermann

Yes, the large race (for the P/S) is the one that takes much of the load, and often needs to have its hole reinforced. The small race above it is usually, almost always, good to go. I've only seen that one loose in three or four transmissions.
Pete

SeattlePorsche

Howdy. Here is my corrected map now. I have reached about as far as I want to go with the disassembly. I am not going to try to take apart the main shaft because there is a big nut that I don't have the tool for. The mainshaft is in the background of the photos. There is a long section of bare shaft. At the end of this there is a big nut which holds the gears in place. So you would need a 12 inch long socket. Reminds me of when I took off my ball joint nuts. The tool I had broke, so I asked JW to do it for me. (He took them off and installed my new ball joints for free.) I don't feel like crossing this line right now. Plus, you would have to rig up a way of holding the shaft steady as you torque the nut off. If I can watch John, I will take a photo of this.

But I wanted to try to take apart the pinion shaft. It is easy because there is nothing holding the gears on. Photo of the P/S balancing on a piece of wood on the floor. I beat the end of the shaft onto the soft wood and pretty soon all the gears fell right off. No damage to the tip of the shaft on the wood.

Gears loose. Gears separated. I was careful to note the orientation. Here is the first syncro again. The asymmetric teeth of the first slider face the gear. They look good I think. Second teeth. They look pretty good. I used twine to hold everything together in the correct orientation.

Will see what happens on Friday. I want to replace everything that needs it. No point in putting together a bunch of worn parts if I am trying to recondition the 915. I am still leaning towards the Wevo single bearing retainer plate. Bye guys.

dsmith

Pete, I don't remember my P/S bearing retainer being loose, and I don't have pics from it to remember. I do have what I would call a metallic vibration noise in mid range acceleration in 2nd-5th gears. This is without carpet or the coupler cover installed. I have a Wevo coupler and new bushings. The noise is almost inaudible with the coupler cover on and no carpet. If someone holds the shaft at the coupler on acceleration it's inaudible. Any thoughts? No worry?
David

Peter Zimmermann

David: I doubt that you should worry. When you remove insulation from a 911 the most horrifying noises, which are mostly normal, get into the cockpit! In a case like yours I just advise to listen for change, which generally can be a tip-off that something's failing. Usually - no change, no problem.
Pete

SeattlePorsche

Had the day off today. My gears are in the hands of John Walker now. He inspected my tranny and said it was in above average condition. Here he inspected my P/S race located in the differential housing and said it looked very good and tight. He will loctite it in there. I inspected it myself and there is no play or slop. JW said it is a precision fit, but mine was fine.

Here is the M/S nut being removed. You can see the very deep socket on the bench. JW just held the top of the shaft steady with the shop rag and buzzed off the nut. Very easy with the right tool. Here is John's technique to free the gears. Very easy. It's what I did last night, but on a wood piece.

Here JW is showing me what to look for on the guide sleeve, for where to look for the wear. Mine were all fine. Here is the 1/2 shift sleeve with wear. The 1st gear side of it has asymmetric teeth to mesh with the asymm. dogteeth of 1st gear. Snapring for 3rd off. 3rd synchro ring shiny and worn. When shifting, the shift sleeve is pushed toward the gear and the inner diameter of the sleeve rubs on the synchro ring, I think to spin up the gear prior to teeth mating. Shiny means the sleeve will slip over the synchro ring instead of frictioning with it. Bad.

John went to great lengths to explain to me how to remove and replace the snap rings. It reminded me a little of putting my retainer ring on my clutch. Here is my 1st gear double asymmetric brake band. The stop dog fits into the depression and you can see a piece of mine was on the verge of breaking off. Here 1st synchro ring was also very worn.

A phone call and all the parts were delivered to the shop this afternoon. Here is the new 1/2 shift sleeve. I will get new 1/2 3/4 shift sleeves, new brake bands 1-4, new synchro rings 1-4 and new synchro hubs 1-2 (dogteeth). And a new gasket kit. John will press the shafts together for me, then I will put it all together, I hope.

SeattlePorsche

You need to drive on down to San Diego where you can go surfing.
da Grogger

SeattlePorsche

Grogger,

Thanks! Now that you have your own P-car you need to get yourself your own sign on and show us a picture of your car.

Peter Zimmermann

James: Yes, WEVO makes a one-piece bearing retainer. I rec'd the info today from Smart Racing; it's a nice looking piece, but will certainly make assembly of the gear stacks a little more difficult. With the factory setup assembly of the P/S and M/S is easy compared to the procedure using the one-piece retainer. By the way, the replacement retainer will not fix the loose bearing race issue, but it does appear that it will strengthen the diff housing.
Pete

SeattlePorsche

Thanks Pete. I decided to keep my stock retainers because they are still in excellent condition. JW inspected them with me and he showed me how the bearings are a tad proud of the face of the retainer as they should be he says. Got my partial tranny back from John tonight. I will reassemble the rest of the tranny in a few days. I can't this weekend.

FWIW JW also likes the Wevo bearing retainer plates. He says they are the wave of the future because of the strength of a single plate, plus it is hard or possibly impossible to get new stock plates. Maybe in another 150k miles I will rebuild this tranny again and go with Wevo.

SeattlePorsche

Working really hard to get the car done. Engine is ready to bolt up tomorrow. Here are some photos of my tranny. New dogteeth on 1st and 2nd. Checking the gap. Intermediate housing ready. (Don't forget the detent position.) Opening up 5th gear, 5th open, old and new 5th syncro rings, 5th on. Reverse idler a little chewed up. Ready for nose cap. Inside the nose. 915 done.

BTW that was much easier than any of the engine stuff.

SeattlePorsche

I showed my clutch cable earlier. It was falling apart. I couldn't pull the cable out the back as you are supposed to because some of the threads had retracted into the tube in the tunnel, and when I pulled back on the cable it just bunched up. So I had to cut each separate thread and pulled the cable out forward towards the pedals. I needed to do the pedal bushings. Here are some more photos.

New tubes at the front of the engine: lower breather, vacuum. The vacuum tubes I got from the local VW tuner shop. They are identical. The old tubes were frayed and worn at the ends, and they were not tight at all on the T-tube. I also zip-tied the new ones down. Monty on. Before photos of the pedals and accelerator and clutch. Bolts to the pedals, with the nuts under the belly pan (you gotta crawl under the car.) Support arm nut by the aluminum housing in the trunk. Pedals out. Used quarters to remove the clutch spring. Old delrin bushings. Painted and baked. New bronze bushings. Bushings done. Bellcrank bushes too.

Peter Zimmermann

James: I just got back to your thread and saw your photos regarding shift fork adjustment. I certainly hope that you had a holding fixture in place and the nuts on the shafts torqued to spec (page 30 in the 8th edition of my book) - I couldn't see the ends of the shafts in your set-up pics.
Pete

SeattlePorsche

Pete,
Yes I took your advice that you mentioned before. I took the diff with the shafts to John Walker and he reassembled the shafts with the jig for me and torqued everything down. I used a very big torque wrench from home depot to torque the nuts on the shafts. I tried to do everything to protocol. Thanks.