Bill Ball

Oh, I guess the early tranny has more clearance with the crossmember. Great. S4 only moves an inch or two. And the fluid hoses are another limiting factor on S4s. I had to move them off their routing brackets to gain enough slack to get the tranny back. The shifter cable and kickdown may need to be disconnected as well. A 1x2 wood piece on the front tunnel brackets under the TT will hold it at the right height as you slide the tranny back and forth.

Maybe Jim B or Errka who have disassembled TT shafts can say why yours moves an inch then stops.

928ntslow

This would have been so much easier if the shaft just moved back and forth as previously noted.

I wonder how in the hell Porsche expected one to get to this area with the shaft not moving?

928nut

"Pisses me off, I figured this was an easy thing to do as it took me no time on my GTS 5 spd."

Keith, this is funny, we seem to be walking the same trail. I have done a clutch job on an '89-5spd and it was so easy to get at the flywheel bolts I thought it would be the same on the '79 auto but no such luck. I haven't tried moving the drive shaft yet to see if mine will move enough so I can remove the flex plate and get at the flywheel. I hope it does or else there will be some bad language emanating from my garage - very common occurrence when working on these cars.

I have never seen the flex-plate mounted behind the ring-gear as your picture shows it, why would anybody want to do that ?

Good luck with the transmission trick - keep us posted.

928nut

928ntslow

I looked up the set up in the WSM and PET. They both show the same thing as mine. However, no where does it say how to do this procedure. The more I look at it and think about it, it "shouldn't" be a big deal to slide the tranny back enough on the cross member without moving too much stuff and have the clearance. I won't know until tomorrow when I am able to get back at it.

Failure is not an option, so I will figure this out one way or another. I just have to submit that it will take a bit longer than what I had planned.

I sure hope someone else see this thread and has some better answers.

Jim bailey - 928 International

The 3 speed rear coupler is a completly different design it ihas a male shaft on the transmission. Odds are the driveshaft is hitting that shaft...The 4 speed have a female input to the torque converter and the hole goes all the way through similar to the from flex plate.

Bill Ball

With an autobox, the WSM procedure is to drop the entire rear end and remove to tranny and TT to do the rear main seal. Alternatively, pull the motor. BUT with the early cars that have a separate ring gear, it SHOULD be easy to remove the gear and flexplate and get at the seal directly. (Update - see Jim B's explanation of the problem with 3-speed autobox above).

With later autobox cars the ring gear is not removable and getting to the seal requires at least sliding the autobox and TT back and removing the bellhousing (or cutting the crosspiece), as I describe here:
http://www.billsworkshop.com/P928S4/seal/seal.htm
This may apply to any 4-speed autobox. I can't recall what year the ring gear became a press-fit rather than bolt-on. And even later the ring gear and flywheel became a one-piece casting (my 89 is).

With 5-speeds, none of this is necessary. Just drop the clutch.

928ntslow

Yea, thanks for the "good" news. The only easy part is after I move the trasnny and TT back about an inch or two. As you can see by the pics, that is about all I need to drop that sucker. just hate these extra courses of labor just to get to a freakin oil seal. It's worse when you think your going to be in and out in just a couple of hours. I expect I will get back to it tomorrow afternoon. After that I need to do the front cam seals. This engine has not been maintained too well and it is crying oil.

928ntslow

Update,

Dropped the exhaust completely (you may not have to depending on your set up), removed the heat shields, unbolted the 4 bolts holding the TT to the Bell housing, unbolted the 2 bolts holding the trans to the crossmember, jacked up the tranny about an inch and carefully pryed the whole assembly at the TT and bell housing. I lined up the floor jack so it would roll a tad. The only thing I had unhooked at the tranny was the vac line. I moved it all back enough to get the flex and ring gear out...separately I might add.

Had a little fiasco with the flywheel bolts, but I am in the process of putting it back together. It just turned out to be more work than I had planned. Anyway, there is no other way around doing what I did less dropping the rear cross member and pulling the whole nonsense.....or doing the unspeakable by cutting out the bottom of the bell housing. It's been done and mentioned but it will never get done or suggested by me

Bill Ball

Good work, Keith!

Charley B

Gotta do what you gotta do. I have already struggled and come to a conclusion for when I get there. Good job.