Sunday, December 26, 2004

Transmission Status

Some months back while cleaning the transmission, we found a broken end of a 1/2" diameter dowel attached to the drain magnet. One end was machined while the other end was clearly broken off. This was a real concern as we might have a problem transmission. I've never been a transmission guy and don't have the proper tools to really work on them. After preparing for the worst and discussions from others, I decided to dig into the transmission and see if I could find out where it broke from. I reasoned that worst case, I would not be able to get things back together and would end up sending the transmission in boxes to Vic at 356 Enterprises for a complete rebuild.



As it turned out, we found nothing but a good transmission with the usual 50 years worth of wear. The inspection was really rather simple. First, the nose cone comes off very easily. We then pulled out the intermediate plate that has attached to it all of the gearing and drive shaft. With a little convincing from my rubber mallet, everything came out easily. The best resource I had for this process was the Porsche factory workshop manual that I bought from Charlie White.
Upon inspection, we found nothing broken, sheared, shredded, or otherwise out of place. The only component that even resemble our suspicious part was a dowel that held together the two sides of the differential. This was installed tight and both ends were in good shape. Our best reasoning for our suspicious find is that this transmission had been repaired before - most likely because this dowel had broken. Following this rebuild, this component may not have been cleaned out of the transmission casing. There are so many nooks and crannies in the casing for it to sit. With all of our handling of the transmission, we may have knocked it loose from it's resting place allowing it to fall and attach to the drain magnet.



This is as far as we will go with the transmission inspection. I have heard enough people tell me that it either works or it doesn't enough times to put it back in and run it.

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