Tail to Side Shift Conversion Rookie Options

[Jameel]

A few days ago I decided to take a closer look at my shift linkage, since my car has some serious issues. Took that rear cover off and found this: https://youtu.be/gtFysPUBIO0

I'm no engineer, but that looks nasty to me. I decided to fix it right.

So yesterday I made a trip to 914 Limited and was treated quite well by Brad and Mike. Brad and I had exchanged a couple emails and calls and since I'm less than 3 hours from Peoria, I decided to kill two birds and simply drive in. Brad was kind enough to let me drive his daily 914 to see what a side shifter felt like. Took me about 1/3 mile to decide I would do the conversion. Brad and Mike walked me through a few of the finer points of the process, but this being my first time opening up a transaxle, I figured I'd try and document as much as possible.

I've done a bunch of searches here (and at Pelican) but have not found much in terms of step-by-step. Brad's instructions were provided, and he invited me to call anytime for support, but I'll be taking pics anyway, so figured I'd start a thread.

Can anyone point me to a thread where someone has documented the process? The best I've found so far is mikedsilva's, here. I could not find others.

Sort of off topic too, but is there any way to get rid of the huge smileys window when composing a post? My composition pane is just tiny, like 1/4 the size of the smileys pane.

[Jameel]

Lots to report today. Here's my setup for taking off the pinion shaft nut. I found that it was better to turn so the pinion shaft was turning "into" the drive shaft. This helped prevent the two shafts from spreading. Of course the jig (Brad Mayeur kindly lent me one of his) helps this too.





Here's my first gear. The dog teeth definitely look worse with the gear out of the stack.



The new used gear and syncro from Brad.



After replacing the gears I replaced the tail shift rods with the side shift rods. This was a tad finicky, but I actually enjoyed it. I spent a good 45 minutes getting everything lined up as perfectly as I could. I want this to shift sweetly. I followed Dr. Evil's steps from the DVD.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj35Zq-tt98


The inner surface of the intermediate plate was kind of messy. Looks like someone had put some RTV in there at some point. It was really on the surface or the gaskets, just thin remnants mostly in the voids of the casting. I picked it all out with tweezers





To prep the case for cleaning I removed the starter motor. The side with the long through bolt had a thin washer under it, but no washer on the stud side. I couldn't find this washer in my Hayne's manual. Any clues here?



It felt good to do something brainless for a change. Tomorrow I may have this back together.