Stripped speedo drive locator bolt thread, New question: what's up with my firewall shift bushing? Options

[john77]

Not a great evening working on my car. I got the car up on stands and drained the tranny in preparation for resealing the speedo drive, side console and diff shafts before installing the tangerine linkage and firewall bushing.

First thing I did was remove the old speedo drive to fit the new double sealed one I got from 914rubber only to find the shaft down the centre of the new one wasn't big enough to fit the gear??? So I put the old one back in, didn't match up the hole in the drive to the hole in the case correctly, over-tightened the bolt thinking it was going into the hole and stripped the thread out. Seems like such a bad design, or is there some kind of mark I missed that let's you know the hole in the drive is matched up with the hole in the case?

Not really sure what to do now. Is their anyway to fix it that doesn't involve pulling the tranny? Off the top of my head all I could think of was swapping out the entire rear plate with the mount arms for another one. Or taking off my muffler (ugh) and threading a new larger hole, which will then require me to machine a new, larger locating bolt. Or, as it's not a structural bolt, just JB welding that sucker back in, but then I'd be joining the legion of DAPOs, which was never one of my aims in life.

The piece I got from 914rubber doesn't even have a hole for the bolt end to seat in, but that bolt has to hold it in there somehow right, or else what the hell stops it from falling out? I have to drink beer.