I guess I should start out with a small introduction and a description of my project. hi my name is Josh and I have a 1967 Volkswagen beetle that I am turning into a slightly modernized sleeper. I have upgraded the whole suspension brakes ect. about a year ago I finished building a 1911cc 914 motor that's going to power this thing. I still have lots of work to do on the motor, cooling system fuel injection stuff ect; but its coming along. this first stage of construction the motor will just be built with motorcycle throttle bodies crank fired ignition and a staged fuel injection system. next step will be to rip off the motorcycle bits and strap on a supercharger to give this thing the kick in the butt it needs.

anyway on to the transmission. originally I was just going to use a late model beetle transmission and build it up to get it to handle the power this engine will make. but plans changed as I figured out I could build up a 5 speed 914 transmission for way less than the Volkswagen transmission, and it would already have better gearing than the beetle trans. so I started reading and collecting information. fast forward to two weeks ago. I found a good deal at a local junkyard for a 1973 side shift 914 transmission, I was told that it had been in their stock since about 1995. so its been sitting awhile, but I got a good deal and got him to throw a starter in so woo. ok so I got it home cleaned it up some and tore it down to see what I needed to replace to get it in good running condition. with my untrained eyes it doesn't look all that bad, definitely some wear but not all that bad. and this is where I am now.

I would like some second opinions on some of these parts for weather they are reusable or not, also just general questions as they come up about rebuilding and maybe upgrading this transmission. I plan on spending some time tomorrow cleaning up all the internal parts so Ill get some pictures of all the questionable ones and get them up here tomorrow.

here are a few pictures from the tear down.

this is first gear, obviously I have some parts to replace here.


intermediate plate


gear stacks


anyway like I said ill get some up close pictures of the parts I'm questioning. until then though I have a few questions. first off with the brake bands anchor block and thrust block. I know there is a difference between the early and late setup, with the anchor block being bigger ect. Is there an advantage with the late setup over the early? I do have two sets of late brake bands and parts I got out of half a transmission i picked up for $25.

next question is about all of the bearings. what am I looking for to judge wear. are bearings only toast if they have and worn groves in the rollers/balls or races, or if there are any obvious chunks or gouges in any of the parts? all the main bearings in my transmission look great with no obvious wear, but I want to make sure as I would hate to get it all back together and have weird noises or something. same thing with the cage bearings in the free gears. all I have see as far as an initial check was to press on the inside of the bearing and see if the rollers fall out. is there a more extensive check of something I can measure? anyway those are the only questions I have so far, I'm sure I'll have plenty more down the road. thanks in advance.

Well you might be a better mechanic than I am but I have some reasonable skills. I am sure that you could work everything out but my advice is to box it all up and send it to Dr Evil. Or get in on one of his clinics. I attended his Richmond clinic and this guy has some mad skills and knowledge. A group of us had inspected a bearing a dozen times and were getting ready to reuse it. The Dr picked it up and looked at it for 5 secs and said nope! Pointed out the flaws we had missed.

Don't own stock in the Dr or anything. Just pointing out that his experience and eye is worth the investment. My trans has been flawless ever since the rebuild.

definitely reach out to dr. evil

Send it to Dr. Evil and do absolutely no worrying! That's what I did!

ya I agree with all of you, he is actually why I joined this forum. I would just send it all to him to get it rebuilt but long story short I really want to do it myself. I have literally done everything on this car myself, and its been a full on ground up restoration/ modification. i really want to, when this thing is done, to be able to say a really did it all myself. that being said I do have a copy of the factory workshop manual and I'll probably pick up a copy of the docs DVD as well. I would love to go to one of his clinics but (unless I'm mistaken) there arent any coming up soon in southern California. so I was hoping I could reach out here and get some of the missing pieces of information I need. I dont expect this transmission to end up being like a factory fresh trans. as long as it shifts right and does what its supposed to do i"m happy. also if i do it myself when I break it ( and I most likely will at some point) I can fix it again.

all that being said I kind of mentioned it briefly in my last post but just last week I picked up basically half of another transmission. mainly the main part of the case differential output flanges and the main shaft for $25. I already cut the case up into a jig to align the shift forks. I plan on modding the spare differential housing into a pinon depth tool as well. basically like this differential tool

I do appreciate the guidance though guys.

First gear dog teeth are junk. The synchro is, too. Probably the slider (major bucks). You DO realize you have to flip the ring gear, right? And there's that pesky shift linkage and nose cone, as well as the internals for that. (I have a nose cone f/s, BTW). Lotta work, LOTTA money. Do yourself a favor, buy a 911 tranny and be dollars ahead in the long run.

The Cap'n

Haha Captain that's exactly what I told a bus guy who wants a 5 speed in his late bay, "get a 911 tranny" last weekend. He priced out a Berg 5 speed at $5800 so he thought a 914 5 speed would be cheaper.....

From the pics this looks like a decent parts tranny with the usual 1st gear wear on a side shift from shoving into gear with it grinding.

Those main bearings might be decent but how much slop in em when it was together?

I've done a 901 5 speed in a bay. Not that difficult, and I'd be happy to talk him through it. Oughtta fins a '69, though. Bigger diff. I broke 2 in my chill cast tranny.

The Cap'n

yep gotta flip the diff, move the breather, modify the nose cone, make a front mount, shifter linkage shifter ect. lotsa fab work but that's what I like doing, so no biggie. the 911 transmission would be closer to the Volkswagen one but the shift linkage is about 5 inches lower on the 911 transmission. Volkswagen guys usually bend and weld together two shift rods to connect the transmission to the shifter. I don't like that idea and I plan to go a different rout entirely. I'm planning on adapting a modern cable shifter to the stock side shift setup. I took some initial measurements and it looks like it will fit, but I cant be sure till I test fit the transmission case. as far as the bearings go there wasnt really any play that I could feel during teardown, and I did try and wiggle them around and such.

from my initial inspection first gear dog teeth are toast as is the syncro, second gear dog teeth are toast syncro too, third gear are worn too syncro as well. forth is probably usable as is fifth both dog teeth and synchro. fifth gear cage bearing is toast and it scored the bearing surface of fifth gear so fifth is toast. also 1-R slider, the engagement teeth for first are pretty chewed so yep that's gone. (wasn't too happy about that one) so assuming those are the only bad parts I priced it all out at about $1600 with new parts. so now I just need to make sure that's all I need to replace.

Change the 2 bearings, it's easier now, and they're a weak point. Add $350 to your budget.

The Cap'n

I've totally done what you are doing ...in a '67 bug no less, but I used a 911-901 which is a lot easier.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=238037

One thing you could do is pick up a nosecone and shift rods from a 911-901 and it would make things simpler. For this you have to cut in the shiftier mount and make a custom shift rod. Not hard seeing as you must have fab skills to do this swap anyway you look at it.
I take it your car is IRS right?

Cap'n which two bearings are you referring to? And why? I assume you are referring to the intermediate plate bearings which as I understand fail quite often.

Mark yes I converted my car to IRS a bit over a year ago. Question for you. Most of the guys that have done this swap that I have talked to said that shifting was sloppy or hard ect. I personally have never driven a bug with a Porsche trans in it. With that crazy shifter setup how does it really shift? Also how hard is it to change out a shifter bushing with the modified rod? I'm going to go take a look at your post now. But I would still like to go with the cable shifter setup if I can. Also I'm fully prepared to swap out the four shift rods and nose cone if need be. But I'm fairly confident I can pull it off without them.

I have a Weltmiester short shift kit in mine with all new coupler bushings, smooth, nice and tight, in fact almost as nice as my expensive Rennshift in my 914.
The only complaint I have is you have to man-handle it over into 4th
Totally pleased with the conversion.

BTW often with two 901 transmission cores you can make 1 good box, I have only about $150 in parts into this tranny. I lucked out and had a good 1st gear slider, they can be found good used in the classifieds.
Also, just my opinion, but those bearings should be fine as long as the cages aren't broke and there's no abnormal wear.

ya that man handle it over to fourth is the kind of comments im seing and trying to avoid. so like I said I'm still going to try and go the cable shift route and if that doesnt work ill fall back on the modified shift rod setup.

I'm actually looking for another transmission, have been for two weeks now, but everytime I find one within 200 miles of me it either sells before I get ahold of them or they want way too much for a core tranny. so the search continues. also thats where I'm at with the bearings as well actually the same with all of the parts. if there worn beyond good use I will replace them but if they have good life left in them I dont see why they should be changed. like with the bearings on the surface I se no defects not even minor ones on the surfaces of the races or the roller/ balls. once I get them cleaned up later today I will closely examin them with a magnifine glass to look for cracks in the cages ect. if I find nothing I dont see why I cant just drop them back in and run it.

The man handle into forth is not a big deal to me, one warning is this transmission the shifting will never be perfect no matter what you do. That said what I have is very close to perfect.

Also you can't drag race 1st gear, this trans sucks for drag racing period. Great for the street and even the track, but you will break 1st if you abuse it.
Be honest with yourself, if you do plan to drag race then build a beefed VW or Berg5/VW box.

nope no drag racing, was never into it. I have been building my car to be a nice driver and maybe get a little track time in at some point, but no drag racing. I don't expect it to shift like a modern transmission but I at least expect it to shift as well as my old Volkswagen transmission, which shifted pretty nice btw.

about 1st gear I'm still wondering why they designed the box that way, with first hanging out on the end of a shaft like that. just seems odd.

Everything is a learning process, even for Porsche. Later transmissions had the 5th on that end.

good point I forgot about that.

in case anyone was wondering looks like the later brake band setup increases the servo affect and spreads the outward pressure more evenly around the synchro ring.



quick question, just realized I dont have enough solvent to clean these parts up so since I have to go pick some up what would be a better choice or does it matter, mineral spirits or kerosene?