Porsche 944 transaxle swap - Anybody done it?

It doesn't look like a terrible job. Anybody here have real, dirt under the nails experience? How bad is the job? Any good tips or tricks to get it done quicker or easier? I've got an 87 924S that I intend to use as my daily driver, but it lacks a 2nd gear (synchro?). I've also got a very crusty 1987 944 parts car that will give up its transaxle to the cause. Both are 5-speed manuals.

1) Get a good guy to help you (preferably with disco potato turbocharger avatar drawn by comic book artist Shawn Mcmanus). Check.

2) very crusty! soak that bast'd down today so it'll break loose.

In reply to carbon:

Thanks, Ryan! When are you free?

Whenever. Till the 4th You gonna come to limerock the 16th? You can "pit" for me (in this case "pit" means come and watch awesome hardware lap while doing nothing strenuous whatsoever)

It's pretty easy, really.

Getting to the clutch is the PITA part, but dropping the trans is pretty simple.

They are very, VERY easy. The last one I did in the gravel driveway in under an hour, including the time it took to jack it up and let it down.

1. Disconnect the axles. It's a good idea to do this first. That way if you're parking brake sucks you can still put the car in gear to hold the axles still.

2. Disconnect the shifter. There's a 13mm bolt with a safety wire going through it. Take that bolt out and the shifter shaft should slide out. Sometimes they stick a little, so you may have to fight it a bit.

3. Pop the rubber door out of the bell housing and take out the two 8mm (iirc) allen bolts from the drive shaft coupler. Slide the drive shaft coupler onto the input shaft of the trans.

4. Take out the four bell housing bolts.

5. Put a floor jack under it.

6. Remove the two mount bolts that up into the floor and lower the jack.

P.S. - The '87 924S trans is not exactly the same as the '87 944 trans. The '87 924S takes the early trans, and the speedo cable runs off of the front wheel. The late 944 trans has a place for a speedo cable, but you don't have to hook it up. It will work just fine in the 924S, but vise versa won't.

I think it took me longer to type that out that it would have to drop the thing.

wow.. something easy on a 944...

Yep, just followed the instructions on Clarks-garage.com when I put the transaxle back into my 951.

Put redline MTL in the transaxle to help improve its lifetime as the crap that came out was, well, crap.

Fixed the shifter while I was at it, so no more sloppy shifter.

Took about a full day all told using hand tools and a standard hydraulic jack.

I have a buddy down here in Carver that has a garage full of Porsches including a couple of 944 track cars. He spends most of his spare time messing with those things and has parts coming out of every corner of his massive garage. Here is a link to one of his CL ads. Call him up and tell him Todd sent you. He will talk you thru it and give you the nitty gritty on what to do. http://boston.craigslist.org/sob/pts/4161507161.html

P.S. what's M030? chassis code for some VAGness I imagine?

In reply to carbon:

why M030 is my stage name of course.

Outside the GRM forum, M030 is the option code you select if you want your Porsche to be built with factory sport suspension