Eeewww!!

Ok, I pulled the 5-speed out of the Euro tonight. Tomorrow evening, I'll replace it with the 4-speed that I have in inventory. All went well except, I forgot that I needed to have the back wheels off the ground to be able to rotate the driveshaft to disconnect the flex disk. So, in the middle of things, I had to reinstall the rear mount, pull the jack out, go around and raise up the back of the car and stick the stands undeneath it.

Maybe Saturday morning I can get the wagon into the shop and pull the bad 4-speed.

Installed a new support bearing and support on the 4-speed 240D driveshaft. and installed it and the 4-speed into the Euro Friday night. Pushed it out and rolled the wagon into the shop Saturday am. Probably won't do anything this afternoon except lay on the couch and read...

I'm getting pretty good at this...
 

Dead 4-speed is out now; I started at 7:30 with wheels on the ground and had the driveshaft and tranny out by 8:45. I'll stab the 5 speed tomorrow evening and figure the length of the stub shaft so Thrash can do their thing next week.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two trannies (notice the shift arms are completely different on the 5-speed - the longer transmission):

Good news.
 

I stabbed the 5-speed on Wednesday night, installed the driveshaft and calculated the length needed on the stub shaft (16") in preparation of taking the shaft to Thrash for mods.

After I finished up, I was thinking about the length of that shaft and wondered if I might have a shaft on a parts car that would be close to the right length. So, on Thursday, I buzzed out to my parts annex (leathermang's farm) and retreived the stub shaft from a W115 240D w/auto. It turns out that the shaft from the 115 is 15.25 inches long.

There's already about +2.5 inches of overlap in the splines with a 16" stub shaft so I believe that a 15.25" shaft will work just fine on the 5-speed. Basically, all that needs to be done is balance the new assembly but, first I'm going to trial fit all of the components and confirm that there's plenty of overlap.

For the 5-speed rear cross member, I'll use the 617/automatic crossmember which will actually place the rear mount bolt about 3.5" too far back. I'll use heavy steel strap to fab a tab that will bolt to the the tranny's rear mountpoint and extend aft to the new motor mount location.

Leo ,congrates ,this is good info for the rest of us who've wondered on exactly this same solution.4spds are good ,but 5spds bring you valued mileage.

5-speed shaft went to Thrash Driveline this AM.
 

I spent part of the weekend determining exactly how long the driveshaft's stub end needs to be and, deciding how to go about shortening the shift rods on the 5-speed so they'll work on the Wagon.

Inspired, I rolled out of the sack early this morning and hauled the driveline pieces to San Antonio; Thrash sez the driveshaft should be done by Friday and, I'm pretty sure I can get everything else finished by then. Hopefully, I'll be driving a 5-speed by this weekend.

YAY!!!

Thrash called this morning and said the shaft will be ready tomorrow (1-26-07) will drive down early to get it...last night I cut the shift rods, made their coupling sleeves from thinwall 1/2ID steel tube and fitted it all in place...looks good. Will post pictures soon.

The 1/4 steel tab I fabbed as an extension to the mount still needs to be drilled for the rear mount and the bolthole on the end of the tranny. I'll find a big-ass drill on the way home this evening...

Rollin',
 

with a 5-speed...

...it's just too fine in my head.

...it's just too fine in my head.

...it's just too fine in my head.

Lucky dog

I had a 1976 BMW 2002 that had the splines on the output shaft truncate one day when I was doing a less than gentle takeoff. BMW had a newer design on the shaft and tranny yoke and it was easy enough to put in.