Originally Posted by seoseo

I bought the car with the 5spd in it with about 180k miles on it, and the transmission clanked in neutral. It got hit four years later, maybe 240,000 miles, clanking hadn't changed at all. If I could find someone fairly nearby who has worked on these, I'd have it taken apart, since it's out of the car. Worth it to me, because it's a nice transmission, and they aren't common.
The only reason I have for thinking that it might be the layshaft is that a guy walking by on the street one day commented that I must have a Getrag 5 speed. I confirmed that, and asked how he knew. He said that he worked on Porsche's and that the mid-80's Porsche 944 had a Getrag 5 spd, and they all clanked like that. Said that for a while Porsche paid to have the tranmissions taken out and repaired, but then took the position that there was nothing wrong with the transmission, it was just noisy, and if the owner wanted to fix it, they could. I said that I'd always heard that the 944's transmission was back at the differential, and he said it was, but was a pretty standard Getrag for all that it was mounted strangely. I have no way of confirming this story.