Alaskan 85 Weekender, 1.8T (AWM), 5 speed conversion

[tristessa]

[akmush]

Hey Tristessa! I see I may not be seating the crankcase vent elbow deep enough. I'll give the dab of oil a try.

[akmush]

ok, the dab of oil worked! Was just looking up the torque specs on the oil cooler bolts and realized it says "always replace." Seems like overkill since they are only torqued to 11 ft lbs. Can I reuse, what do the 1.8 guru's say?

[xoo00oox]

Reuse them. They’ll be fine

[akmush]

Thanks Andrew, I appreciate your insight into when replacing with new is unnecessary. Oil cooler back on and torqued.

I was starting to read all about accelerator cables and how to install a new cable for use with the 1.8. Then I realized that I have the "drive by wire" version and that is why I grabbed the big spool of CAT 5 cable that had been discarded at school.

I think it's time to move the Passat tranny in from the shed and start conceptualizing the boxster shifter install...

[akmush]

Next step tranny and shifter linkage

Each of these BIG steps seems to follow a familiar sequence- an initial "What was I thinking! I don't know what the hell I'm doing..." Then usually hours of reading and looking at pics on the web, and finally a growing sense of what needs to happen. Then I start posting and Andrew will generally clear up my remaining confusion. So here I go...

[akmush]

I have transmission code EZG. When you guys are all discussing gear ratios I never know what it all means so now I intend to educate myself. My tranny is listed on the far right-

[akmush]

Little did I know that there is a whole world of guys putting Passat / Audi tranny's in different vehicles as well as coverting tranny's to cable shifters. My plan at this point is to follow Andrew's lead and use the Porsche boxster shifter.
First I had to understand what the shifter is doing at the tranny end when you run through the gears so I set up my donor tranny with the Passat shifter attached. The Passat shifter is linkage is solid tubing like the Vanagon. - Reminder to self, in the Passat the tranny is in the front of the vehicle!

From what I can tell, the arm that is bolted to the side of the tranny is fixed. It is the arms that is connected to the U joint that does the shifting, moving fore and aft and also rotationaly.

[akmush]

The Boxster cable shifter has two cables and the configuration at the tranny shows me that both have an important role in shifting. Naturally when I ordered the shifter and cables off ebay these connecting parts were not included. They appear to be quite spendy from Porsche parts suppliers and knowing Andrew, he fabricated his own set up.

This looks to be the stock Boxster linkage-

Here are the factory parts- $700 from Pelican parts

And here is the unit from Ultimate Engineering in the UK if I was going to do the flipped tranny conversion-

[akmush]

At this point, I'm hoping to see a pic of tristessa's set up on his bay window which uses marine push pull cables.

Andrew, my understanding is that you lengthened your cables. I am assuming you did this at the tranny end? Do you have any pics of your set up?

[akmush]

Had an "A Hah" moment after posting this morning. I was puzzling over the Boxster tranny picture when it dawned on me- the Boxster tranny sits behind the engine in the rear of the car and that is why the cables run towards the clutch end of the tranny, so my eventual setup will run the cables in the opposite direction
This means the with Ultimate Engineering set up (for flipped tranny), the cables must do a 180 deg bend before the run to the front of the van.

(I contend that engine conversions are good for the aging brain as they keep building new synapses...)

[tristessa]

I just went looking through my pics and I don't seem to have any on either the house or garage computers that show my shifter setup. Must have been on that failed SD card I mentioned in the PMs. I'll see if I can get some for you.

On the transmission end of things, I blatantly ripped off the Boxster design because why mess with something that works? Getting the lengths of the arms was a little fiddly but not *hard*, and TBH the most difficult thing about it was finding a 14MM shaft collar to fit the selector shaft on the transmission. Even in "big town" PDX Oregon, the oddball metric fasteners and hardware can be a little tricky to find at the retail level.

[akmush]

tristessa, am I correct in thinking that you have the cable do a 180 deg bend in order to run to the font of the van?

[tristessa]

[xoo00oox]

Here's a few pictures of shift linkages...


These are from my red 2wd Westy...

These are from a customers Quattro van

I used to buy that kit you pictured from Porsche, it used to be available for $160 then jumped up to $450 abd now its $700. for that kind of money, it is easy enough to make the parts I need myself. McMaster has all the ball/socket parts and then you just need to make some swivel pieces out of metal. I extend the transmission ends of the Boxter cables. It takes a bit of work to get things sorted but works very well in the end.

Andrew-

[akmush]

Thanks for the pics Andrew! Not surprisingly you solved the problem with your own version of the now very expensive porsche linkage setup.

It appears to me that you have avoided the 180 deg cable bend that tristessa describes and used your solid extensions to attach to the linkage. So now the shifter cables are coming from the opposite direction compared to the original design in the Boxster.

With the Flint design your linkage system is built to allow the shifter cables to function as the the mirror opposite of the original design Do I have this right?

[xoo00oox]

yes

[akmush]

Got it. Thanks to your pics I can now wrap my mind around what the linkage needs to do and feel ready to gather parts and begin fabricating.

Three quick questions for you Andrew-

- It appears you cut off the Boxster cable end and then welded it to the end of the shaft in order to extend it. What does the cable end attach to on the flat steel arm you fabricated? Some kind of ball end?

-Have you needed to periodically lube the ball and socket parts? (there are different options on McMaster-Carr)

- At first I was planning on 1/2" all-thread but now wonder if 3/8" will be more than adequate? (It's not dealing with a ton of load)

Thanks again!

[tristessa]

[tristessa]

Also FWIW off of your earlier post, my installed transaxle is a DHW, and I've got an EHV in the garage as a spare that I snagged because the price was right (free). My EHV has the 130MM tripod joint output flanges despite what your Bentley page says it should have.