With the engine still a bit of a shambles, was nice to finally get some wins on the board over the weekend. Got the gearbox very much ready to drop in. Now just the small task of sorting the engine...
Spent an absolutely stupid amount of hours cleaning it all up with all sorts of drill bit brushes. Impossible to get it perfect but at least isn't as caked up and crusty as it arrived. Then refreshed all the shifter pins, reverse & 5th gear detents, new shift lever and all the shift linkage bushes, new metal clutch fork pivot as well as new oil. Also threw on a new reverse light switch. Probably didn't need to but at $7 figured I might as well.
Did a bunch of digging online, people seem to go with either 75W80 MTF, pure ATF or a 50-50 mix of the two. Read a few accounts of shifting being a bit notchy until the gearbox warms up if using 75W80. Seems to be climate dependant to some degree too. Went around BMWorkshop and B&T who both recommended ATF so I went with that. Good enough for them - good enough for me. Will see how it goes.
The set of special punches form Street Driven Industries came through who also threw in a set of plugs for the shifter pins that I'd been struggling to source. Did charge me a rather silly US$10/each but was the only place I could find them so figured what the hell. Happy to lend the punches out or sell them on if anyone wants to do their detents as I probably/hopefully won't be needing them anymore.
As is typical for these, she was clearly suffering from 5th gear lean. Reverse and 5th especially needed some effort to jam into. Pulling the 5th gear detent out, was pretty clear it had seized up and chunks of the inner sleeve it was sitting in were flaking off. Bit of a mission getting those out, literally have to destroy them before they let go but very much doable.
Got myself an E60 shift lever and ZHP gear knob from Schmiedmann, as per @Eagle's recommendation. Seems only a few mm's difference but probably does change the geometry enough so it doesn't feel as much of a row boat.
Threw the shifter linkage on to play around a bit. Rowed through all the gears, of course whilst making manly engine noises. Shifts seem much smoother and more effortless now so was definitely worth doing.
Onto more serious sh*t now.