RIP 951 Transmission,.. I need some help :(

So I went out to the garage today and went about cleaning the 951 transmission and found a catastrophic crack in the bell housing... I have no idea how, when, where this happened... I musta pissed off Casper at some point... Anyway... I need some help. I have a 83' 944 transmission as well and that looks identical housing to the 951. If anyone here has rebuilt the guts of the 951/944,.. I'd really love to pick your brain as to if this even possible. I know the 5th gears can be swapped around, just not sure how or what tools I would even need to do all this.. I've never taken a transmission apart before in my life. Only swaps and filter changes. This is new territory for me. Ideally, whomever could help could spend some time explaining things and what tools to get. I am in over my head possibly, but I've rebuilt everything else on the car so it's just a first time thing for me.

Let me know if you can help!

Thanks!

Thomas,

If you have never taken a manual transmission apart, I would NOT recommend learning on your 951.

To get started though, take a look at the bell housing casting at 12:00 and let us all know what the ID code is for both of your transmissions.  This will help all understand what you're dealing with.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
< Example Code >

Your best bang for the buck option may be to repair your cracked 951 bell housing.

i never had an n/a transaxle and a turbo transaxle apart at the same time to compare, but here are things i have read that are different

-early (83-early 85) transaxles dont have a speedometer provision.
-the iron case had changes to it to accommodate a wider 3rd gear, as wel as increase strength around the rear countershaft bearing.
-the front pinion bearing was made larger to accommodate the larger diameter pinion gear of the 3.38 ratio, making the area in the front case half larger.

so no, an early non turbo front case wont work on a turbo transaxle.

id like to see the crack in the bellhousing to see if we can help figure out why it cracked. transmission cases dont just randomly crack, usually its caused by shockload, misalignment, or a vibration. depending on where the crack is it can be repaired, and the transaxle might not even need disassembly.