BMW Ml Transaxle

jercarnut · 11-03-03, 10:31 PM

Does any one have any information on cable or machicanal. Lenage hook up on the Ml seems that someone has installed one in a RF. Any infor will be greatly appreciated

Gary Gibbs · 11-03-03, 11:23 PM

This is a ZF 5 speed transaxle. I believe it is run inverted like the GT40. Should use rod style linkage.

jercarnut · 11-04-03, 06:15 PM

Thanks for your reply. You're right the M l is a ZF but if differs from the pantera box in that one it runs inverted to the pantera which is good for GT40 use. It also has different gear ratio,first second and third,different sinkro's and a different input shaft. It has a 70% locking differential. This is great for a track car,when you invert the shifter linkage is on the bottom right,instead of top left. A picture of a car with a linkage hooked up in this fashion would be very interesting to me.

Gary Gibbs · 11-04-03, 09:16 PM

I can post a picture soon as I will be putting the shifter in for the final time very soon.

tpsy · 11-05-03, 12:05 PM

Hey Gary, got a question for you about the ZF tranny, (sorry, didn't meant to hijack this thread) does it have the 'racing' gearshift pattern, (with 2nd to 5th in the H pattern and 1st a dogleg to the left and down)? If so, can it be easily converted to having 1st to 4th in the H pattern and 5th a dogleg to the right and up? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

jercarnut · 11-05-03, 08:14 PM

Yes, second third fourth fifth are in the H. First is over slicely and down to the bottom. Reverse is over more so then to the upper left. Third and fourth are overdrive gears. When I drive my 74 pantera around town I drive in firstr second and third as most folks. The pantera gear box has a 422 ring and pinion, in fifth gear threw the trans works up to 3.50. I really like the combination in the pantera. I am really looking forward to using it in the GT40.

Ross Nicol · 11-06-03, 08:02 AM

I have an M1 ZF Transaxle in my car with rod linkages to a RH gearshift. I have the shift set up as 1st gear dog leg to left and back with 2nd to fifth in standard H pattern as described above. I've had the car on the track quite a few times now and am getting a good handle on the shift.From 1st I just push the lever forward and it slots straight into 2nd gear.When I first drove the car I had trouble with
wrong gears as it was hard to tell if I was in 2nd or 4th and I had to change down through all gears to be sure of which gear I was in.To fix this I built ( what I call a half gate ) a gate system so I know which gear I'm in and it allows me to change from 4th to 2nd with confidence and believe me when your coming into a corner at the end of the straight at 260 km/h you need to know what gear your in for the drive out of the corner. By the way I reckon the M1 and GT40 have the ZF up the right way and the reason I believe this is to do with the cover over the crown wheel and pinion.Do you really think they would manufacture this box intending the cover plate to be underneath it? I reckon not.
Anyway I may have opened a can of worms with that one.
Regards Ross

Ian K · 11-06-03, 12:03 PM

Ross,

If you could, I'd like to see some more pix regarding
your set up. The half-gate sounds like a good idea.

Ian

jercarnut · 11-06-03, 03:50 PM

Hi Ross, you are absolutly correct. All of us old time Pantera owners know Detomos installed the grear box in the Pantera upside down. There was a number of different reason for this. One of the reason I was quizzing folks on M l is because there is a box for sale in the States that I was considering for a GT40. I have received pictures for the owner and the linkage is different. It looks like it would work great the way you hooked it up. But here in the States we will have a left hand drive. I think we can work it out. Dennis Quila at Pantera Performace told me that he has put Pentera rear covers on the M l box. He builds Pantera and M l gear boxes on a daily bases and is a good guy to know, when dealing with these gear boxes. He and RTB will sale a reconditioned as new gear box with the modification done for GT40 use for about $7,000 (US).