Getrag 242 dogleg box

[rix313]

I have a car with an M20b25 and 5 speed Getrag 242 dog leg box fitted. Googling this doesn’t seem to bring back much if any information. Are they perhaps ‘known by another name?’. Looking for info on the ratios and also how rare they are (from the lack of info it strikes me they certainly aren’t common).

[flybynite]

I have a car with an M20b25 and 5 speed Getrag 242 dog leg box fitted. Googling this doesn’t seem to bring back much if any information. Are they perhaps ‘known by another name?’. Looking for info on the ratios and also how rare they are (from the lack of info it strikes me they certainly aren’t common).

The 242 is a 4-speed. Without seeing it, difficult to be sure but I am guessing you have a 245 from an E21 or early E30.

Likely off an E21 because the early boxes used the 242 casing (with 242 still stamped on them) with the 5th gear bolted to the back. Some have 245 in small numbers on the rear section.

Good news is there are not many of those left so not common

Bad news is they are not common because they are made of chocolate and I am not sure what will be left of it having been on the back of a B25. Mine did not last long on the back of a B23 motor. The parts to fix them properly are long gone.

I have heard of people making mongrel boxes out of them and some places tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to put racing gears in.

If it is a 245 it will be direct-drive top gear, which is easy to check.

I scrapped mine 30 years ago and I have thought of getting another but sense tells me it would sit on the shelf for posterity because if I put it back in mine I would be nannying the car because of it.

Didn't I PM you about this a while ago? Can you get a photograph up of it?