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How-To: 020 Tranny 5th gear swap020 tranny 5th gear swap
Removal and Install of the 5th gear
The trans used on this page is really filthy, you'd want to clean the case up prior to taking it apart so no grime can get into the box. For showing where stuff is and what it looks like though, I wasn't concerned with the grime, as the box will be rebuilt eventually.
Remove the detents on the top of the trans, and the reverse switch. Some trans might not use a reverse switch as shown, and those trans will have the reverse switch on top, like another detent.
Remove the 13mm nut holding the shift linkage lever to the selector shaft.
Remove the 27mm selector cover. I found a plumbing socket that fits the 27mm hex to remove that cover and the timing hole plug, which is also 27mm. You can also use a smaller hex and shim it to fit as shown on this page.
When removing the 13mm nut, hold the bracket in neutral and keep it from turning and selecting a gear.
When removing the selector cover, there is a spring behind it to be aware of...
Here is a pic of the trans with the reverse switch, shift bracket, and detents removed...
Pull the selector out of the selector housing, it has to be in neutral to do so...
Here is a picture looking down into the selector housing, you can see the four shift forks inside...
Remove the circled bolts. The yellow are the 2 shorter bolts....
Lift the 5th housing off of the trans case, it may take a few taps to get it to crack free from the case. Once removed, you'll see a rod with a spring on it, it is very important to leave this rod inside the trans!
If the rod is pulled out, you will hear the shift forks inside drop out of alignment, and then you have a real chore to get the rod back in, and it most likely will require the trans be fully opened, so don't let it come out of the trans! In these pics, the trans is bolted onto a rotating stand on my bench, so the end is sticking up in the air, and the TO bearing has fallen out of the case....
Here is a pic of the rod that the shift forks ride on that needs to stay in the trans, and then a pic of the inside of the 5th cover, and where the TO bearing should be. You can see the 6 13mm bolts, and the 2 shorter bolts beside the cover....
Now you should be looking at this...
The gears are now ready to be removed from the shafts.

To get the gear off, you need to remove the 12mm XZN or triple-square bolt from the center of the main shaft (this pic was taken later, after the bolt was loosened)....
In order to remove the 5th retaining bolt, you need to stop the main shaft from spinning around. To do this, select 2 gears at one time. This is why the selector shaft was removed, so we could select 2 gears. In the pics, I use 5th and reverse.
Here is a pic of the 5th synchronizer sliding collar, when 5th is not selected. You can see the small teeth of 5th gear under the ring, and if you look close, you can just make out the small teeth of the brass synchronizer ring in the shadow of the sliding collar. When you hear grinding, those are the teeth that grind. They are grinding against the inside of that sliding collar. They are easily damaged, so remember that grinding = bad ;)
Here is a pic showing the 5th gear selected, after I pushed the sliding collar down and engaged it with the small teeth on 5th gear. The trans is in 5th gear now...
If you look inside the selector hole now, you can see the fork furthest from the camera has moved towards the engine...
Reach in and push the fork closest to the hole towards the engine as well. This will engage reverse gear. You can select any of the forks to pick any 2 gears, but reverse is closest.
As Vdubs pointed out, it is possible for the trans to slip out of reverse on earlier trans models not using a reverse over-center spring inside, so you might want to use a flatblade screwdriver to reach in and move one of the other forks to one side or the other. :P
The first fork only moves towards the engine, and that's reverse gear, then the second fork moves back and forth for 1st/2nd, then the next fork works 3rd/4th, then the last fork is 5th as you've already seen.
Here is a pic again into the selector bore, showing now the closest fork moved towards the engine as well, so the trans is in both reverse and 5th gears, and is completely locked up now.
Now you can remove the big XZN hollow 5th retaining bolt. It is in there kind of tight, so have a cheater bar ready. It is installed at 111 ft-lbs, and it is old, and thread locked. ;)
Once the bolt is removed, you can remove the 5th gear from the main shaft. It will either wobble up fairly easily with finger force, or fight you and be seized on. Either way, you'll notice the shift fork is keeping you from fully removing the gear, so it needs to be removed. Ideally, you can lift the 5th gear, and the sync hub and collar and shift fork all off in one piece. Ideally ;)
To start, you need to unlock the 5th adjustment tube. It is locked with this bar which is pressed onto some splines preventing the splined/threaded tube from spinning. Use a screwdriver to pry the bent ends up a bit, then pry the bar up all the way, once the bar is up, turn it sideways so it won't fall back down again. If you don't have one of these, and have a tube peened in place, see the bottom of this page for more info...
Use either the VW special tool or some homemade version to engage the splined/threaded tube (the tube has 2 notches in it, and the tool has 2 pegs to engage them) and spin it CCW...
The shift fork will unscrew from the threaded tube, and allow the fork to be lifted free of the tube which will stay in the trans....
If things work out well, you should be able to wobble the gear and lift the entire assembly from the shaft....
If things didn't work out to well, then the hub is stuck onto the shaft. You will need to pull the gear, and to do so will probably require the removal of the shift fork to let the puller hooks in close enough to get under the gear.
Lift the sliding collar upwards after you have unthreaded the tube from the fork...
When you lift this collar up, the 3 locking sync keys will want to pop out of the hub...
After the sliding collar is lifted off the hub, if there are any locking keys remaining, go ahead and remove them....
Attach a puller to the gear and yank it off the main shaft...
OOK, now one way or the other, you've got the "driving" 5th gear removed, and now the "driven" 5th gear remains. Use a good set of circlip pliers, and remove the circlip....
For 16V and 2.0 trans (up to date code 01067), the circlip and washer are replaced by a locking clip. The driven gear also has a deep groove to allow the locking clip to lock into place. The pinion shaft groove only allows one style of clip, either the 8V circlip, or the 16V locking clip. This means your 16V or 2.0 code (prior to 01067) can only use deep grooved gears, but your 8V (or MK3 codes after 02067) can use deep or shallow groove gears. The bottom of the page has more pics to explain...
These snap-off pliers do a pretty decent job on all the circlips in the trans....
If the driven gear doesn't just wobble off with finger force, then use a puller placed as shown, in the 2 pockets in the case for the puller hooks...
Here is the trans minus 5th gear. You can see the 2 pockets for the puller hooks for the driven 5th gear on the right in this picture as well...
Assembly is pretty much the reverse of the removal....put the driven gear on with a new circlip, install the driving gear with a new retaining bolt, thread the shift fork back on and lock it with a new lock plate after adjusting 5th gear.
To adjust the 5th gear, turn the threaded tube to move the shift fork in and out. There should be 5mm space between the top of the fork and the top of the splined tube. I adjust it so the sliding collar can float on the shift fork when both in and out of 5th gear. You don't want the fork to be holding the collar in place and wearing when in or out of gear....
Use something at least 12mm thick like a wrench to support the shift fork (protect the trans gasket surface during this), and press the new locking plate down to lock the tube in place. The pic shows the VW tool but it just needs pressed down onto the splines and doesn't require the special tool...
Install a new 5th cover gasket and stick the cover back onto the trans. It might take a bit of tilting and moving to get the spring and rod into the hole and then the cover over top of the 5th gear, but it'll go.
Install the selector shaft into the housing, put the spring and cover back on, bolt in the reverse switch, put the detents back in and you should be done .
Here is why the 16V codes and MK3 codes up to June 1st, 1997 will only accept the 0.80 and 0.91 5th gear sets. Those gears are the ones that use a deep groove in the top face of the gear for the output shaft, which secures the special locking clip. The locking clip has a tab that fits into the groove to stop it from sliding off. If you get a gear and machine a groove into the face for the special clip to lock in, it'll work just fine.
This pic shows an 8V gear and a 16V gear side by side, you can see the 8V gear is missing the deep groove....
For 8V shafts, they use the circlip, because the groove is 16.5mm OD. The 16V gears fit the 8V shafts no problem, as the circlip can secure the 16V gear just fine. So, why not use a circlip with the 8V gear in your 16V? Because the circlip is too big to fit the 15.5mm OD groove in the 16V shafts. If you find a suitable circlip for the 15.5mm groove, the correct thickness, and hardness, then you'll be able to rig something up. Until then, you're forced to use the 15.5mm locking clip on the 16V shaft, and that forces the use of a deep groove gear set.
Old Fork Lock (up to Dec 1979 build dates)
Here are some pics of the old style 5th fork lock tube parts. First is a comparison of the old fork and new fork. The old fork can come apart, the new one is spot welded, and won't split apart as the old fork as done. The VW procedure is to use the 3059 tool, and just back the fork off. The peened tube will either come off the shaft, or the fork will pull apart. You can also try to open the peened tube up, or cut it off, or help the fork press the tube off, helping with a screwdriver to remove the tube as you turn the 3059 fork adjustment tool.
This is a pic of the peened tube still in place, after the fork had pulled apart. The bottom of the fork and the tube can now be pulled with a 2 arm puller.
A pic of the bare tube, with the groove in it where the tube should be peened. This is 19mm below the top of the notched selector tube... since you can't see the groove when the tube is in place. Peen it with a blunt tip chisel, and check to make sure the solid selector rod inside still slides, and when pushed down, springs back up freely (they don't want you to crush the notched tube).
This is the piece inside that would need changed to swap over to the new style fork tube with the splines and lock plate as shown in the pics in the middle of this page...
Write up courtesy of Brian, of www.BrokeVW.com Click here to visit his site!
Tolusina, of vwvortex.com found a way to change the clutch and remove the 5th gear housing, without removing the trans from the car.
It requires some trimming of the unibody, which I wouldn't recommend, unless you know what you're doing... and I still wouldn't recommend it for some people who "know what they're doing." ;o)
It's in the form of a response to someone's post, but shouldn't be too difficult to decipher.
I just swapped mine in the car about 3 weeks back, took about two hours total, time will vary according to your experience level.
You're a little ahead of my write up schedule, here are some tips anyway.
Start be reading Broke's 5th swap pages, though he does it on a bench.
You'll need REAL snap ring pliers as Broke shows, plus the triple square socket he shows, don't even think about using an Allen wrench.
You'll need something for the 27mm cap nut, he's got a couple of suggestions, I'll add a couple nut from the hardware store with a 1 1/16" hex filed down to fit.
You'll need a jack, the stock scissors can work, you might need a couple of 2X4 blocks to jack the trans a bit both the relieve the load on the left mount for removal, agin to line the mount up during re-assembly.
At the bottom of page 2 he shows a special tool for the 5th shift fork, you pretty much must have one. I made mine out of a 6" long 1/4" galvanized pipe nipple from ACE Hardware. I cut down to the tabs with a saber saw, a hacksaw can work too. I had to drill out the pipe seam with a 31/64" (I think that's what it was, just a little bigger than the pipe ID).
Once in use it tried to thread itself into the shift fork and jam there, I hand filed it down a bit.
---
On Broke's 1st page, 9th, 10th and 12th pictures, you'll see a rod with a spring on it, the 10th picture clearly marks it "Do Not Remove", he means it. The spring will have to come off, it'll be in the way, the rod MUST stay in place. The rod keeps all the shift forks lined up inside the transmission, remove it and you WILL have to open the case to re-install it.
Don't confuse that rod with the clutch release rod, Broke's page 1, 10th pic, he's removing the release bearing, there's no clutch pushrod underneath because he's already taken it out of the other end, he's working on a bench unit.
Your clutch pushrod will be under that bearing sticking out of the center of the input shaft, pull it out, look at both ends, one will be flatter than the other, near the end, put it back the same way.
---
You'll also need the clutch cable disconnected and out of the way, a pan to catch the oil that will run out when the cover is removed, oil to refill.
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I tried to get clever and avoid the step removing the shift selector, no joy, it had to come out.
I raised only the left front wheel on a ramp, steered full left lock for two reasons.
One, I hoped with the car still on the wheels, brakes locked and trans in gear, I hoped to remove the large triple square nut without removing the selector. As I noted above, that failed.
Two, I wanted a little help from gravity to keep the selector rod in place by tilting the car slightly down to the right. It worked ok, I didn't drop the rod, still, that rod kept me nervous throughout, I kept checking and pressing it back in. I think it's spring loaded inside, it tries it's hardest to get out.
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A couple years back as I changed my clutch, I made this cut to the inner fender well, it also provided just adequate clearance for the 5th in the car job. If I was doing it again, I'd cut a little higher.
I made the cut out back when I did the clutch.
I remembered back to the days of the shorter 4 speed transaxles when there was room to get the input shaft clear of the clutch without lowering the engine at all, made it real simple going back in too.
I used to be able to change out a clutch on a 4 speed in 1.1 hours with air tools and a lift, pure gravy.
Along came the longer 5 speeds and there wasn't enough room to pull the gearbox straight out, the engine had to be lowered quite a bit, then everything had to get raised and re-aligned on re-installation, times doubled or more wrestling with it. A2s and A3s were even worse.
Once we started doing 5 speeds, we just had to deal with them as there were, I never did cut a customer car, just wouldn't have been right, but I did want to cut every one of them. I didn't hesitate to cut my own.
Without the cut, front, rear and left mounts would all have to come off, the drivetrain lowered, maybe even one or both axles, the left might get in the way, the right might pull and bind or worse, come apart.
Then, once the drivetrain is lowered far enough, that pesky selector rod will have gravity helping it to fall out and ruin your day, probably your whole weekend.
With the cut, only the left mount needs to come off, the drivetrain sags only a little and a jack can prevent that.
---
You posted such a beautifully dimensioned pic of the 5th fork tool, I just has to make it, cost 2 bucks, took 20 minutes including time to mess up the tabs twice before I got them right. The tool detail I havn't yet mentioned was at the other end, I stuck a 3/8" drive extension in the other end, squashed it down in a vise, worked just fine.
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Oh, the selector rod only starts to come out when you're busy with something else, I think Murphy had a hand in that design.
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