Popping out of reverse, and now 5th gear

the vegenator · Post by **the vegenator** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 2:40 am

The reverse thing has happened a few times, but never seemed to big an issue.

But now it's happening in 5th gear, on the highway at speeds of 65+ mph. Scary as hell. It just happened about five times in the course of an hour this evening.

Any ideas what could be happening here? I'm planning a 12+ hour trip to philly for next week, but this shifting problem concerns me.

rabbit_man · Post by **rabbit_man** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 2:45 am

I'm not sure about the reverse thing, might need adjusting.

However popping out of 5th is a classic sign of low gear oil. I've seen pics of what it does and it's not pretty, something like it melts the plastic bearing cage and then the needles all move to one side letting the gear move off center bla bla.

It sounds like it's pretty bad so I don't know if topping it off will help it any.

the vegenator · Post by **the vegenator** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 3:03 am

Hmm, not good news...
I'll check the gear oil and top that off if need be... but it sounds like there's no way of knowing whether serious damage has been done until I get it out on the highway.

Op-Ivy · Post by **Op-Ivy** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 3:03 am

Check your fluid level. If it's even a bit low fill it up.

If it's fine, check to make sure your shift linkage is engaging properly.

TylerDurden · Post by **TylerDurden** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 9:54 am

Also check your motor mounts... when they wear or fail, the shifter alignment can get whack.

A good test, is to load the motor slightly (rev & fwd) while the parking brake is engaged. If the motor moves significantly, a mount may have failed.

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 10:56 am

Typically when the trans starts to pop itself out of 5th, it's a sign that there's internal issues like rabbit_man says. In my old winter Jetta, I had the same situation and also had it be very difficult to get it into 1st when the trans was hot. It was on vacation 400 miles from home. We ended up renting a car and I hauled the Jetta home on a trailer. I considered the trans junk, but after putting more fluid in the trans I found that it still operated ok. I definately wouldn't be able to run across the country in it, but for a local around the area (100 mile radius) car, it was good. When it's really cold out, the car also didn't want to move. By the time you got it into second gear, it's slowed down to the point where you almost need to put it back into first gear. Probably bearings and other parts are worn/damaged inside the trans. Something that I wasn't going to fix in a $50 rusty hulk of a car.

the vegenator · Post by **the vegenator** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 11:43 am

it seems like folks mention this problem coming up at the start of winter. Are symptoms related to cold-weather?

My parts car has the same ACH trans. When I was driving across West Virginia I heard a hammer on metal kind of noise and took it to a shop where they put on a new CV axle and informed me my gear oil was practically gone. I drove it for some time after that and never really had any problems driving it. BUT, I definitely had problems getting it into certain gears. I even busted the shift linkage trying to get it into fourth.

Not sure if I should top off the oil and ride this trans out, or see what my parts trans has to offer. Sounds like they both might be busted.

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 12:48 pm

the vegenator wrote:Not sure if I should top off the oil and ride this trans out, or see what my parts trans has to offer. Sounds like they both might be busted.

If it were me in this situation (and I was 3 years ago), I would top off the fluid in the trans and see what happens. Also keep in mind that if the internals of your trans have issues that are heat related (as I am confident mine were), your use of the vehicle may be limited. After adding the gear oil to the trans after getting the car home, I never had it pop out of 5th again. But, I never drove it more than 150 miles in a straight shot before turning around and heading for home a couple hours later. Would the trans start ejecting itself out of 5th if I had gone 25 more miles? 200 more miles? Don't know. But, I believed that the cars use for any long distance trips could not be used. Your situation may be different, you'll have to find out what your car tells you, if you do decide to run it as it is.

With the really cold temps outside, I can definately tell that my trans doesn't want to work in the really cold temps. 20F it's ok, but you get much below 10F and you can really tell. Hard to move the car, hard to shift. It's like that until the trans warms up, then it shifts like normal.

the vegenator · Post by **the vegenator** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:11 pm

I'm sure most are aware of brokevw.com, but I just stumbled across it and found some great/terrifying pics of what these overheated 5th gears could look like.

http://www.brokevw.com/0205thdamage.html

This pic shows the thrust washer removed from the bottom of the driving gear sync assembly. The plastic on the driven gear was spun out from this gear when it melted. The plastic was once the retaining cage for the gear needle bearing...

The problem gets worse when the needles begin to move around and clump up on one side because the cage has melted away. This allows the gear to tilt on the shaft, and it causes it to mesh with the driven gear at an angle, which causes more heat, anneals the metal, and allows the splines to strip out, making 5th gear useless.

YIKES!

Vincent Waldon · Post by **Vincent Waldon** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 3:51 pm

Yup, as Broke says, 5th is the first gear to run dry as the tranny loses fluld and so the first gear to overheat... a tranny that's starting to pop out of 5th is often telling you that it's running low.

Unfortunately by the time it starts to pop the damage is often already done.

the vegenator · Post by **the vegenator** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 10:29 pm

That's what I was afraid of

... but, I wrote Brian from BrokeVW and he gave me a little hope, or a boost of confidence if I did decide to open up my trans and work on 5th:

It is hard to say if you caught it in time or not... if it were me, I'd want to open it and check the parts to be sure, but you can listen carefully now that it has oil in it, and see if it stays in gear, and if so, possibly leave it alone. It it still acts up, then open it up and inspect/replace the parts.

The rest of the trans will probably be OK, at least it won't be suffering the same problems as the 5th gears. The other gears will stay splash-lubricated even in that 3/4 quarts enough to stay wet.... the 5th gears didn't stay wet, they WERE wet, then were under load, with no fresh oil getting on them, and the heat started building up. The rest of the box should probably be OK.

In getting to the 5th gears, it is inside the trans, but not really. There isn't much you can do in there other than mess around with 5th gears, and nothing you can't put back in place if you move it... EXCEPT that shift fork rod. Don't pull that sucker out! Other than that rod, there isn't much to mess up in there.
And the shift fork rod... it isn't like it is a trap left by the engineers or anything, it can just work its way out slowly and if you don't pay attention and check it, it'll slide out a bit too far, and the forks will fall out of alignment.

Hopefully these tidbits of info will help anyone else out who might suffer the same problem...

surfcam · Post by **surfcam** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 2:14 pm

Replacing the 5th is not that hard. Lot of pictures and inscriptions at VW broken. They even show you how to select a good one. It's kind of a toss up as to weather putting time and money into what maybe a dead horse tranny or not. You will probably need a big triple square tool to get the gear off.

the vegenator · Post by **the vegenator** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 11:18 am

So, if you had to choose between replacing fifth gear on what you called a "dead horse tranny" or pulling and installing an identical tranny from an old daily-driver-turned-parts-car, what route would you take?

Only issue with the parts tranny is that it was super hard to get into gear when I was still driving it. I ran it kinda low on oil once, but it never popped out of fifth on me. If I were to drop the trans and open it up, are there any sure-fire ways of knowing how good or bad it is?

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 11:38 am

the vegenator wrote:Only issue with the parts tranny is that it was super hard to get into gear when I was still driving it.

Sounds to me like it's in nearly identical condition to the trans that's in the car. I've said before on this forum that I've never found a 5 speed transmission in any of the VW's I've owned that has been in good condition. They've been usable, but have always had issues with shifting either when it's really cold out, or when the trans gets hot.

I was in your shoes about 4 years ago while attempting to go to Colorado. I got the car home, filled up the trans and proceeded to drive it for the next 4 winters. It wasn't a cross the country type of car, but it was definately dependable in about a 125-150 mile radius. I'm not sure what your use of the car is or how long you intend to keep it, but the easiest thing to do is to fill the trans with fluid and drive it. You'll find out how it acts as you get more experience with it. You may find that it has a limited distance range before you start to have problems. If that's the case, then you may need to use a different vehicle for long trips, or address the trans issue at that point. I've never been inside a manual trans before, so I'm reluctant to just open one up and try to service it.