Changing gear 3rd to 2nd crunch.

Hey guys.

Well iv just baught my first VW a 67 1600 type 3.

Iv been driving it around a fair big on the weekend and it drives great.

Just noticed when shifting back to 2nd from 3rd it gives a but of a crunch or grind if im going at a reasonable pace. And by that im defently not going fast.. Like this would be the approach speed for a round about. Which i would normally take in 2nd in any other car.

Iv also noticed it changing from 2nd to 1st when not crawling..

Now is this normal ?? It changes fine if im going really slow but this is different to any other car iv driven.

Cheers Vice

if there is a lot of oil on the out side of the box I would be checking the oil level, first

Thanks for the reply Ian.

The pics posted in my members thread has one of the underside of the Case and yest it looked very oily..

Is it a big job to check ??? How would i go about doing it ??

Cheers Vice.

If that picture is of the car when you got it??
the oil filer plug looks like it has been out.
so id say the oil leaked out and the damage is probably already done.
with the car jacked up and level you need a 17mm allen key to check oil level.

Thats a pic taken the day i got it at my mechanics.. He did mention that it had the normal VW oil leaks.. He didnt check the levels tho..

What do you mean about the Damage being allready done.. Dosent sound to good for a car iv owned for 3 days..😠

Cheers Vice..

it could just be old age after all it is 43 years old.

its ok to have slow oil leaks as long as you keep it full.

Ok well im going to buy some axle stands for the lowering process so ill pick them up this week and get it up and check.. Where is the correct places to have these under the car aswell as the correct jack position ?

Cheers Vice.

could be cold. a lot of manual transmission do that when really cold. I think its called baulking or something like that.

Shifting up in older manual syncro boxes should not crunch, but a bit of a brrrrp down into second, and a harder push needed to go down to first is common. Look here and have good read through all of it to understand what is happening with a synchromesh gearbox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncromesh#Synchronized_transmission

Assuming all is well mechanically (and there is enough 80W-90 in the trans.) you can double de-clutch on down-changing from 3rd to 2nd. Or when you have the trans oil changed next, have it refilled with full synthetic 75W-90. This should provide super-smooth gear changes, but may increase leakage if seals are leaky, as it is much "runnier" at ambient temp's. (It should be changed about every 2 years reagrdless of mileage anyway, so if not sure it is good to change it anyway.)

Don't get too worried, it's a 40 year old gearbox of relatively agricultural design, not some kind of fancy Japanese rifle-bolt-action 6 speed. Beetle gearboxes as a general rule don't like to be hurried during downchanges, especially with 40 years' worth of wear to the synchros. Almost all VW boxes drive pretty much as you describe, and they all weep a bit of oil, it's just part of their character and charm. My old swing-axle Beetle would crunch on the 3rd-2nd downchange at anything above 20mph, unless you double-declutched it, and there was nothing wrong with that gearbox. My new Superbeetle doesn't like to engage 1st gear at any more than walking pace, and even then I prefer to stop, just to ensure that the gears engage smoothly. Driving the gearbox sympathetically, and never forcing any changes will help your gearbox last longer. Getting the oil changed to fresh oil of the proper weight, and making sure that the fluid levels don't drop too low are also good ideas.

I find that when down-shifting it's often best to pause for a few moments in neutral rather than changing down in one quick action. Double-declutching properly will also help, although this may take some practice if you haven't done it before.

Synchros dont last forever, rebuild time. Just because a lot of vw's have worn out boxes doesnt mean crunching is ok. Same applies to oil leaks.

SuperOwen wrote:Synchros dont last forever, rebuild time. Just because a lot of vw's have worn out boxes doesnt mean crunching is ok. Same applies to oil leaks.

That's fine if you've won the lotto and want your car in perfect condition, but since worn synchros affect neither reliability nor safety, they're at the bottom of my to-do list. Same applies to oil leaks, losing a couple of drops of oil per day is much cheaper than a full rebuild of engine and transaxle just to replace some seals.

I wouldn't be too worried about a slight grind shifting from 3rd to 2nd for all the reasons listed in the posts above above. Almost every air-cooled VW I have driven has done this (with the exception of two, low-mileage Beetles). I find that if I slow just a touch more than you would in a non-aircooled VW before shifting back to 2nd and hesitating slightly in neutral during the shift the gearbox in my '63 Bug doesn't grind. This only works if the 'box is at normal operating temp (ie: not first thing in the morning! 😀). As long as you are running a stock engine/carb/dissy set-up your engine may even be happy to pull away from the corner/round-a-bout in 3rd....

As long as the box isn't noisy under load, grinding when shifting up, or jumping out of gear, everything sounds normal for a 40 year old VW 😀

R 🙂

Cheers for the replys guys.

Just dont want to be doing more damage.. ill check the oil this week and probally put in some new stuff.. I do want to do up the engine in the future ( maybey a bigger replacment.. ) not sure yet its atleast a year away..

Cheers Guys.

Vice

Its a Vw😀

Becoming aware of that haha..

Cheers Vice

Make sure that the car is level when you check the oil levels. If you jack it up at the back and then check the oil level, your reading will not be correct. Ideally you either need 4 stands to raise the car up level, or check it on the ground (possible if you're at stock height but a bit awkward otherwise). You mentioned taking the car to a mechanic earlier, on a hoist then it would take him only 5 seconds to check the gearbox oil level, so you could ask him to do it at the next service?

i realized that my car was driving around for two years with stuff all oil in the gearbox.
im not trying to be a big man or prove anything, i should have check it earlier.but..
i would think there would also be excessive gearbox groans to got along with the shifting
problem if it was low oil.just a suggestion.

I had the exact problem,
.I was told to check the shift rod bush located under your gear stick.
I check it and found that it was non existent,replaced it with
a new one.
and now i can do racing changes around corners.LOL.
Hope that Helps.