speedo drive gear lost in gearbox!

I have a 89 clipper and was replacing the speedo cable which had broke and the drive gear (plastic) didnt come out with it, i felt inside and it was floating around now i cant feel it at all.
Does anyone know if this will cause catastrophic failure or how i could get it out. Cheers

james

Have a read of THIS

it happened to me years ago on an old mk1 and i left it in there. never had any problems at all.

that doesn't mean to say that i would recommend leaving it though.

thats good to hear that from at least one person coz i am really not wanting to get the gearbox out. Anyone else?

It is plastic and will probably just be ground up into little bits - not sure I'd want to try.

You need another gear - have plenty here

as said said see the other thread. and get a mini grabber thing so you can get it out. i wouldn't leave it in. it may be plastic but if it lodges inbetween gears you may find you can't change.

Leave the box in the car and drain the oil. You should be able to see it with the oil drained! Use something to grab it and pull it out. I used very long nose pliers!

If not then you will need to remove the box and try to fish it out. Mine took a while because it was stuck under a gear! If its not stuck then it will come out easy once you get a hold of it (its a poor shape for holding)

The garage changing my clutch did this for me only didn't realise until most of the way home (10 miles or so) - speedo not working.

Anyway, had a look in the box but couldn't see anything. Needed to replace the green cap cover on the side and found it all chewed up in there. Didn't do any damage to the box though…

just in case anyone has this problem in the future i have sorted mine now.

The drive gear seems to find its way to just below the access hole naturally when loose in the gearbox so if you drive it around next time you try to get it out it will be in the right place. I managed to drag upright with some long nose pliers with bent tips could grab it out.

Mine had a metal shaft stuck inside it where the cable brok so would have definately coused me probs eventually if i had left it however i called an old dude at VW and he said if its just the plastic gear they just get munched up so not to worry, just to make sure you change the transmission oil next service.