Gearbox Drive Flanges

So I'm in the process of rebuilding my gearbox. And there appear to be a raft of "special" VW tools required so I'm also making those as I go. Gear selector is out, needed the big 27mm hex for that, now I'm about to remove my gearbox Drive Flanges however I have to compress them with some little tool which bolts down into the centre of the flange (gearbox side) so I believe it's an M10
bolt, but not sure of the thread down in there. So does anybody know for sure what it is so I can go out and buy the right bolt?

Also, they are 100mm flanges, not sure if that makes a difference or not.

For all things GB see Welcome to BrokeVW.com

its not that you need it to get the circlip/flange off but to get them back on. Be aware there's a FO big spring that can fire the flange across the garage taking your head with it if not careful

Thanks for the heads up with that! Will take extra caution when I start to take them off. Still need to figure the bolt out though.

There info and sizes of the threaded bar you need to remove the circlip here.

View topic: 020 Gearbox Flange Removal Tool - The Mk1 Golf Owners Club

thats superb mark1gls! just what i needed! Thanks for the help thats a great informational thread you linked.

You may need a internal spring pliers to get the clip off.

BrokeVW is an excellent gearbox resource.
My homemade tool for removing the drive flange can be seen in this post - View topic: 83 GTi - now MOT'd! - The Mk1 Golf Owners Club

I'd be interested to know more about your gearbox refurb and the homemade tools - how far are you going with it? I have a second box that I've always planned on doing a full refurb on. The only refurb work I've down on the one in the car has been limited to external seals.

Thanks paceman, that's a good link for info. Yeah sure thing, I'll take photos of each step of the teardown and the tools needed etc. I have a PDF of gearbox repair manual somewhere too. It's quite helpful but doesn't have many pictures for ref. Will upload some photos and info once I get a bit further into this.

Ok so I made up this guy with some unistrut I had laying around. One M10 and two M8 with double nuts etc. Turned out pretty good and worked a treat. One flange off already.

I will be doing all seals and bearings at this stage and then anything else that isn't 100%. Will find out once I open this baby up.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention….or is that intervention.

Nice Rube Goldberg.

Ok so I got a little further into this. Drive Flanges removed, got  5th gear it's shift fork removed, unbolted the tension bracket for the deep groove ball bearing and removed the transmission housing. Been cleaning parts and stuff as I go. Anyway I was cleaning the 5th gear shift mechanism and syncro and then pop the mechanism fell apart. So does anybody know how to take it completely apart so I can clean and then how do you get these little widgets back in. Looks like there are two circle springs in there similar to the one that holds the steering rack end on. Just not sure how to remove these ones so I can split this down and clean it.

Paceman I Think I've fallen down the rabbit hole on this gearbox. Gonna be a complete clean and rebuild me thinks. OCD is kicking in and this box is mangey inside.

 

Visit the website.  www.brokevw.com he has a how to on replace and repair the 5th gear in the car.

Ok further into this now and waiting for my extra long gear pullers to arrive before I can get 1st gear and the shaft out. Anyway been cleaning parts as I go along. So my question is how bad is a bad gear? This is the little gear that moves up and down on the shaft to engage reverse I think. Does it need replacing? Has three places where teeth are chewed Some pics attached. Also same question for the clutch lever seems to have a bit of wear on the shaft near where the spring would be. Any ideas if these are going to be a problem moving forward as is or if I should replace?

And same question for the synchro. Think it's second gear synchro. Cleaned it but it looks kind of burnt or had some serious heat or something.

Paceman, i know you were interested in this so heres a quick update. Have both shafts removed from the gearbox now but had to purchase a special gear puller with extra long legs, not cheap! But needed it to get the 1st gear etc off the shaft so i could get access to the bolts that hold the plate on and the bearings in place. Have that removed now and now waiting for a special blind 2-leg bearing puller tool to get the inner race out. Also apparently there is also a VW1582 tool required to get the bearing off the shafts. Not done that yet but might try to avoid purchasing the tool and use the press like shown on brokevw etc. Not sure if my bearing tool is as flat as the one shown on brokevw.

ISSUE: Anyway the big issue i have just come across is that not all gearbox repair kits are created equal.  The kit i purchased (before i striped the gearbox) i found out, only came with just the big ticket items, drive seals, bearings and two of the internal shaft bearings (the ones that need the races) and few other seals. however its missing all the roller cages, needle bearings for the shafts and all the synchros. Anwyay the biggest problem is that there is a roller cup bearing F201764 which is apparently obsolete. So what is everybody using to replace this with? I have it removed from the gearbox so now i at least know what the part number is but now i need a new one to put back in……..AARRRGHHH!   pictures of the bearing in question.




Heres a photo of the big gears pullers i had to purchase. I have several gearboxes to do so i assume i will need them again.



 

Paceman, another update for you. I got the output shaft out after I used those big gear pullers. Once the shaft was out I took the diff out and pulled the bearings off. First bearing on the side with the dome that houses the the gears was no problem for my tool. I used the flat face of the tool. The bearing on the other side was a pain. My tool didn't fit. The bearing was too close to the face of the diff gear and couldn't get a good bite on it. So parked that, and hummed and hawed for a while then decided to bust the cage on the bearing which gave me the extra height in needed to get my tool in. Put the curved faces of the tool on the inside edge of the outer face that holds the cage rollers in and then it came straight to off. Was easy enough to do just had to figure out how I could use my tool without having to buy new ones. Anyway diff bearings pulled off now and waiting for the other two leg blind bearing puller tool for the race that is still in the gearbox housing.

Next I took the circlip off the other shaft (input shaft) and then used the press to get 3rd gear and synchro off that shaft. No special tool required just used the plates that came with my press and snugged them out to the smaller gear and pressed down on the shaft which pushes the bigger gear off. I also added pictures of the tools im using.

I will probably get the taper bearings off the output shaft in similar fashion by taking cages off so i can get my tool on to that inner face and then use the press to get them off also.

I ordered all new synchros, dogs, and the missing seals etc that my "repair kit" did not come with.

ISSUE: still no idea where to source that obsolete bearing from. The F201764. I didnt see any mention of this bearing on brokevw either. If anybody knows where I can get this from please let me know.

Loving the updates sir!
Shame you are over the pond or I'd be asking to borrow the specialist tools you've aquired when I eventually get round to tackling mine.
Are the new parts ridiculously expensive? I'm not sure I'd even know where to start looking…..
Are you going to replace the diff rivets with bolts (the rivets can allegedly fail causing severe box damage - so I've heard anyway!)

Sure thing Paceman! Ha ha Yeah I hear you man, theres defo no need to buy them if you can borrow for them for two minutes. Having the right tools makes the job so much easier. Yeah I will send another update a little later this morning. Got the other shaft bearings off yesterday and then blasted the outer two cases to clean them up. I just need to download the photos first. Last thing to do is get the remaining race out of the diff housing when I get that other two leg blind bearing tool.

Yeah I thought about drilling out the diff rivets and going the bolt way but honestly they seem to look pretty good just now, so not sure about that yet. My car should be running about 150bhp when I'm done I think so I will prob do some research on that and see if it's required but I might just leave them as is. I did see it he diff rebuild on brokevw also. That really is a great site but seems to miss out some really important bits of information like all the obsolete needles bearings and cages. Also that site uses different cage bearings which are not listed, mentioned or talked about and of course no mention of part numbers either. I've reached out to several bearing manufacturers to see if they have anything close to that.

Also there is a ball sleeve listed on the drawings for the selector housing and apparently it's obsolete too, my selector didn't have it so I'm in process of trying to figure out if it's missing or not installed on my gearbox. No idea which yet.

New parts are cheap over here (USA) if you can get them. Think all the synchros were like $7 each (there's two types of synchros, not sure the difference yet) the VW drawings are a little confusing on that one. The dogs were like $1.5 each and the seals etc few bucks. The big deep groove roller bearing was $73 or there abouts individually and think it was the most expensive part. I actually got my repair kit from UK. Won't do that again. I would recommend purchasing the parts individually and make your own kit so to speak. The kit I got was pretty lame. Came from asapgearboxesb on ebay. Half the kit is wrong still discussing it with them and they seem helpful but honestly it's probably more hassle that it's worth, trying to explain to them and they are supposed to know already. I'll probably go ahead and buy the parts I need over here and chock that one up to experience I think.

So like i said i didnt have the vw special tools so i decided to bust the cages off the bearings on the output shaft. Once i did that my bearing tool fits over them, i used the conical side of small bearing extractor tool i have. (which was not great because the contact is really only just four points because of the raise edges of the tool and size of the tool and bearing size, in hind sight i would probably use the bigger tool has a wider C-curve on each side of the tool) i then used the bar of a bearing driver tool just to space the gap between the bearing, the press pole was tool large to fit inside the bearing, then into the press with it. set it up in the press as shown. bearing came right off.




next had to do the inner bearing. It was a bit more problematic. Same idea though busted the cage off and setup the bearing extractor on the inside edge of the pouter lip. This time i used the bigger tool and also swapped to use the flat face of the bearing extractor tool so it would fit a little better……….more surface in contact with bearing. (Think i tightened it up a little too tight though) then set it up in the press as shown and bearing came right off. Last photo shows the cracked outer lip of the bearing, cracked half way through pressing the bearing off.




next i blasted the outer too housings just to clean them up. soaked them in CC3K for few hours first to get most of the oil and grime off. Then washed then blasted.




last big race to get out is this one which requires the two leg blind bearing puller tool. and i also see there is a little broze/brass bush for the starter motor. I purchased a new one of those also so will get these two out later with the blind bearing puller. i can probably use the 3 leg puller tool i have for the bush but specifically need the two leg for the main bearing race because of the half moon of the gearbox housing, you can see it in the close up shot.



Anyway thats it for now paceman. I about ready for this ordeal to be over though!! 

Forgot to add these. Had to beat the hell out of the green sleeve to get it out and to get access to the backside of the bearing to knock the bearing out. Once green sleeve was out used a 28mm bearing driver to tap the bearing race out.

Note: apparently those green sleeves are obsolete from VW but i managed to find some online fairly easily. But just a heads up for anyone just in case. Make sure you can get one before you go shredding the one you have.




 

Paceman, quick update for you….. so my "new" tools eventually arrived. i bought the kukko 25-B set, (its pretty pricey, like $700 upwards for the set) so i did some digging and found a second hand set out of country for a third of the new price and low and behold it actually came with three additional pullers. so that was an amazing bonus! Anyway i used the 21-6 puller to get the shaft race out of the housing. See photos attached. I put the bearing cover back on the top so as not to damaged the aluminum housing with the feet of the puller. You have to align the puller with the half moon in the housing, its tight but Bearing race came right out no problem.



Next i tried to pull the little bronze bush for the starter motor. Now that was a different story………the 4 leg internal pullers will not work for this application. The reason is the rod to tighen the puller to the outer surface of the bush screws from the top down so when you tighten the puller the rod pushes further into the puller. The Kukko pullers are the opposite……….. they have a rod that tightens the puller from the bottom up instead of top down. So my 4 leg (top down) puller was useless as it catches the top edge of the bush before the bottom is opened fully to catch the bottom lip of the bush. Anyway I need to purchase one more tiny teeny kukko puller specifically for that. the smallest one i have is 12mm and you need like 8mm to get inside the bush. The additional puller is Kukko 21-01 which is 8 - 12mm. So will update you further when i get that. Think its only like $50 so no big deal there. The bigger Kukko pullers are more like $100 up for each puller……….. they are expensive. You might want to start looking for these ahead of time so you can get then second hand instead of new price.

See photos below. Black puller is top down and you can see where the bronze bush was catching half way up. Couldnt get a grip on the bush. Also, kuko pullers showing bottom up tightener wedge.