shooftie

This is Quentin’s work, he’s at Vivid Vans. A series of pics with his comments interspersed. I’m envious.

Teardown:

You can see the make shift m5x.7 puller I made for all the idler shafts to the left of the housing. An m6 bolt ground down and tapped to m5 haha. You can also see wear from axial movement of the mainshaft bearing in the casting.

I took a photo of each gear with its respective syncro for easy reference at reassembly. You can also just go off the number of teeth but it was easier for a newbie like me.

Nice and clean after being glass bead blasted and thoroughly cleaned.

Test drilling old diff housing for pinion oil squirter. Right on the money first try. (housing was trashed)

My NOS S.A. aluminum diff housing I had modified by Mr. GAS in Colorado for a locker and extra material for the pinion bearing squirter. Yes it would have looked a lot nicer if I had it milled down but I ran out of time.

AN4

4th Gear cool oil bath squirter. Questionable effectiveness but doesnt hurt nonetheless. Bathes 4th gear in cooled oil.

Main bearing oil squirter. Squirts cooled oil directly into the main bearing from the front side.

Main bearing retainer plate. South African style reproduced by Alika Motorsports. Prevents axial play. (I had the wrong thrust bearing pressed into the housing please ignore! Fixed it the next day.)

Cut the oiling groove in the pinion race using my CNC angle grinder. Drilled with 1/8 carbide drill bits.

Setting up the ring and pinion with the help of our head Tech Tony. Didn’t get photos of final pattern but It was spot on. Probably the most difficult part of the rebuild.

gear stacks assembled. I literally spent months labouring over the gearing. Ended up going with:

3.333 First

1.82 Second

1.125 big tooth Third

0.75 Straight cut fourth

Deleted the reverse/granny syncronizer and installed a 2wd slider instead. TDIs have been seen to rattle the syncro assemblies apart and destroy the low/reverse housing.

Fully assembled all aluminum goodness

Painted, torqued, ready to thrash. I just need to plumb the oil cooling circuit and it will be ready for break in.

One last photo of my trans temp gauge I custom built. My oil cooler pump is activated manually by a 2nd defroster switch. I considered doing and automatic cooler set up, but your brain is the best automatic controller money can buy.