Club 80-90 Forums

hope you all have a great new year,
my gears have just started playing up when i`m changing down from 3rd to 2nd it crunch`s into 2nd, i`ve had the van a few years and it`s just started happening,was hoping someone will be able to offer some advice.
it`s a 4 speed 1.7D
cheers
sean

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, are you sure your clutch is working fully? It could be dragging a bit?

Other than that, I dunno. Helpful sod, aren't I?

i thought if it was the clutch that it would slip or can u adjust it .
cheers for replying.

I was getting a crunch for a couple of changes. Then lost my clutch completely.
Had a leak in pipe from master cylinder. Repaired pipe, bled system, no crunch.
Try bleeding your system, may have air bubble or something.

I was thinking more along the lines of the clutch not fully disengaging when you press the pedal, so that there is still some force on the gears as you change them.

As far as I know, clutches on these vans are all hydraulic so a lack of pressure in the system might cause this problem. The clutch fluid is the same as the brake fluid so if you've got a leak then the level in the reservoir (the one hidden behind your speedo in the dash pod!) will have dropped. Have you taken a quick peek at your brake fluid level to see?

If there are two of you, one could press the pedal while the other looks to see how far the clutch slave cylinder is actually moving?

Have you looked in the wiki? There's quite a bit there about troublesome gearchanges. If you've not discovered the wiki, it's the small hammer shaped thing right at the top of the page below where it says "for owners and lovers of VW T25(T3) Vans"....

--if yer clutch hydraulics needed bleedin or summat & the clutch was not separating all yer gears would crunch also if you pumped the clutch pedal the problem would dissapear--I assume you check yer gearbox oil level occasionally?--when these gearboxes start crunchin between 2 gears it normally means worn or cracked syncro rings---to help live with the problem try this-depress clutch-pull lever out of third & at the same time blip throttle to bring engine revs up to gearbox revs then second should drop in without synro--takes a little practice--

Try double de-clutching.

TR

cheers for replys.
bled it and checked gearbox oil no bubbles and levels are fine, i`ll try the double de clutching and see what happens.
thanks again

other things:
mine is a lot worse when the gearbox oil is cold, gets better when its warmed up a bit.
pushing the lever as far left as it will go before moving it down into second helps.

--it could help to drain & refill yer box with synthetic GL4 gear oil -Redline MT90 is good but costs £50--to fill

YesI had that last year, before the clutch start started slipping.
The new clutch completely cured it, but before then I found that depressing the clutch and giving the accelarator a blip before putting it into second helped quite a lot.
Also, these vans dont go down into second at quite the same speed as a modern car. That means both the road speed, and the speed of change.
You may already know that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Other reason may be a worn synchromesh, second normally wears first for some odd reason.

Don't worry, youv'e still got three other gears