Club 80-90 Forums

I have a 1990 1.9dg 5 speed box and came across a problem today with the gearbox oil.

I was intending to change the oil anyway so i purchased 4 litres of oil as Haynes says 3.5l in the 5 spd. When i removed the filler plug oil poured out and I reckon it lost about 1/4l before i got it back in.
I removed the drain plug and drained it into an empty container.
When I refilled it i got 3 litres in and then it came up to 15mm from the filler hole.
When I measured what I drained it was 4 litres and then adding what I lost i reckon there was 4.25l in the box.
Anyway I took it for a long run and came back and rechecked the level which was still fine.

My question is:- have I got enough oil in it? Im pretty sure it was way overfilled. As far as I can make out it should be 15mm below the filler hole. As an aside, Halfords flip chart of gearbox oil specs says that my box should only take 3 litres.
Any comments?

15mm below filler hole is correct

Thanks mate. Thought it was but just needed the reassurance

7 years working at a main VW dealership and I never heard of 15mm below the bung hole lol
I thought the whole idea of a bung half way up the side of a G/box was to make it easy to Fill without the need to measure, just stop when the oil starts to dribble from the filler whole.
On the level surface of course.
I stand corrected if you know differently.
Martin

California Dreamin wrote:7 years working at a main VW dealership and I never heard of 15mm below the bung hole lol
I thought the whole idea of a bung half way up the side of a G/box was to make it easy to Fill without the need to measure, just stop when the oil starts to dribble from the filler whole.
On the level surface of course.
I stand corrected if you know differently.
Martin

It was changed to improve gear selection, i always fill upto hole and leave it there and never had a problem.

Compared to some of vw's bad engineering on new stuff this is great, refilling gearboxs through drain plugs

I had exactly the same when changing the oil on my gearbox (4 speed with 2.0 a/c). I was not expecting a flow of oil from the filler plug and it got rather messy . Drained the rest (after using a 1 meter bar to undo the drain plug) and filled with exactly 3l when it started comming back out the filler plug (haynes said for my box to fill up to the bottom of the fill plug).

Was a bit nevous driving at first but mut say gear changes seem much 'slicker' with less resistence. I can only assume someone filled mine on a hill in the past.