Club 80-90 Forums

Hi,

Any thoughts on our sick van would be really appreciated please?

It broke down a week ago with a crunching of gears and ended up getting
taken to the nearest VW garage (in Wantage) as it wouldn't start at all.

It's already had a new starter motor fitted just to get it going. They're now
saying there's a problem with the gearbox itself, which I'm not surprised
about given the noise I heard. They're now estimating it will cost about £400
if they can strip and repair the current gearbox or up to £1500 for a new gearbox.
Eeeek! Ouch! (we've a wedding to pay for soon as well!)

After reading the Wiki, I should have checked the gearbox oil level before.

Are we mad to keep it in the VW garage? Should we find somewhere that knows vans of this
age? Or if paying that much, maybe we could put in a new engine while we're at it!!? Sadly, I don't
have the expertise or time to do any of this myself like many of you out there.

cheers

Paul

Have a word with this man. He is the expert >>>>

https://club8090.co.uk/forum/memberlist. ... file&u=151" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

phredd

hi there ,
we had gear box problems just after we bought our van last year, coulnt even move the stick!! ,
so we had it recovered and taken to a gear box specialists in gloucester as we live in fairford ,it turned out it was a bearing problem and the box was stripped and bearings replaced ,that cost us £750.00 in total,after ringing a few places it turns out that you cant actually get a new box ,what you do is get your knackered box stripped and refurbished . You have to be sure its not a linkage problem first though ,thats the bit that conects your gear stick to the gearbox which runs underneath down the length of your van ,hope this helps im no expert but we have been in a simillar position ,
good luck

There's a box for sale for £550 from Aidan in the for sale.......its got 12 months warrenty too!

not starting...not the same thing as not engaging gears....been there done that. was the spigot bearing in engine not allowing gear change when running, but could engage them when engine off.

Good luck sorting it.

Em
x

Dito...Aidan has got one for sale (he is a well respected gearbox rebuild specialist on 80-90) £550 4 speed of a 1.9 petrol

https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=62712" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As for the starting.....could be so many things, the most serious of which is the flywheel but of course, if the gearbox is coming out anyway....this can be checked at the same time.
Martin

I take it it's not at P Bruno Car Repairs at Eynsham

It's at the VW garage in Wantage, I'm gonna get walloped for a huge bill.....

Is the one in Eynsham any good I take it?

cheers

Thanks for the posts, I may be in touch with Aidan
soon - still waiting to see what the verdict is from the garage.
They reckon it is the box and not the linkage, but someone else has told
me it's very rare for a box to fail so we'll have to see.

thanks

Thew one in Eynsham sent a customers gearbox to a rebuilder in Blackpool where they couldn't get the parts, three months later the customer found me through the internet and a couple of weeks later I'd rebuilt it and got it back to the garage.
These boxes fail regularly due to lack of maintenance and some inherrant weaknesses, VW designed the van to last 100k miles/10 years then throw it away buy a T4, and had no oil change in the maintenance schedule for the life of the box, now they are 20 years old 150k miles.......................
3 years 20k miles change the oil, and change it when you buy it then you know where you are
gear oil £20/rebuild say £500+ you know it makes sense

Thanks Aidan for your help and also thanks in advance for the gearbox itself!!

Cheers,

Paul

Thanks to Aidan for confirming my thoughts re longevity. Mine failed at what I believe to be a genuine110,000 miles due to a broken 4/5 gearselector part which was blanked out with sharp corners rather than a radius. I had it rebuit by a local man for £450 but it failed under warranty some time later. Due to the second faulure the centre section of the gearbox was damaged and he couldn't get a replacement. So I bored the damaged area on my mill and replicated the features on a new part which I manufactured from steel pressed into place and locked with fasteners and liquid metal. On the second rebuild he replaced the 4/5 gear synchro hub and several other parts some of which which I was able to locate for him from a firm who have them manufactured for comptition units (which parts I guess he should have replaced first time round) However my man worked hard for what was left out of my £450 after parts so all credit to him for honouring the warrenty. Not everyone is out to stitch you up. However it is a shame I never had Aiden's details at the time.
Cheers
Wolfie