As some of you might have remembered, I had a noisy 5th gear in my 020 8v GTi box. Yesterday, I removed the 5th gear housing in-car and found out what the problem is. The single gear to the right hand side of the gear unit with the selector fork on it seems to have bad wear on the splines. When I say bad wear, I mean you can rock it side to side on the shaft, as well as clockwise & anticlockwise. Not good. From what I can see, it appears that its the splines on the gear itself that have worn, so the shaft should be ok. For the moment, I have put a bigger spacer on it in between the circlip and the gear which has eliminated the side to side rock, and the noise has greatly reduced. Now the question is, what should I do. Get another gearbox, or source another 5th gear? If I get another 5th gear, how do I remove all of the selector fork/gear stuff, it doesnt look too straightforward. I cant use the one from my other gearbox as its a different size (4+E vs. GTi 8v ratios). Cheers!
Replacing the fifth gear cogs is a peice of p!ss. I could have walked you through the proceedure. Half an hour jobbie, if that!
