[T3] 2026 Invasion Updates...

[Jim Adney]

Adjusting the ring & pinion is actually the most difficult part of a tranny 
rebuild. Doing that the VW way takes very expensive VW special tools and a 
fair amount of time. There's no easy workaround. Most places will just ignore 
the nuances and drop them in, which I suspect is why it's common for them 
to hum.

You CAN do the R & P with Prussian Blue, the old fashioned way, but that 
takes understanding, a huge dose of patience, and lots of disassembly & 
reassembly, until it's right. Most people will just throw it together and call it 
good. That works, if you're just reinstalling the original parts or replacing 
bearings only, which have VERY accurate dimensions.

OTOH, getting the R & P exactly right is only important if you're hoping to 
get 100,000 miles out of it. For most people, if you're racing or building a 
dunebuggy, you're never going to see even 10% of  that, so good enough is 
good enough.

To assemble the gearbox, you can sacrifice a tranny case, cutting access 
holes in it to allow final in-situ adjustment. That's what I've done. Note that 
there are early and late tranny cases, with minor internal differences. I had 
to make carefully dimensioned "shims" to allow the case I had to work for 
both.  

I've forgotten the differences: Either a late case will work for both styles, or 
the other way around. I only had one case available and it was the "wrong" 
one, so I had to make shims, which I surface ground to the exactly equal 
thickness to offset all the parts equally.

Jim

On 17 May 2026 at 18:52, William Hoyer wrote:

> I agree with you. That's why I take trans to Tim who has all of the setup
> for them. When I was racing Vee's I reversed the ring & pinion but didn't
> get into the gears. Axles and things like that are easy but you really
> need the proper setup to get the internals right.


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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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