[T3] 2026 Invasion Updates...

[Max Welton]

Let me raise my flag as another who regards the transmission as a dark
art. My hands have touched, if inexpertly, virtually every other part
of my car with the help of many experts, local, here and across
thesamba and the old shop talk forums. I'd like to relate some things
from a conversation I had recently with Randy Bowen about
transmissions.

The investment in tools and know-how to reliably crank out or rebuild
these things is significant. Then comes parts availability. Then comes
getting your process down to where it's efficient enough to make a few
bux. For a long time there was a guy in this area that Randy tried for
transmissions that Randy stopped using because the ratio of good
transmissions to bad was appalling. And you only find out which you
got after installing the thing and hanging an engine from it. Being a
guy that Randy or any business will trust takes more than buying some
jigs and hanging out a shingle. There is now a guy in the area Randy
sends transmission work to. Can't remember the name but he works out
of Painters Grinding in Denver. I think it's "Eddie".

Case in point: When I bought my old squareback out of a Salvation Army
lot I had six-weeks to pull together a working car for a Route 66
cruise ending at the VW Classic. Two weeks from the start it was
finally ready for its maiden. That's when I found it would absolutely
not stay in reverse. Too late to address it. We hit the road anyways
and did the entire trip pushing the car out spaces backwards.

After the trip I sourced a box from Rancho. Now shy, we pulled the
nose cone only to find that the shaft of the type-3 hockey stick
appeared to have been run back and forth over a bench grinder. (!) We
sourced a new stick and bushing and that trans served in the
squareback until that car melted away from all the rust. That
transmission now serves in the Fastback without issue. Smooth and
quiet.

Max

On Mon, May 18, 2026 at 11:43 AM William Hoyer <wjhoyer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was racing the Formula Vee and used the Prussian blue & disassembly
> several times method and trying to get minimum drag. Used Internationa
> Harvester really light trans oil in the trans. In those days, late 60s,
> synthetic oil was not available. Measuring, as I recall, wasn't too hard.
> The IH oil that was about 10 weight worked great but as you said was not
> trying for 100,000 miles.
>
> Bill
>
> On Mon, May 18, 2026, 7:46 AM Jim Adney <jadney at vwtype3.org> wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
> >
> > --
> > *******************************
> > Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
> > Madison, Wisconsin, USA
> > *******************************
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org
> > To unsubscribe or change subscription options, visit:
> > http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> > If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org
> >
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <http://lists.vwtype3.org/pipermail/type3-vwtype3.org/attachments/20260518/ab3aea24/attachment.htm>
> _______________________________________________
> VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org
> To unsubscribe or change subscription options, visit:
> http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org