I spent some time today doing maintenance on the auto trans of my '86 weekender, which is turning into a full westy. It has 170k mile on it and I just wanted to check it out and put the correct amount of fresh fluid in it. The ATF was reading too high when I got the vehicle.

First I tackled the differential. No problem getting the pan off. A little over a quart of gear oil came out. There was a blob of stuff on the magnet built into the pan, and a little bit more down in the bottom of the pan that looked like larger flecks of metal. To my untrained eye, it seemed like an OK amount of metal to be in there, but what do I know. I think that is the first time I had been inside a VW diff. I was trying to imagine the torque going through the ring and pinion, yikes. Everything I moved seemd tight and with very little play. No ATF in the diff, Yay! The pan came off so clean and left the old cork gasket pristeen on the diff, so I didn't even use the new one I bought. Just put the pan back on the old one after a thorough cleaning. Oh, I had no trouble getting the fill plug out. I used a 3/8 drive 17mm hex key and breaker bar.

Next I moved to the ATF part. Got the dipstick tube loose without much trouble. I used a SAE wrench I happened to have, 11/16, or 15/16 I think. Fit perfectly. Drained the fluid and then dropped the pan without much trouble. A little residue in the pan, some fine metal particles. Cleaned up the pan, and put my new gasket on it. Then I removed the filter cover, and the filter and gasket came right out. I found some more metal particles in the filter screen and a few bigger ones. Also some non-metal stuff in there. I brought the stuff in the house and scanned it. Here is a link to the image:

http://buncombe.main.nc.us/~emaglott/trixie/tarnsparts.jpg

I enlarged a few of the larger scraps in the image. Anybody have opinions on what I found in there? The scraps look like thin strips of metal. They are attracted by a magnet.

So I put in the new gasket and filter and put the filter cover in place. I replaced the pan, and tightened it up. It was a little tricky to get the dipstick tube back threaded into the pan, but did get it. Started putting fluid on the dipstick tube. I got a cheap funnel at Walmart for the purpose and it worked great. It's an orange funnel and gets thin enough to fit about an inch or so into the tube, so you don't have to hold it while filling. It is sort of cut away on one side of the big end so that it is easy to fill when it is at such an angle. Put a quart in, no leaks. I had the rear wheels up on some ramps I made out of 2x4s, so I decided I should lower the van to get a more accurate reading. Did that, and put more ATF in. Uh-oh, it's all running out on the ground. The pan gasket has pulled off one corner of the pan. Damn, a pita to jack it back up, take the pan down, drain the ATF all over myself, etc. The gasket is made a little small so that it wants to slide off the ridge it rides on, on the pan. I tried grease to help hold it on the pan, which didn't really help much, but then the gasket was oily already at this point. I was going to put the old one back on but decided to give the new one one more try. I got it on good on one end of the pan and lightly bolted it up. Then pulled it into place with my finger as I raised the other end of the pan into place. Stuck good and bolted up fine. Put some more ATF in, no leaks.

Now time to fill the diff with gear oil. Bentley calls for 90w oil with a Mil-D2105 (don't quote me) spec. Could not find that. Closest I could come was 85w90 with a higher mil spec. I made a pump aparatus that worked pretty well. I went to a beauty supply place and bought a bottle pump thing, like they put on the big jug of shampoo I guess. $2 I think. Got some tubing from DIY store. I had to whittle the end of the pump thing to make it round so that the tube was snug. I used about 18 inches of tube. It was pretty easy to pump it in, though it took about 500 pumps. I got about 1.4 quarts in there, and it still was not running out. Bentley says 1.25 I think, so I was surprised. I will get some more oil and try again on leveler ground to top it up.

Hope this info might help somebody. If you need more details, just email me.

You experts out there let me know if those particles I found mean the end is near or not, OK?

Edward