60 How can you tell if your synchro is REALLY shot?
Description
This article is from the VW Technical FAQ, by with numerous contributions by Jan Vandenbrande others.
60 How can you tell if your synchro is REALLY shot?
A: Let the car idle, and with out depressing the clutch move the gear
shift into the gears you want to test.
If the synchros are more or less ok your idle will dip (or as I found out,
your car will start to move) w/o crunching.,
If however they are shot, you'll hear a big grinding sound.
Don't try it with the reverse gear, it has no synchro an will crunch
majorly.
An alternative is presented by Bill N Gallas:
1) Change the gear oil. If the car has >75K miles on the transmission
this could help as the extreme pressure lubricants in the gear oil do
wear out. This lubricant failure can manifest itself as syncronizer drag
and binding. After changing the gear oil you may notice the problem is
gone, :-) life is good!
If not:
2) Drive the car for 15 to 20 minutes to get the transmission warm.
3) Accelerate the car to 10 to 40 MPH for gears 1 thru 4.
a) engage the gear in question.
4) Leaving the clutch engaged, release the accelerator pedal.
5) If the gear select lever (gear shift) pops out of gear that syncro is
bad.
6) On most newer transmissions when first starting out in reverse
"ALWAYS" put the shifter into 1st gear, then shift to reverse. By
doing this you stop the transmission and will eliminate gear chip
damage to your reverse gear.
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