Cannot shift into 5th gear

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
***Update*** See end of thread


Had a wierd problem come up suddenly yesterday. I cannot get the transmission into 5th. Gears 1 to 4 work fine, but not 5th. Can't seem to move the shift lever past the 3-4 gate. Popped the shifter boot off inside to see if there was anything binding in there, but nothing obvious. Tried it by hand under the hood, and can pull the relay lever up a little bit, but can't get engage it. It's like the clutch gear is stuck on something.

Anyone ever had a problem like this? Any suggestions? I'm guessing the transmission will need to be opened to fix it, so may as well look for another one, and just change it out. Anyone have one they're will to part with for a reasonable price?

Oh, btw, car is a 2001 Golf, 264,000km. I've had it since 144,000km, so I don't know what might have happened to it before then. The shifter has never seemed as smooth as the one on my '90 GTI, or '82 Jetta, but I just figured it was because of the cable shifter linkage.

Anyways, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark
 
Last edited:

Sebpt

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 24, 2003
Location
Bolton, Ontario
TDI
2003 Jetta TDI (SOLD). 2005 MB E320 CDI
I would suggest to take the transmission cover off and see if your synchro engages on the 5th gear splines. Have someone in the car while you are checking it. VW trannies are usually very reliable...You may have something broken, no need to replace the transmission if just a part and tranny oil

My 2 cents suggestion before spending a lot of $$'s
 

bbarbulo

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2003
Location
Windsor, ON, Canada
Sebpt said:
VW trannies are usually very reliable...
have you seen all the threads with people having issues with shifting/engaging a gear. i've noticed, cuz i'm one of the ppl having problems so i searched the forum. so very far from reliable
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
Sebpt said:
I would suggest to take the transmission cover off and see if your synchro engages on the 5th gear splines. Have someone in the car while you are checking it.
To which cover are you referring? I noticed that the Bentley manual does not cover transmission disassembly anymore (the older manuals did). Are there any pictorial guides for transmission disassembly?

Thanks,

Mark
 

kack

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2004
Location
Burlington, On Canada
TDI
Jetta GLS 2000 BMP
Try the above posts adjustment techinque I have helped many people with shifting issues using that.

I figure its due to the plastic end connectors vs the metal cables
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
Thanks for your responses. I will try the linkage adjustment as per the video - very good how to, btw.

But I'm not sure if that will do it, because I can't even find 5th to shift into when I do it by hand under the hood on the lever on the transmission. I can get reverse, and 1..4, but can't pull it up to get 5th.

Are there any other manual transmission videos around? - disassembly, removal & install, etc. would be helpful in diagnosing and fixing the problem.

Thanks,

Mark
 

ymz

Top Post Dawg
Joined
May 12, 2003
Location
Between Toronto & Montreal
TDI
2003 Jetta TDI Wagon, 2003 Jetta TDI Wagon
Check the transmission fluid level... Historically, VW transmissions "lose" 5th gear first due to lack of lubrication... If that doesn't get fixed, you'll lose the rest of the gears...

Yuri
 

BleachedBora

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Oct 16, 2003
Location
Gresham, Oregon
TDI
'81 DMC-12, '15 GL350 CDI 275 hp/448 tq - '81 Caddy CJAA, '05 E320 CDI 250hp/450 tq, '23 ID4 AWD Pro S Plus
x2 on Yuri's statement. I just sold my 3rd transmission since Friday, a very common failure is 5th going out, usually from low fluid.
-BB
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
Thanks, I was planning to check the oil level too, although there have been no noticable leaks, except a little wetness around the drive flange seals. But I haven't had a VW yet (this is my 5th VW) that didn't have some seepage there, and have never had a problem with 5th.

Mark
 

aja8888

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 25, 2007
Location
Texas..RETIRED 12/31/17
TDI
Out of TDI's
Savageman69 said:
How do you check the oil on a 5spd???
On the 02J trans, there is a 17mm plug on the side of the trans that you take out and the level should be near or at that plug level. It holds 1.9 liter or so.
 

VDUB TECH

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 8, 2007
Location
2875 old Barrie rd east Orillia
TDI
2003 Jetta wagon TDI , Audi TT TDI Q , 2013 Touareg TDI , 2006 Jetta TDI
aja8888 said:
On the 02J trans, there is a 17mm plug on the side of the trans that you take out and the level should be near or at that plug level. It holds 1.9 liter or so.

wrong, the proper fluid level will actually cover the 17mm hole.your thinking mk3.
 

aja8888

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 25, 2007
Location
Texas..RETIRED 12/31/17
TDI
Out of TDI's
VDUB TECH said:
wrong, the proper fluid level will actually cover the 17mm hole.your thinking mk3.
Well, that is how we just filled our 2001 Jetta, from the side-located 17 mm plug hole. Am I wrong (MKIV), and if so, tell me the correct procedure please.;)
 

petea4

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2005
Location
Toronto
TDI
'01 Golf GLS
aja8888 said:
Well, that is how we just filled our 2001 Jetta, from the side-located 17 mm plug hole. Am I wrong (MKIV), and if so, tell me the correct procedure please.;)
That's the way i filled mine. 17mm plug on the front side between the battery and rad. Just shy of 2L.
 

ymz

Top Post Dawg
Joined
May 12, 2003
Location
Between Toronto & Montreal
TDI
2003 Jetta TDI Wagon, 2003 Jetta TDI Wagon
VDUB TECH said:
wrong, the proper fluid level will actually cover the 17mm hole.your thinking mk3.
Are you sure this applies to the MkIV??? I thought only the MkV's needed an alternate method of filling (through the speed sensor hole ??)

Yuri
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
petea4 said:
That's the way i filled mine. 17mm plug on the front side between the battery and rad. Just shy of 2L.
That's what the Bentley manual says too. Is Bentley wrong?

Mark
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
How difficult is it to get the end cover off and have a look at 5th gear? Can it be done easily enough with the transmission in the car?

Thanks,

Mark
 

aja8888

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 25, 2007
Location
Texas..RETIRED 12/31/17
TDI
Out of TDI's
yhmtdi said:
How difficult is it to get the end cover off and have a look at 5th gear? Can it be done easily enough with the transmission in the car?

Thanks,

Mark
I am doing that now to change 5th to a .681. It's very simple.

1. put car on stands,
2. remove skid plate
3. remove driver tire/fender well liner
4. loosen A/C hose clamp to get hard pipe out of the way
5. drain trans
6. remove 5 cap screws holding cover on.

there you go. About 1/2 hour.
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
aja8888 said:
I am doing that now to change 5th to a .681. It's very simple.

1. put car on stands,
2. remove skid plate
3. remove driver tire/fender well liner
4. loosen A/C hose clamp to get hard pipe out of the way
5. drain trans
6. remove 5 cap screws holding cover on.

there you go. About 1/2 hour.
Thanks, I'm going have a look at it tonight or tomorrow, and see what state my 5th gear is in.

I've been doing some reading on VW transmissions, and I know that some of the 020's had self machining issues with the differential, but I never had any problems with the one's I've had. And I just expected that VW would have improved their design and fixed that over the years, but it sounds like the 02J units still have a similar problem with the differential, MORE THAN 20 YEARS LATER! I guess VW is too big now to be concerned with actually building good cars, and so the customer always comes 2nd.

Mark
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
Update

Okay, well I removed the 17mm plug on the front (or side if you look at it axially) of the transmission, expecting some oil to drip out, but there was none; checked with a finger and and it was damp, but it didn't seem like there was much if any in it - started to worry... expecting 5th gear was toast, but...

Loosend the end cover - where 5th gear is - and pried it a bit to break the seal, and oil came gushing out, so the anxieties subsided... The oil looked about normal for a manual with 260,000km or so - dirty, but still a little translucent gold colour.

After taking the cover off and inspecting 5th gear, it appears in good shape still - wet with oil everywhere, and no signs of any heat. Both the 5th driven gears, and the clutch gear are in good shape, and the clutch gear is not binding or anything, so I don't see a problem there.

The oil level was probably a little low, but not enough to cause any heat problems - yet. I have some new oil to refill it with, which will probably help, but the problem remains - it won't shift into 5th. I don't understand why I'm not able to pull the selector on transmission up to the gate for 5th. It seems to only go up to the 3-4 gate.

And I can't loosen the cable grips on the shifter cables in case that's limiting the movement, although I don't see how it would.

Does anyone know if there's some sort of detent mechanism for 5th in the transmission on the selector shaft that might have fallen apart and locked out 5th?

Is it possible to remove the selector shaft with the transmission in the car? I get the feeling though that whatever is blocking 5th would also prevent the shaft assembly from coming out, since the shaft has to come up to be removed.

I'm not intimately familiar with 02J units, like I used to be with the 020 ones, and I don't have one to take apart to see what could affect the selector shaft movement. Is there anyone who can offer some insight into this?

Any help is greatly appreciated,

Mark
 

VDUB TECH

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 8, 2007
Location
2875 old Barrie rd east Orillia
TDI
2003 Jetta wagon TDI , Audi TT TDI Q , 2013 Touareg TDI , 2006 Jetta TDI
its not the end of the world if you do it that way, it has to do with the angle of the motor/tranny in general.It should be filled through the back up light switch with 2l which means the tranny needs to be completely drained, not just the 17mm on the bottom theres another torx plug that comes out which holds another 200ml.Then fill it up through the back-up light switch.The other way works fine its just a little under filled.The proper level will actually cover the 17mm plug on the front.
 

P2B

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Location
Toronto & Muskoka, Canada
TDI
2002 Jetta, 2003 Jetta, 2003 Jetta Wagon
I changed the oil in my '02 Jetta today, it took the full 2 liters through the 17mm plug on the front - so I guess putting the front wheels on ramps tilts the transmission back enough.

I only drained 1.5 liters out of it with the car level, so it must have been low :eek:

Sorry for the sidetrack, Mark, hopefully someone will chime in on your problem.

Simon
 
Last edited:

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
Problem Conclusion:

After inspecting 5th gear and seeing that there was nothing wrong there, I tried shifting it again using the selector lever on the top of the transmission, this time with gate cable removed (moves the selector shaft up and down). Once I did this I could see there was significant radial play (wobble) of the selector shaft - probably almost 2mm. I put a big mirror next to the car so that I could see what 5th gear was doing while I tried shifting the gears, and finally by holding the selector shaft to one side, I was able to engage 5th gear! Not to mention, up and down movement of the shaft through the gates was noticeably smoother if it was held to one side (towards the back of the car) while moving it up and down. There was noticeable binding of the shaft if held towards the front of the car while moving it up and down, so much so that it would not return from the reverse gate on it's own. A little push on the side of the shaft towards the rear of the car and it would pop right back up.

So the real problem appears to be the wear in the bushings of the selector shaft, which got to the point of causing shifting problems. I coaxed some gear oil down through the gap between the shaft and seal, and that seemed to help it for now, and I also did the shift linkage adjustment procedure which may have helped too. I can shift into 5th again at least, but it's still a little stiff. I will need to rebuild the selector shaft assembly to fix it permanently, and that should make shifting a whole lot smoother too, I expect.

I am surprised that noone else has had issues with bushing wear on the selector shaft, given that they put such a mother #$%&ing big weight at such long moment arm to axis of the shaft where the bushings are. I'm not surprised it's that worn and sloppy! So much for good engineering practice. They should have put a ball bearing in there if they were putting that weight that far up from the lever, and this problem would never happen.

And the reason that it affects 5th gear the most is that the selector shaft is all the way up out of the transmission, with the biggest moment arm and hence the most play. 3rd and 4th are affected less, and 1st and 2nd the least.

Anyways, does anyone have any experience with replacing the bushings on the selector shaft on an 02J transmission? And removal the shaft assembly?

It should be possible with the transmission in the car, but the Bentley manual doesn't cover any of the internals of the transmission, so Bentley is no help on this. There are two bolts which hold the top part of the selector shaft assembly to the transmission. I removed those, but was unable to budge the piece and didn't want to risk breaking anything so I left it alone for now.

I will look into replacement parts this week - either bushings, or the shaft assembly. But I still need to find out how to remove it too.

One final note, I drained 1.6l of oil from the transmission before refilling it, so it was a little bit low, but not enough to cause problems, as evidenced by 5th gear being in good shape, and not the actual problem.

Any information would be greatly appreciated,

Mark
 

VDUB TECH

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 8, 2007
Location
2875 old Barrie rd east Orillia
TDI
2003 Jetta wagon TDI , Audi TT TDI Q , 2013 Touareg TDI , 2006 Jetta TDI
the selector shaft just pulls out,put it in neutral and remove the 2 13mm bolts, you might need to work it a bit because of the sealant.I have a spare unit if you need it, just make sure to seal it again when you reinstall it.5th gear is probably fine, if the syncro is worn the gear will still go in just gets stuck there sometimes and wont come out.
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
Thanks for you input VDUB TECH. I will try working it a bit with some pliers to get it loose.

What kind of sealant is used on it? How much do you want for the spare unit you have?

Mark
 

yhmtdi

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Location
Ancaster, Ontario
TDI
'01 Golf TDI, '00 Golf 1.8T
A copy of the exploded diagram for the selector shaft (from the dealer) shows the bushing part, also called the ball sleeve as 02A 311 648C, and the seal as 02A 301 227M. Both parts have to be ordered, about $12 each at the dealer. I've ordered these and will see if that fixes the shaft play, and the shifting. Funny that these would not be stocked though.

Just in case anyone else might find this useful...

Mark
 

Wingnut

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 10, 2002
Location
Toronto & Whitby
TDI
Silver 2003 Jetta Wagon
I had to change the seal on my previous car. It was in an accident in 2003 and the battery cracked, spilling battery acid on the top of the shift tower. That screwed up the seal and allowed water & crap to get into the transmission. It was stiff to shift. I was able to take off the tower, clean it, replace the seal and put it all back together again with no issues. I'm sure you will do fine.
 

ymz

Top Post Dawg
Joined
May 12, 2003
Location
Between Toronto & Montreal
TDI
2003 Jetta TDI Wagon, 2003 Jetta TDI Wagon
yhmtdi said:
Funny that these would not be stocked though.
Are you kidding? Most dealers don't even stock the "Always Replace" bolts for engine mounts, idler hold-downs, clutches, driveshaft end bolts and nuts, etc...

Thanks for posting the part numbers!!!

Yuri
 
Top