How to replace selector shaft bearing/sleeve?

I have an early style 02J manual transmission for my upcoming 5 speed swap. I managed to come across all the parts I need to change the shifter stuff over to the new style. The bearing that the selector shaft slides through on the shift tower housing was rusty, worn and gritty resulting in rough shifter operation, so I have a new bearing or "sleeve" as it is referenced in the part description.

The time has come to switch this stuff over as I sold the old parts to LanduytG. Before doing this I wanted to swap out the sleeve so that it was ready to go and so I didn't have the transmission "open."

I figure, "okay this shouldn't be too hard to drive out the old sleeve and carefully press in the new one." I was wrong as I cannot get the old one out. Tried driving it out with a drift, and all I am doing is breaking off the lip that holds the bearing piece in.

Any tips are appreciated. Should I heat it and see if that loosens it up enough? I am trying to avoid damaging the seal that is at the top of the housing, but can that be replaced also if needed?

Pictars...for anyone who is wondering just what the heck I am talking about:

Send all that you can tomorrow. I'm not sure exactly what I need to fix his car. He's been without a car for over a week now. I guess I should go look at it a little more because what you are showing in the picture I don't think I even need.

Greg

I haven’t taken that bushing out before, but if it’s like the rest of the transmission internals it’ll need to soak in PB Blaster for a few hours and have the housing nuked with a heat gun . Heat always helps reduce the force levels for pressing, but you’re right about that seal. I’m sure it can take 180-200F for a few minutes. The seal may still need to come out anyway depending on your extractor tools. There’s a lot of surface area on that bushing which makes for a tough drive with just a drift.
Is there a lip on the inside that an extractor can grab to, or is it something that truly needs to be pushed from the other side?

That seal is 02A301227M for $7.
PB Blaster is MUCH better than WD-40 for this kind of stuff.

LanduytG said:

Send all that you can tomorrow. I'm not sure exactly what I need to fix his car. He's been without a car for over a week now. I guess I should go look at it a little more because what you are showing in the picture I don't think I even need.

Greg

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Greg, I will certainly do that and get that off to you right away. I didn't realize you had a customer car waiting on this. I'll send the rest to you once I get this solved.

I will definitely start soaking it and will probably heat it up to see if I can get it to pop. It appears though that I will need some sort of internal bearing puller to get it done. If anyone has any links to a good (but reasonably priced) tool that would be great. I did a quick google search and the first one I came up with was $700 The ID of the sleeve appears to be 3/4" or so.

MOGolf pointed a tool out to me...looks like it should do the trick:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95987


I'll post up the results here so that hopefully this will help someone else out in the future.

Steel into alloy, you'll need some heat for sure. Does the bearing push straight through the housing or is there a stop/abutment?

I'd gently remove the seal, work up a puller using some sockets and a length of stud-iron, then heat and pull.

Can you pop the seal out and press it out from that end?

Greg

Take everything out of the housing that is removable,put in oven at 250 for .5 hrs and it will fall out. May need a slight tap. Thanks Steve

LanduytG said:

Can you pop the seal out and press it out from that end?

Greg

Click to expand...

I don't think so. Upon close inspection, it appears that the sleeve fits up snug against a lip on the housing...there is nowhere to get in there and press from the top.

All the parts are headed your way tomorrow. I tried to get just the shift lever off, but could not figure out how to get it apart without breaking stuff. I popped the shift tower out of the transmission and I won't have any trouble getting it back together correctly. It looks pretty foolproof.

stevekris said:

Take everything out of the housing that is removable,put in oven at 250 for .5 hrs and it will fall out. May need a slight tap. Thanks Steve

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Good idea, but I am worried about the plastic lockout lever that is used during linkage adjustment. I don't see any good way of getting it out of there. I'm heading down to Harbor Freight tomorrow or Thursday to get that blind hole bearing puller. I have a small shop press (the bottle jack kind) that I will carefully lock the housing down in so I can go at it with the slide hammer. If needed I will apply a little heat with a heat gun.

The lock out lever comes out. remember it was put together by someone, don't let it be smarter than you. the casting needs to get 250f for the bearing to come out. no pt blaster, just heat. Thanks Steve. not trying to be smart but it's only a casting with a bearing in it. when assembled new probably heated and dropped bearing in.

Sometimes it is much easier to press things in than it is to get things out. I highly doubt it can be removed without breaking it, and who knows for sure if it is an obtainable part or not.

I have been unable to find it in my manual, but Glenn (MOGolf) told me that the Bentley manual shows removing it with an internal bearing puller and he did not mention heating it.

do what you feel comfortable with. the plastic will take 250f easily and so will the seal. heat will make it come out with ease. our indycar trans mechanics are not allowed to take out bearings without heat. doing so time after time enlarges the bearing bore. some are such tight fit that without heat they would not possibly come out. good luck. Thanks Steve

Remove the seal.
Before pulling out ball sleeve, destroy plastic cage and remove balls.

Out (A is the internal puller piece):


In:


Press in a new seal.

Slide hammer puller came in today from Harbor Freight. Got the housing clamped carefully in my press, worked slowly and tried to extract it with only the force required to pull it...carefully ramping up the torque on the collet.

Still didn't want to budge and the wife wasn't home...so I ran in and threw it (and the puller) in the oven at 250 until evenly heated. Ran out, threw it in the press again and started hammering at it. I was hoping it would fall right out. When it didn't I figured a little more force wont hurt. Boy was I wrong. It yanked that whole part of the housing right out.

I threw it across the shop floor, cussed...then came in and cleaned the grease off the oven rack before SWMBO came home.

I just got done searching ebay and found a housing and selector at Kleiner for $125...ouch.

Sorry, just came across this thread.

Once determined that the bearing would not come out, I would have used a hacksaw blade to cut a slot in the old one until it came out. Just like taking out the LCA bushings.

It would have been tight, but that just might have worked...as long as one is careful enough to not cut into the housing at all. Don't know why I hadn't thought of that...

Live and learn. I have to pay but hopefully someone else will learn from my troubles.

Thanks for the suggestion, better late than never.

Kleiner gave me a good discount since I'm a member here, so I will have this all squared away soon. A little bit more money; but with what I paid for the transmission, the other parts needed for conversion, and being able to sell the early style parts...I'm still ahead of the curve.

I'm going to take a hacksaw after that chunk of the housing to see if I can get the sleeve out...just as proof of concept for anyone who may need to do this in the future.

Don't forget to follow up on the hacksaw idea to for the benefit of the masses

Growler said:

Don't forget to follow up on the hacksaw idea to for the benefit of the masses

Click to expand...

Good thinking, I tossed it in a box and had forgotten about it. I'll go out in a bit here and see if I have a fresh hacksaw blade to try it with.

Thanks for the reminder.

Update:

I haven't had any luck with the hacksaw method, but I may need a better blade. The one I have is new, and the same type that I used to cut old head bolts to use as alignment studs, so I thought it would work.

The surface on the bushing seems so hard and smooth that I just can't even get the blade started. I'll try another blade and see how it goes.

I had to perform this disaster yesterday. I ended up using my Dremel with a sanding drum to carve through the sleeve.

Is there a grease that should be used on the shifter shaft when putting everything back together? I feel like there should be something.

question for the experts, how does the later style mk4 shift tower come out of the transmission after removing the shifter weight and the two 13mm bolts? is there something i am missing? the early style (99.5) shift toer came right out after turning the 24mm bolt out a bit and removing the two 13mm bolts. i am confused and the car has been sitting for a week now since i have the wrong cable ends so it may be time to take the whole shift tower off of my 2001 and use that on the early trans IF i can ever get the damn thing off! any help is much appreciated guys, i want my tdi back

Bump for a thread I may need some input on. I have a 02J that has about 110K miles on. It was swapped in my car about a year ago. When I first got it, I put LubroMoly in it for the gear oil. After some talk with a few other guys on gear oil selection it came to light that the LubroMoly oil may not be suitable for the brass synchros in the transmission. I figured I didn't want to throw away that oil and waste the money and I would soon change it to the G070 VW oil. During that year with the LubroMoly in it Getting into gear in 1st and second was never easy from the beginning, and getting progressively difficult especially when moving. I realigned the shifter mechanism 3 different times to make sure the alignment was spot on and to see if that would help. It didn't do anything for me. So fast forward to a week ago, I flushed the gear box and added the G070 oil to it. The shifts got ever so slightly better but it is still difficult getting into first when stopped or rolling, and difficult going straight to 2nd when rolling. I have also relubricated the sliding surfaces on the shift parts and it made a very slight difference.

Another forum member has driven my car and commented how light the clutch was. Before I first installed the tranny I bled the lines with a wooden jig to hold the slave cylinder like it would have been held if it were installed in the transmission. During this process the slave cylinder came apart(wood broke) squirting fluid everywhere. I inspected all the parts and reassembled it, and it didn't seem to leak after that. I wonder if I damaged it at that time? I wonder a couple things on how to proceed:


Should I replace the shift tower bushing with the $24.95 kit from ID parts?

Should I replace the slave cylinder?

Are there cables that need greased or something?



Any input would be coveted!

Bump

..

Is it possible to do this swap on an O2S transmission? the gearbox itself is a GQM box, but i think its based on a O2S

Well, in an effort to get my transmissions shifting ease back where I know it should be I have ordered a new slave cylinder. Since there are only so many components that could be causing my issue, I think I will start there since I hyper extended it during the transmission swap. As it is now it takes pushing the clutch almost all the way to the floor to get it to disengage. If the slave cylinder doesn't do it, I will move on to the master cylinder, and perhaps on to the shift tower bushing replacement. With any luck the slave cylinder will take care of this issue, but I'm not counting on it! Going into first and second should not be difficult like it is now that's for sure!

Hey tdicaddguy, have you got a part number for that bearing? That would be rather handy for myself cheers.
How thick is that shell? Can it not be bent by getting an old screw driver down the side? If you can do that it should just fall out, anyway I dare say I'll find out myself lol.

Seatman look here, part numbers are at the top: http://idparts.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=2281

josh8loop said:

Well, in an effort to get my transmissions shifting ease back where I know it should be I have ordered a new slave cylinder. Since there are only so many components that could be causing my issue, I think I will start there since I hyper extended it during the transmission swap. As it is now it takes pushing the clutch almost all the way to the floor to get it to disengage. If the slave cylinder doesn't do it, I will move on to the master cylinder, and perhaps on to the shift tower bushing replacement. With any luck the slave cylinder will take care of this issue, but I'm not counting on it! Going into first and second should not be difficult like it is now that's for sure!

Click to expand...

Josh,

So, how did this turn out for you...?

df

That's me got the parts now, just in the process of trying to take the selector apart.