02J rebuild saga

Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
I’m in the middle of my first of two back-to-back 02J rebuilds. This is my first time inside a manual transmission. I started a few weeks ago, and I thought I might document things from the beginning, but then I thought, nah, there’s enough out there already that it probably wouldn’t be helpful. Now, partway through, I’m finding there’s a number of things I wish I had known from the beginning from parts and tools that I would need to techniques for accomplishing specific tasks without special VW tools. So, I’m going to start a thread documenting most of my rebuild that, hopefully, will give folks a single place to find all or nearly all the information needed to rebuild an 02J. I won’t guarantee that this is comprehensive as there may be other issues other people may face with their transmissions that I didn’t. This is also not a step-by-step how-to. My intention is to provide some up-front information and fill in the blanks on certain parts of the rebuild showing methods that worked for me.

First, Resources. I have consulted a number of documents, web pages, and youtube videos.

B4 Passat Bentley manual. The most comprehensive documentation. 218 pages on the manual transmission alone. Note this is for the 02A transmission, which is very, very similar to the 02J internally. I bought a .pdf copy on eBay for $10. Worth it.

A rebuild document that I downloaded from the below link. Less detailed than the Bentley but a quicker read to get the gist of things.

Somewhere, I found a .pdf copy of the Alldatadiy.com section on the 02J, but if you have the above two, there is nothing new here.

A thread on this site about doing modifications to the case for 5th gear oiling. I did both: drilling some holes to allow the 5th gear compartment to drain and adding the 5th gear oil trough part that was installed at the factory in later transmissions.

Youtube videos by Andrew Lewis. Great series of 5 videos. You should absolutely watch these. I don’t think he was rebuilding a transmission per se. He seemed to be piecing together a transmission from various used parts, so he doesn’t go into detail on what parts to replace when rebuilding.

A short article showing pics of damaged and worn parts.

An article on replacing the rivets holding the ring gear with bolts. I will not be swapping my differential or ring gear, but there are nice pictures showing details of the differential assembly.

An old step-by-step text description of a rebuild on vwvortex. It seems it had pictures in the past that aren’t there now. I found this early in my searching, but I haven’t gone back to it once I had the above reference items.

A good resource for transmission parts diagrams and some general info on the VW manual transmissions and for parts, too.
www.zelek.com

Edit 2/28/2023: Another workshop manual website that I just learned about. This exact link below takes you to the output shaft page, but there are a lot more sections. Same general format as the Bentley manual, but for the 02J.


Edit 5/21/2023: Hands down the best resource. A Youtube series just created by forum member Matt-98AHU and professional transmission rebuilder. Long videos, but it's real time, so you get an idea how long things take. These videos are about building a 6 speed transmisson in an 02J/04A hybrid case using 02S internals. Really cool. Here's the youtube channel. Click on the "02S 6 speed to 02J Mk4 conversion" playlist.


And the thread on the forum:


Tools next.
 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Now, tools. I am generally well-equipped, but there were a couple things I didn’t have, yet. So, I’ll show some of the special tools I’ve made use of so far. If I need to buy anything else, I’ll add to this post.

Shop press. I had a 12 ton Harbor Freight press already, and it’s gotten good use. You really do need one. To begin disassembly of the output shaft, you must press off several gears and hubs all at once. It takes a LOT of pressure, and the Bentley specifies using a press. For other gear removals, the Bentley says use a puller, but you can also use a press for everything else (well, except 5th gear, but a couple of pry bars worked for me to remove 5th gear. Edit: on the first transmission but not on the second. I had to use a puller on the second one.). You can also remove and install the input and output shaft bearings and differential bearings with a press. There are other ways, but a press is easiest in my opinion.


Bearing and race press kit. Yes, Harbor Freight. I got this a while ago and have used it a few times. It’s getting a work out for this project.


Bearing splitter/puller kit and larger bearing splitter. Harbor Freight again. I had the splitter kit already, but the larger splitter in the kit was not big enough to do the first press to remove 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear simultaneously from the output shaft. So, back to Harbor Freight to buy the big splitter.


Inner bearing puller. Chinese made from Amazon. I bought this kit for this project. Worked well for one race removal. Others, not so well. But, I made good use of the slide hammer for this kit for pulling the roll pin that retains the differential spider gear shaft.


Parts washer. Mine is a plastic bin with a gallon or so of diesel fuel and a toothbrush. I really want a real parts washer, but I don’t have room. My standard operating procedure is to clean with diesel fuel (heavy hydrocarbons that don’t evaporate easily) and then rinse off the diesel fuel with a lighter hydrocarbon solvent (mineral spirits or similar). Then, I immediately recoat the clean metal parts with gear oil to prevent corrosion.


Dial indicator and some kind of mount. I’ve never used a dial indicator. I bought a flexible mount from Harbor Freight, which is mounted on a vice grip and a separate mid-price-range 10 mm dial indicator from Amazon that measures in 0.01 mm increments. To date, I’ve used it to check the play in the output shaft, and it seemed to work well. Stay tuned to see if it works on the differential and input shaft.


Dremel tool. I've used a Dremel tool several times so far. Good to have. (Edit: I'm going to call this close to a must have. Several tasks were immensely easier with the Dremel.)

Power washer. Used on the outside of the case, inside of the case, output shaft, input shaft, differential carrier. Another good to have tool.

Small blasting tool. Before disassembly, I used the Harbor Freight handheld blaster tool to walnut shell blast the outside of the case for final cleaning after power washing most of the grime off of it.

Slide hammer attachment from a paintless dent repair hot glue dent puller kit. This was screwed onto the slide hammer from the inner bearing race puller kit above and used to pull out the roll pin that retains the spider gear shaft in the differential. PIctured is the attachment as it is normally used to pull dents with a glue puller tab. I jerry rigged this tool to pull the roll pin from the differential.


Various diameters and lengths of tubing for drift tools. I wrote this section in the post on output shaft assembly, but drift tools for pressing on the bearings and gears are really important and should be mentioned up front. Rebuilding the transmission becomes very difficult without items to use as drift tools. From the later post: One thing worth mentioning is you'll need to improvise for the various factory drift tools that you don't have for pressing the gears, sliders, and bearings onto the output shaft. I've done a number of metal fabrication projects, so I've got a small pile of scrap metal that I've saved over the years. The scrap pile was solid gold for this project as I found tubing of the perfect sizes that I could use. In the background of image 4440 in the previous post, you'll see a couple pieces of tubing that came in handy. Not everyone has a scrap metal pile, so it could be challenging to find things to use as drift tools for this job. Metal supply shops usually have an area of cut-offs and remnants, and you may be able to find small pieces of tubing in the right sizes for cheap.

Gear puller. I've started on transmission #2. While I was able to use pry tools to remove the 5th gear and hub from the output shaft on transmission #1 following the Andrew Lewis video, I was not able to do this on #2. The hub was on there good, so I did resort to a gear puller. What worked for me was the middle-sized 2-jaw puller from a 3 puller set from Harbor Freight. I had to trim one of the hooks down a bit with a cutoff wheel to give clearance to get under the gear, but it worked great once in place. Here's the puller with its trimmed hook.


Inch-pound beam style torque wrench. For measuring rotational torque on the input and output shafts and differential for bearing shimming purposes.


Tap and die set. Harbor Freight again. I used the M4 x 0.7 mm tap to tap threads in the roll pin that retains the spider gear shaft in the differential. See the post below. This was so I could pull the roll pin out to replace the spider gear thrust washer. If you're not replacing the thrust washer or if you're swapping in a different differential, you don't need to do this.
 
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jmodge

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WOW! Parts washer AND dryer!!
 

Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Parts. This was especially the area where I wish I had more information as I got started. I naively thought that a "rebuild kit" would have everything I would need. Not the case. So, I've had to go parts hunting several times as I got into this first transmission and found more parts that I decided to replace that weren't part of the first "rebuild kit" that I bought. Then, I bought 2 of everything expecting I'd need them again for my second transmission. I’ll talk more about some individual parts later.

The decision on what to replace is yours. Some things may be visibly damaged or worn, so that's easy. But, some may look good, like the needle bearings underneath the gears on the output shaft of my first transmission. I'm not a bearing expert. Maybe bearings that visibly look good actually are good, but this first transmission has 320,000 miles and the second has 420,000, so I made the call to just replace all these needle bearings. So, it was back to parts hunting because the rebuild kit didn't have any of these needle bearings. There are 5 of them, one under each gear. The final tally for bearings, 14 (for one transmission).

On the gears. If they look good (no chips, no visible scratches or scoring, no heat discoloration), they probably are good. Use them. They’re very expensive to replace with new, and it’s very likely not necessary. Replacing with used gears is OK practice.

Shop around. There can be quite a bit of price variability even among dealership parts counters online. I won’t recommend this or that seller. It’s your call who you trust to buy from, but I’ll list who I’ve bought parts from. Again, this is not a recommendation, especially when buying bearings from an eBay seller. Buyer beware.

Cascade German Parts (02J rebuild kits)
eBay seller transmissionpartsonline2016 (02J bearing kit)
vwpartsvortex.com (online parts site for Burlington VW, New Jersey) (needle bearings and other various small parts)
jimellisvwparts.com (another online dealer parts site) (1st and 2nd gear inner synchro rings)
www.sp-spareparts.com (reverse gear needle bearing in the reverse gear support)
theoringstore.com (O-rings, of course)

For part numbers. The Cascade German website has a part number list for all the parts in their kits. The www.zelek.com site is great for parts diagrams and part numbers. vwpartsvortex.com has parts diagrams.

Edit: see post #44. I had an issue with a wrong part number on zelek.com, so it's good practice to confirm your part numbers through a second source.

More on some specific parts next.
 
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Brett San Diego

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Bearings

This was my experience on the bearings from different parts sellers. The 8 bearings in the rebuild kit from Cascade German (again, no gear set needle bearings included) were either in a well-known name brand box or in a bag with a Volkswagen label. The bearings from the eBay seller (also, no needle bearings) were either in name brand boxes (3 of them) or loose but individually wrapped in a plastic bag or shrink wrap (4 bearings). Of the “loose” bearings, 3 had SKF markings, one had INA markings.

So, one kit had 8 bearings and the other had 7. What’s missing to get to 14 bearings? Both did not have the 5 1st through 5th gear needle bearings. We’re still 1 or 2 short. The other missing 1 or 2 bearings are the needle bearings for the reverse gear shaft. The reverse gear shaft is always spinning with the input shaft, but it’s rarely engaged with the output shaft to move the car, so those needle bearings don’t have much load put on them very often, and they probably have the least amount of wear. I don’t know if professional shops that do rebuilds replace these bearings routinely or not, but I decided I wanted to replace them.

These are a funky right angle dual needle bearing with one on each end of the reverse gear shaft. One bearing is mounted in the case, and the other is mounted in the reverse gear support part. The Cascade German kit included the one in the case. The eBay kit did not include either.

Here’s a pic of these bearings. On the left is the reverse gear support and its bearing. On the right is the one mounted in the case. They are similar but not identical.


The case-mounted reverse gear bearing is part # 02A 311 523 B. I needed another one for my 2nd transmission. I was able to find it on vwpartsvortex.com searching by part #, $18.

The other reverse gear bearing is the problem child. I needed two of them. I spent a long time on google and finally found this bearing part #, 02A 311 525. But, dealer parts counters do not sell the bearing separately. You’ll see in parts diagrams that it is grouped with the support arm shown in my pic. The part # of that arm with the bearing is 04A 311 514 B, and it’s $127 at my local dealer. So, I continued searching and finally found some manufacturer cross references for this bearing. The INA part # is F-210416. Searching this part # online turned up some parts sellers in Europe. I tried to buy from one in Italy, but it looked like they only shipped within Italy. I was able to do an online purchase from sp-spareparts.com, which seems to be based in Ireland. I got an email confirmation of the order, but I have not yet received a shipment notice. I’m getting a little worried, but it’s just been 3 days. I’ll update if I’m successful getting this bearing. The bearing was $22, but they wanted $50 to ship, so almost $100 for 2. Still cheaper than buying 2 of the reverse arm supports from VW.

(edit: I received the bearings.)

Maybe I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by calling up a rebuild shop and asking if they sell the bearing…

OK, that’s enough on bearings.

(edit 2/11/2023: Upon searching "02J rebuild kit" online now, I do see a LUK kit and an INA kit that show inclusion of both reverse shaft needle bearings.)
 
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Mozambiquer

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Following as well!
 

gforce1108

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One thing to keep in mind is that the later (04.5 - 06) 02Js have a different differential with unique sized rivets. ARP does not have an application for these. I found out the hard way after drilling out my perfectly good rivets (after I was told that they are all the same). I found a few threads where people resorted to Dorman lug studs, but I opted to upgrade to a Peloquin LSD instead.
 

Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
The differential spider gear thrust washer. Ignore this post if you're swapping in a non-stock differential.

As I disassembled my first transmission, I discovered all these plastic fragments in the bottom of the transmission.


I cleaned them up and saved them because it didn't seem right, and I wanted to be able to compare them to the source if part of the source was still intact. I finally found where they came from a few days ago when I started messing with the differential to pull the carrier bearings. I found that roughly half of the spider gear thrust washer was simply missing. Having just jumped into disassembly without fully reviewing all the parts in the transmission, I didn't know this part existed. But, consulting parts diagrams (zelek.com) showed it very clearly. It's a ball-shaped plastic bushing that locates the spider gears in the differential carrier. Part #4


Here's my differential showing some of the thrust washer (the brown plastic bowl-shaped thing that's out of focus).

That I had an issue with the thrust washer was evident early on, but I didn't know it. When I first split the case, I heard something fall and clank around inside the transmission. I thought, oh no, I've broken something. Nope, it was the end cap from the differential spider gear that the axle flange anchor screw bolts into. This cap sits on the back side of the splined spider gear that the flange slides into. There's one of these for each axle flange, but only one fell out. So, I looked closely and one spider gear was very loose with a lot of play, and the other was held pretty tightly in place with the end cap held captive on the backside of the spider gear by the spider gear shaft. That one spider gear was loose allowing that cap to fall out because the plastic thrust washer was missing on that side, which I didn't realize. I saw a comment in another thread about the axle flanges where someone said to be careful about jostling things if you're removing and reinstalling axle flanges because the end cap could fall into the transmission and you'd probably have to split it open to retrieve it. Well, if your thrust washer is in good shape, the cap won't fall out. So if it does, you've got a bigger problem of that thrust washer failing, and you probably should open up the transmission and at least pull the differential to repair that.

In this pic, I'm holding the cap that fell out over the space that it normally occupies in the differential. On the other side of the shaft, you can see the other cap held captive by the spider gear shaft. Again, you can see some of the thrust washer on the right side of the spider gears, but none on the left side.

The whole point of this discussion is you should plan to replace this thrust washer part. It's only $9, and you'll also need the $1 roll pin that holds the spider gear shaft in place. Don't think about it. Just buy these and have them ready to go. I bought 2, so I'm ready for the second transmission.
 
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Brett San Diego

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O-rings

There are a couple sets of O-rings that you should replace. The dealer is always a source of parts, and these O-rings may actually be cheap from the dealer, but I didn't check. Zelek.com says they are included in their seal kit, but I already had all the other necessary seals from purchasing rebuild kits from other vendors, so I measured the original O-rings and the shafts they fit on and ordered new ones from theoringstore.com. You want Viton O-rings not nitrile rubber. Viton is a fluoropolymer that is resistant to fuels and oils.

There are 4 small O-rings on the output shaft mounting studs.


And, there are 4 larger O-rings, one on each of the shift linkage pivot pins.


Here are the O-rings I got. 2 mm x 7.5 mm and 2 mm x 14.5 mm. (cross section x inner diameter). I hope 2 mm is correct. The original O-rings measured about 2 mm. I'm just hoping that's right. Or, my transmission will be leaking all over, and I'll be pulling it apart again and updating this thread.

 
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gforce1108

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Not brave enough to take one apart and get it back together. I will save this for sure.
It's not as bad as it sounds. Mine tossed a rivet through the ring gears and split the case. I bought a broken trans (5th gear stripped out) and swapped my gear stack into the replacement. The 02j "manual" was very helpful as was the Bentley. 5th syncro got me a little because I was trying to install it wrong ;) I didn't do a full rebuild - just a refreshening (seals/orings) with a new LSD while I was in there.
 

lost1wing

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Funny you mention that. I welded the 5th gear on the shaft on one of mine, 2 years ago. I have 2 that need axle bearings and wanted to swap parts over to make the stripped 5th gear trans whole again. The way I looked at it was, the shaft and the gear are already toast, so it got a weld repair. Now I have two 5 speeds that need axle bearings still.
 

lost1wing

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Did you ever tow anything with your 5 speed that broke? Just wondering if I need to look forward to this happening on my others. I towed a small trailer with an ATV on it. Not every day but once or twice a year for 2,000 miles each trip. Maybe for 6 years until I started pulling more and opted for the truck for pulling.
 

lost1wing

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I know what you mean about the synchro. I was worried about reinstalling those little wire spring clips. Mine were worn enough that I still think about them failing.
 

Brett San Diego

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Output shaft disassembly and bearing removal from the shaft

Follow the Andrew Lewis video for the output shaft disassembly ALMOST entirely. He's following the Bentley manual. It's a great video right up to the point where he starts to remove the bearing races. He removes the cages and rollers and then demonstrates using a variety of screwdrivers and chisels with a hammer to drive the races off, but he has a press and a bearing separator, and I'm not sure why he didn't use them.

Instead, remove the bearing cages and rollers. In the pic below, I've cut the cage with a dremel tool and a cutoff wheel being very careful not to slip and grind on the gear. If the cage is thin enough, you can cut it with a pair of diagonal cutters. Note that I'm actually showing one of the input shaft bearings here. I did not decide to document my rebuild until I already had the bearings replaced on the output shaft, so I don't have any pics of the output shaft.


Then clamp the appropriate sized bearing splitter on the lip of the bearing race.


Do whatever it takes to set it up in the press, and press it off.


Much easier than screwdrivers and chisels. Sometimes you have to get creative with setting up parts in the press as you saw in the Lewis video when he does the first press on the output shaft. Have various sizes of wood and metal blocks handy. I'll show a nice technique to use when pressing off the differential bearing races that I got from another youtube video.

You may be able to get the bearing splitter in between the bearing and whatever is next to it and press the bearing off without having to remove the cage and rollers to get to the inner lip of the race. Just depends on the situation. But, be sure you're getting the bearing splitter on the backside of the bearing race and NOT on just the cage.

Save all the races that you press off the shafts. They are the best tool to use as a drift to press the new bearings on because obviously they are the exact same size.

Andrew Lewis does not show input shaft disassembly, and I just did this one bearing so far. I don't anticipate needing to add anything more on input shaft disassembly. I will if something deserves more detail.

Once I had my output shaft completely stripped, I degreased it with solvent and went over all the smooth surfaces with fine steel wool. I then powerwashed it to remove all the steel wool shavings and any other residues, blew it dry with compressed air, and coated it with gear oil. The input shaft will get the same treatment.

Brett
 
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Brett San Diego

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Output shaft assembly

Again, follow the Lewis video. Pretty straightforward, but you just want to be careful and make sure you get it right the first time. Lewis said he had to take it apart and do it again, I suspect because he put the 3-4 gear selector slider on backwards. That slider looks like it's completely symmetrical, but it's not. One side has a tiny chamfer on the inner splines, and the other does not. Make sure you get that chamfer facing the right way. Lewis mentions this, and it's in the Bentley.

One thing worth mentioning is you'll need to improvise for the various factory drift tools that you don't have for pressing the gears, sliders, and bearings onto the output shaft. I've done a number of metal fabrication projects, so I've got a small pile of scrap metal that I've saved over the years. The scrap pile was solid gold for this project as I found tubing of the perfect sizes that I could use. In the background of image 4440 in the previous post, you'll see a couple pieces of tubing that came in handy. Not everyone has a scrap metal pile, so it could be challenging to find things to use as drift tools for this job. Metal supply shops usually have an area of cut-offs and remnants, and you may be able to find small pieces of tubing in the right sizes for cheap.

Another thing to mention here. If you are replacing the 5 needle bearings under each gear, then you will also replace the sleeves on the input and output shafts that get removed along with all the gears and sliders. Those sleeves are the inner races for the needle bearings. Not all the needle bearings have a new sleeve with them. Some of the needle bearings ride on the shaft itself, some have a sleeve that serves as the inner race. Below is a pic of the needle bearing for 4th and 5th gear (same part). The inner race goes on the input or output shaft, so be sure not to put the old sleeve back on. Use the new one from the new bearing.


I had one minor issue with the snap ring that goes on after the 1-2 gear slider. I was using a wimpy pair of pin-style snap ring pliers.


Somehow the pins didn't slip off the ring when I removed it, but I couldn't get the ring to stay on the pins for reinstallation. So, I took my dremel tool and cutoff wheel and put a tiny notch in the end of each side of the snap ring. Just barely had to touch it with the cutoff wheel. That allowed the snap ring to stay on the pliers for installation. I don't have a pic of the snap ring.

Edit (7/15/2023): On transmission #2, I had the same issue with the snap ring. It wouldn't stay on the pliers for reinstallation, and I had to notch the ends. I took a couple pics.

Here's the orientation of the pliers on the snap ring for removal and installation.

And here's the notch job that I did on each end of the snap ring to help retain it on the pliers during reinstallation.

Brett
 
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gforce1108

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Funny you mention that. I welded the 5th gear on the shaft on one of mine, 2 years ago. I have 2 that need axle bearings and wanted to swap parts over to make the stripped 5th gear trans whole again. The way I looked at it was, the shaft and the gear are already toast, so it got a weld repair. Now I have two 5 speeds that need axle bearings still.
I towed quite a bit with mine - I'm pretty sure it's a yes on the one that had 5th stripped out (pulled from a 05 golf that was AWD swapped and put into an older jetta before I bought it). That one had also been welded but didn't hold very long. I don't want to clog up this thread with other pictures, but here's a link to what it looked like: https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?media/almqla1lqkuegd78ibsdlg.135380/full
 

lost1wing

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I beveled out the gear and made 3 passes working around the shaft to fill it all in. I did a runout check after the first pass and had to walk the gear over with the other two passes. This old guy was telling me how to do that.
 

Brett San Diego

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A tiny bit more on the input shaft.

If your gears on the input shaft are in good shape, and you're not going to change them, then there is very little input shaft disassembly. All you're going to do is change the roller bearings and the inner race for the 5th gear needle bearing (if you are replacing all the needle bearings under each gear). If you are not replacing the needle bearings, then you will reinstall the sleeve that comes off along with the large bearing when you press it off the shaft.

Removing the large bearing on the input shaft is slightly more challenging than the small bearing (at least, I thought it was). The large bearing is sandwiched between 4th gear and a washer, neither of which you want to damage while swapping the bearing. I used my Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel to cut out 2 of the cage cross bars. I then removed 3 rollers, and that gave clearance to cut the cage's top and bottom sections without cutting into the washer or 4th gear. Pic of the cut cage below.


Once the cage and rollers are off, use a bearing splitter to grip the bearing race as shown in the previous post and press off the large bearing race and also the washer and 5th gear sleeve at the same time.

The pic below is what improvising drift tools can look like. This is a pic of reinstalling the small bearing on the input shaft. You'll see the new bearing going on. On top of that is the old bearing race turned upside down so the small side matches up with the small side of the new bearing, and then I've got a long piece of tubing on top of the old race that just happened to be the perfect diameter for the old race. I didn't want to cut the scrap tubing down. Who knows, I may need a piece of tubing that long in the future... Fortunately, it fit in the press. On top of the tubing is a small plate of steel to give the press' anvil something to press on. Improvise... Use whatever you have.


Brett
 
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Brett San Diego

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I forgot to start with the actual beginning which was the cleaning process that I used pre-disassembly. There is more than one way to skin a cat, but this is what I did.

As expected for a transmission with 320,000 miles, it was coated with grease and grime. I started by mounting the transmission on my engine stand and power washing it, rotating all around. After it dried off, I walnut shell blasted the exterior to get into the nooks and crannies as best as possible and knock off the last bit of any residues. I wasn't going for perfection in cleanliness. My criterion for "clean" was any easily contacted surface should be clean to the touch, i.e. if I wipe my finger across it, my finger should not turn black.

After disassembly, i cleaned the inside of the case halves with Gunk degreaser and a toothbrush then powerwashed again.

After I did some later work on the case halves to remove the differential bearing races, clean old gasket material off the mating surfaces, and remove the reverse gear shaft bearing from the case, which I'll describe later, I power washed again to remove all the metal shavings from those operations.



Edit (2/26/2023)
To avoid cleaning the inside of the case multiple times on the second transmission, I only power washed the outside of the transmission before disassembly. I put off the final degreasing, walnut shell blasting of the outside, and power washing until I was done with all operations that would create more debris inside the case (i.e. removing all the bearings and races, removing old gasket residue, and grinding away the 3 peen marks that are for retaining the input shaft support bearing in the case).

Brett
 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Differential part 1. Differential carrier bearing removal.

There are various ways to remove differential bearings. Youtube is always a great resource, and I found the method that I used there.


Start with removal of the cages and rollers from each bearing leaving behind just the inner race. Bust out the appropriately sized bearing splitter again and clamp it on the lip of the inner race. Pic below. If you watched the video, you know what the bolts are for. If you don't have the patience to watch the video or the link doesn't work, I'll describe the bolts in this pic in a second.


The bolts are used to suspend the differential below the press' base while you press the differential off of the carrier bearing race. I bought the bolts online from nutsandbolts.com. The differential carrier is too big to fit between the beams of the press base, so again you need to get creative to suspend the differential below the press beams so you can press off the bearing race. You need something to support the bolts that the differential is hanging from. For this I went to the metal supply store and found some 1 in. thick steel remnants that were the perfect size, I drilled holes in the 1 in. steel blocks for the bolts and suspended the differential below the press' beams as shown in the pic below. (Well, kind of... In this pic, I have already pressed the race off. I'm just holding the differential roughly where it would be if still on the race.)


Now get your bearing press kit and find the appropriately sized drift. The differential shaft measures 41 mm, so you want a drift tool that is slightly smaller than that. There is a 39.5 mm drift tool in the Harbor Freight bearing press tool kit. Perfect.


Set up the drift tool, centered on the shaft, in the press with the differential hanging from the bolts and press the differential off the bearing race. (The alignment of the drift tool with the press anvil looks bad in this pic, but again, I've already pressed the differential off when I took this pic, so I'm just staging this pic for this post. When you're actually using the press, things should be aligned perfectly.)


Remove both bearing races, and then you can move onto replacing the spider gear thrust washer if you have chosen to do so.

Brett
 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Differential part 2. Spider gear shaft removal to change the spider gear thrust washer.

(Edit 7/3/2023: see post #53 for my adventures (or misadventures) trying the below drill and tap method to remove the roll pin on transmission #2. I have communicated with a knowledgable individual, who shared a quick and efficient method for spider gear shaft removal. I had already completed my work, so I didn't try this myself, but it's a brilliant idea. Secure the differential by whatever means you can. The preferred method by the sharing individual is to use the press as a clamp. But, once secured, drive out the shaft with an air hammer using a blunt tip tool and just shear the roll pin in the process of driving out the shaft. Then, take a hammer and punch and drive out the remains of the roll pin from the bore in the shaft and differential carrier. Should be very quick and easy if you have air tools.)

So far, this task presented the biggest challenge in the rebuild due to the roll pin that retains the spider gear shaft. I didn't take a pic before I started work on this, so this is a pic of the new roll pin after the reassembly was complete.


The Bentley says use a chisel in the groove of the roll pin to drive the pin out.


I wasn't optimistic about this method, but I tried it, and it didn't work. The roll pin just sheared off, not surprisingly. The pin is in there good. It's not supposed to ever come out. At that point, there wasn't much of the pin left sticking out, so I didn't have a good option to try grabbing the pin to pull it out with vice grips or something. Even if you have the full pin to try to grab onto, I'm not sure vice grips would work. Roll pins are made of hardened steel, and they're brittle. I think if you tried to grip it with vice grips, you'd fracture the pin and simply break it off like I did with the chisel. It may work. I don't know. But, I didn't have that option. I felt the only shot I had was partially drilling out the pin, tapping it, screwing in a small bolt, then rigging up a way to pull it out. Another option is having a machine shop remove it for you.

So, here's what worked for me. As I mentioned, the roll pin is hardened steel, so I went through 4 or 5 drill bits. The quality of the bit seemed to make a big difference. A Milwaukee drill bit that I started with made it all the way through the pin. Subsequent Harbor Freight or other brand drill bits made it only part way through the pin or barely at all even with a brand new bit. I didn't have the right size Milwaukee bits for the complete job.

I used 3 sizes of bits: 1/8, 9/64, and 5/32 in. Converting all these to the lowest common denominator, 8/64, 9/64, and 10/64, shows that I'm stepping up 1/64th in. for each size. Maybe you could drill it in 2 stages, 1/8 and then 5/32, but I didn't try. I used a low speed drill driver. I think low speed is better here. You want good control. I started with a 1/8 in. Milwaukee bit. That made it all the way through. Then I switched to a 9/64 Harbor Freight bit. Harbor Freight actually had packages of 3 9/64 hex-shank bits, which was very fortunate because I needed more than one to get through the pin. Then I used a 5/32 Harbor Freight bit. Unfortunately, the only way to get a 5/32 at Harbor Freight was to buy a full set of bits, but I don't mind having new bits lying around for the future. The 5/32 bit only made it about half way through, but I thought that may be good enough because my plan was to tap it with an M4 x 0.7 metric tap. I had just drilled it all the way through with a 9/64 in bit, so the lower section was drilled out to 3.6 mm, and the upper half was drilled to 5/32 in or 3.97 mm (essentially 4 mm). I was able to tap it all the way through with the M4 tap and cutting fluid. The tap (Harbor Freight kit) didn't fair too well vs. the hardened steel pin, but it worked well enough for this job.

Here's the drilled roll pin.


I then screwed an M4 x 0.7 x 50 mm bolt with a couple pairs of washers on it all the way through the pin. (Note the pin is already partially pulled out in this pic.)


The washers allowed me to grip the bolt with a slide hammer attachment from a paintless dent repair glue puller kit that I had. The first pic is the native use of the attachment to pull PDR glue tabs. The second pic shows the jerry rigged puller arrangement with the pin partially out. The lightweight PDR kit slide hammer was too light, so I used the slide hammer that came with the inner bearing race puller kit (pictured in the tool post above). Fortunately, they both had the same thread pitch on the end of the slide hammer for the attachment. I put the differential on the ground on wood blocks and stood on it while using the slide hammer. It worked.



Here are a couple pics of the pin after removal.



At this point you use a large punch to drive out the shaft. Then you can remove the spider gears and the old plastic thrust washer.

And, this pic shows why I'm doing this. Old thrust washer on the left, new one on the right. One lobe of the thrust washer is gone allowing for major play in the spider gears, which then allows the threaded axle flange retainer to fall out when the flange bolt is removed.


Brett
 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Differential part 3. Spider gear reassembly

Before reassembly, I did the usual thorough cleaning: steel wool on the polished spider gear shaft and carrier bearing surfaces, power washed the carrier and shaft, and degreased the carrier, the spider gear shaft, spider gears, and axle flange end caps.

Coat the inside of the differential carrier and the new spider gear thrust washer with gear oil. Install the thrust washer by spreading it open and slipping one end in first. Then, work the rest of it into the carrier. It fits like a glove once inside. Rotate it to align the openings. I coated the spider gears with gear oil and installed them. Getting the spider gears in is a three-handed job. I fought with it for a good 15 min before getting it right. The Bentley says to use the splined axle flanges to hold the splined spider gears while you put in the smaller gears. It's a good idea, but I hadn't cleaned my axle flanges, yet, so I didn't want to get any junk in my pristine clean differential.

Align all the openings in the carrier, the thrust washer, and the spider gears, and position the differential on some wood blocks so you can drive in the spider gear shaft. Do your best to align the roll pin holes, but it's not critical to get it perfect at the start. You can use a phillips screwdriver as a lever in the hole of the shaft to rotate the shaft for a final adjustment just before you finish driving it home. If you're still off when you have it fully driven in, you can just punch it back out and adjust again. I was off a little bit the first time and had to re-do it once.

Drive the shaft in just a little past the first spider gear, put the axle flange retaining caps in place, then drive the shaft the rest of the way in. Here's a pic of things right after I put in the axle flange end caps. You can see there is almost no room between the caps and the shaft.


If you've got good alignment of the roll pin holes, the last thing is to drive in the new roll pin. The Bentley has a note on installation of the roll pin. The slot should be lined up with the direction of any force that it may be put under.


And, here is my new roll pin in place.


Press on the two differential carrier bearings, and the differential is ready to go back in. You can use the old bearing inner race as a drift tool. Don't forget the speedometer gear on the one side. And, be sure not to mix up the outer races and bearings. The races and bearings are matched with each other, so label which outer race goes into which side of the transmission case.

At this point, I have the input and output shafts and the differential rebuilt and ready to go.

Brett
 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Removing bearing races from the case

The small output shaft bearing.

This bearing is a blind bearing. You can't press it out from the backside, so it requires the inner bearing race puller tool. The Amazon-bought kit pictured in the tool post above worked well for this race, but I did have to grind down the end of the tool because there wasn't enough clearance behind the bearing race for it to fit. So, the pic below shows the thinned tool on the left vs. the original thickness on the right.


In my case, the bearing came out very easily. By accident, as I wiggled the puller tool, I found the race popped part way out by just levering the tool to the side. Then a light pull with the slide hammer removed it. The pic is of the partially removed race. (Edit: On the second transmission, this race was held much more tightly in the case. I had to use the puller and pull it out after putting the spreader in place. But, the Amazon-purchased puller kit worked well once again for this race.)


Differential carrier bearing races.

I tried to use the inner bearing puller tool on the differential carrier bearing races, but it didn't work on these ones. This bearing race size was at the limit of the tool set, and using the largest tool spread as far is it could go, I still couldn't get it to grip well enough. The tool kept slipping out of the race, so I went back to the old fashioned method of knocking them out with a hammer and punch. There was only one issue with this method on the clutch housing case side (the side with the metal seal flange). The flange has an inner lip which blocks access to the backside of the race. I took the Dremel tool with a grinding stone and ground 4 notches across from one another in the inner lip of the flange to allow access to the race, so I could punch it out. Pic of the notches.


Note that you may choose to pull out this flange and replace it with a new one depending on what axle flange seal part you have bought. In that case, ignore this last part. My rebuild kit came with just the seal without a new flange, so I've pulled just the seal leaving the flange in place.
 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Measuring clearances in the output and input shafts and the differential.

Just a couple of pics showing how I set up the dial indicator using the Harbor Freight flexible mount. It seemed to work OK. I was able to get consistent measurements in all cases.

I didn't take a pic for the output shaft but same principle. Clamp the vice grip wherever you can and make it work.

Here's the set up for the input shaft.


Here's the differential. In this case, I couldn't get the dial indicator holder to settle in the right spot, so I mounted it so the holder was just above the case flange, then I pressed the holder down against the case since that was a hard point. I was able to hold the dial indicator steady enough while I pressed the differential up to make the measurement. Totally janky, but it seemed to work. I got consistent readings that I was happy with.

 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Case modifications for 5th gear oiling

I drilled holes along the bottom edge of the 5th gear compartment and installed the oil guide part that was added in later model 02J transmissions.

The three holes along the bottom are 1/4 in. The hole at the top for the oil guide is 11/32 in.


Oil guide, 0A4 301 134A


Here is the link again that discusses 5th gear oiling.

 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Reverse gear shaft bearing removal and installation

For the bearing in the case, I tried the Amazon inner bearing puller tool without success. The Bentley specifies a Kukko inner bearing puller tool, which must be a better fit than mine. I just couldn't get a good enough grip on the backside of the bearing. The tool kept slipping out with the slide hammer. It looked like the "body" or shaft of the tool was clashing with the bearing as I was spreading the tool and not allowing the "foot" portion to get far enough under the backside of the bearing. Maybe I could have ground down the body of the tool to give clearance, but I gave up and resorted to grinding and cutting the bearing out. I first cut away the top portion and dug out the cage and needle bearings in the shaft portion so I could get to the race pressed into the case. I then took the Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel and did my best to cut a slot in the bearing race while not going too deep into the case metal. The Dremel cutoff wheel was too big to fit inside the race, so I had to grind some of it away on some scrap steel until it could fit inside. Once I had a decent cut most of the way through the race, I used a hammer and punch on the lower lip to fracture the race completely through. At that point, the bearing race broke loose, and I could remove it.

It's not pretty, but 95% of the case surface is still there, so I'm not concerned about it. This isn't the best way to do this, but it's what worked for me. Now that I think about it, removing the cage and bearings probably gave enough clearance to try the puller tool again. I'm going to try this on my second transmission.

The case bearing (Actually, this is the new bearing pressed in. Didn't take a pic before starting on the original.)

Pics of the carnage



The reverse gear shaft support bearing was easy. Press out the old, press in the new. Just a quick pic of socket sizes that worked as drift tools for this bearing. The lower socket is a 1 1/8 in. The regular depth socket was deep enough to receive the bearing as it was pressed out. The upper one is a 15 mm.
 
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Brett San Diego

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02 Jetta wagon manual
Shift tower rebuild

I bought a shift tower rebuild kit from Cascade German, which includes a new sleeve bearing and upper seal for the gear selector shaft. Here are some comments on replacing those.

Pulling the weighted shifter cable connector is task number one. A small 2-jaw puller can be rigged up to remove it.

The shaft seal was too stuck to simply pry out with a seal puller or screwdriver. No pics, but I had to use the Dremel tool and small cutoff wheel to cut through the metal of the seal on one side. When it was cut almost all the way through, I was able to pry it out with a screwdriver.

For the bearing sleeve, I used a similar process of grinding through the body of the sleeve with the Dremel tool. The Bentley manual says to use an inner race puller to remove it, but I don't think that would work. I tried to press it out using my inner race puller tool, setting up the tool on the lower lip of the bearing sleeve as shown in the pics below. The problem here is that you can't just press it out from the top of the sleeve because the metal of the shift tower housing is in the way. You'll see what I mean in the later pics.



I then set it up in the press on a piece of tubing that was the right size to support the inner cylinder of the shift tower housing. I read a post on another site that said you can break off the inner cylinder of the housing if you try to press the bearing race out by supporting the housing on the outer perimeter. Anyway, it didn't work. The bottom lip of the race just broke off. So, I resorted to grinding through the race to remove it.

Here's the grinding tool I used.

Just work slowly and check your progress often. You can see when you've broken through the bearing sleeve.

Once I had cut through about half the length of the sleeve and thinned the sleeve most of the rest of the way down its length, I put the housing in a vice and used a hammer and small chisel to deform the sleeve and break the bond with the shifter housing,

I was able to pull it down a little with a pair of pliers, and once I had some clearance to the top of the sleeve, I used a hammer and punch from the top to tap it out the rest of the way. This pic shows what I mean by the metal of the housing being in the way of simply pressing the race out from the top. There's a shoulder of aluminum in the cylinder that functions as a stop for properly locating the bearing below the stop and the shaft seal above it.

Here's the sleeve after winning the battle.

And, here's the bore. Damage was minimal.

Pressing in the new seal and bearing were trivial exercises using the press.
 
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