front wheel drive line fell out!

[Rapidrob]

Front wheel drive,passenger side drive shaft fell out of the transmission flange/cup drive! Bolts backed out the funnel shaped coupling and left me stranded 1 mile from my house just after a 100 mile drive at 75 MPH! I had just pulled up to a stop and started to move again when I heard the drive shaft fall out of the drive coupling. How lucky to be so close to home!
My wife towed me home and I jacked the 96 Passat TDI up and found what had happened. The bolts are not damaged. The holes in the drive flange need to be chased. I hoping they can be saved.
The grease gasket it toast. I need to replace that for sure.
Is the drive flange coming out of the transmission still available for replacement and is it held in place by a nut on a splinted shaft coming out of the tranny?
What is the flange called? Who has one for sale? If not, what years are the same and what model cars use the same tranny?
I "think" the bolts are M8x1.25 is that correct as I will need to buy a tap.
What is the torque specs on these bolts? I have the TORX bit for the bolts.
Please help with info. This is my daily driver car.

 

[Windex]

I have a coupe of those grease gaskets from my old B4V... up here in Canada... :-(

clean everything up and then see if the threaded holes in the drive flange are good or bad. If you can't get another flange in a reasonable time (assuming the threads are damaged), take it off and have a machine shop heli-coil the threads.

The central bolt is... a 6mm (8mm?) hex if memory serves? once you get that central bolt out, the flange slides out of the transmission.

 

[turbodieseldyke]

The axle bolts are triple-square (12), not torx (6). Torque is 33ft-lb.

If the M8 holes are too worn-out to be re-tapped, maybe you could upsize them to M10, which the Mk5 uses (and maybe Mk4).

 

[Rapidrob]

Thank you for the replies. I was thinking that if the threads are FUBAR, I would go to 10 mill. Part may be very hard to find.
I could use the gasket as I'm not able to find one here.

 

[DCM1]

Don’t waste time fixing wrecked threads. Remove the flange and get your local machine shop to drill and tap new M8 holes between all the old ones.

 

[Windex]

Part number is 8D0407309 for the gasket - went and dug them out of the basement, they're (two of them) still in the VW dealer parts bag.

Saw a few ebay and amazon links to get them, you can also get them from ECS tuning and cascade german.

If you are stuck, I can chek what shipping costs (PM me your zip code) on tuesday. Holiday up here in Canada on Monday.

Checked the postal rates, it's a whopping $3.60 CDN to ship to edgewood NM - that's standard letter mail - expedited with tracking is stupid money - I wouldn't do it.

For the gaskets, you can have them for the postage - I'll never use them

 

[Abacus]

These use gaskets?

I learn something new every day...

 

[HardToHandle]

Were the half moon washers on the bolts?

The axle bolts will back themselves off if they are not present. Had that happen to me on a vr6 gti, luckily I caught it before the bolts completely backed out and I still had the washers. Saved me from installing a new access hole in my transmission!

 

[Steve Addy]

According to parts cat the flange is 02A409355B and VW says it fits:

Volkswagen (VW) Golf 1998, 1999
Volkswagen (VW) Golf 5-MT 1997
Volkswagen (VW) Jetta 5-MT 1997, 1998, 1999
Volkswagen (VW) Passat 1997
Volkswagen (VW) Passat 5-MT 1995, 1996, 1997
Volkswagen (VW) Passat syncro 1991, 1992, 1993

But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the above isn't all that accurate. I see cars missing that I'm sure should be here and it doesn't clarify which engine....which will have to be VR6 (AAA) or TDI. I would think anything with a VR6 (pre Mk4) or anything that used the 02A (includes Corrado and Passat 90-94) would be the same too...

EDIT: I was wrong, earlier implementations of 02A trans use a circlip retained differential drive flange and NOT bolted...so the above list is probably pretty close to being accurate.

Steve

 

[Rapidrob]

Thank you for the part numbers!
Yes, the Half-Moon brackets are still there.
I'm still not 100% how the flange comes off? Does it ride on a spline'd shaft or is it with held internally?
Is the nut holding the drive line to the disc brake Left or right hand threads? I need to remove the drive line to get to the drve flange properly.

 

[turbodieseldyke]

Is the nut holding the drive line to the disc brake Left or right hand threads? I need to remove the drive line to get to the drve flange properly.

The axle nut is right hand, but you should try turning the wheel or something to get enough clearance without dismounting the outer cv.

 

[Rapidrob]

I'll give that a try.

 

[Rapidrob]

Turning the wheel helped a little.
The good news is there is only one hole out of eight that is slightly buggered at the first thread! Even a blind dog finds a bone every now and then...
What the heck is this huge steel block used for? I thought it was hard rubber until I took it out. Once removed it give me some more rood to work.

 

[Windex]

One hole out of six...

That is a vibration dampener - most folks remove it.

 

[Abacus]

And it's known as the 'brick'. I tossed mine over a decade ago and never missed it.

 

[Rapidrob]

I sent windex some money for the gaskets. That will help a lot having them.

 

[Steve Addy]

You should be able to clean up that one hole with a tap, or at least I would think.

Steve

 

[GlowBugTDI]

Were the half moon washers on the bolts?

The axle bolts will back themselves off if they are not present. Had that happen to me on a vr6 gti, luckily I caught it before the bolts completely backed out and I still had the washers. Saved me from installing a new access hole in my transmission!

Even with the half moons they can back out for whatever reason. Ive had this happen twice, though the first time was after being to a shop for new axles. I don't know what they did but this exact thing happend about 2 weeks later.
I think generally it's either caused by the bolts not being torqed enough or their is grease on the threads. Ive been torqueing them to ~40ft-lb (think thays what my impact maxes) then re check with the ratchet by hand. Because I didn't want it to happen after the first time I did this and about 20k later I had 2 on the same half moon back out completely so I cleaned the threads really good with brake cleaner and then put locktite on them. So far so good.

 

[Rapidrob]

I ordered a "Plug-Tap" which is designed to repair threads.

 

[DCM1]

“Plug” is simply the way the end of the tap is ground. There’s taper, plug, and bottoming tap profiles, with the plug being the most common and versatile

 

[burpod]

i really don't like those open-ended joints. always get grease in the threads which i think can lead to them backing out if not tightened enough, but tighten too much and you could strip them, they don't have a huge amount of meat on them as it is. i always try my best to clean the threads out from grease but it's such an annoying awkward thing to do...

 

[Rapidrob]

I will "brake Cleaner" the threads and bolts and use LOC_tite on the threads

 

[Zak99b5]

i really don't like those open-ended joints. always get grease in the threads which i think can lead to them backing out if not tightened enough, but tighten too much and you could strip them, they don't have a huge amount of meat on them as it is. i always try my best to clean the threads out from grease but it's such an annoying awkward thing to do...

Same. Not sure why the autos got capped inner joints while manuals have the messy open ones.

 

[turbodieseldyke]

Same. Not sure why the autos got capped inner joints while manuals have the messy open ones.

Maybe they require caps due to the roller design, vs manual's ball+cage

 

[Zak99b5]

True, ball/cage CV vs. tripod, but there's no reason that the manual axles can't be capped--the flange on the tranny effectively is a cap anyway.

 

[Rapidrob]

The tap showed up this afternoon. I will chase the threads in the AM. No idea on the gaskets, nothing heard from Windex.
How much Molly-B should be in the drive flange?
Why didn't VW use some sort of lock-washer on the bolts?

 

[Steve Addy]

I've never had one inner joint come apart from loose bolts, then again I tighten them probably more than the factory specification too because of this problem. And I know sometimes my boot kits have come without gaskets...so they went back together without gaskets.

Never bothered with loctite...because I think the bolt ends up going through grease on it's way in anyway...so the loctite just gets nullified.

Steve

 

[Steve Addy]

Same. Not sure why the autos got capped inner joints while manuals have the messy open ones.

The 107mm 6MT inner joints did get caps...but those came later with Mk4 (6MT) etc.

Steve

 

[GlowBugTDI]

Never bothered with loctite...because I think the bolt ends up going through grease on it's way in anyway...so the loctite just gets nullified.

Steve

that why I squirt brake clean in there and use the air hose once I have one bolt holding it in somewhat. Seems I can't ever get them lined up and bolted in without getting grease on something by the threads then gets squished in when bolted down.

 

[turbodieseldyke]

I suppose you could use some longer bolts (at least 3) to hold it in place, then try to get the real bolts in grease-free.