No gears

smos1

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2008
Location
Seattle, WA
TDI
'96 B4V w/AFN swap, 2011 JSW with a leaking pano
96 B4V, 160k.

Recently had a passenger side axle shaft come off while driving, the bolts apparently just worked themselves out. One had actually sheared off and I had to get that out of the transmission flange. I had posted this event on here earlier.

So eventually I re-greased and re-bolted it back together, everything looked fine to me. But...as I was test driving it around the block it made a funny "clunk" starting out in 1st gear. I continued slowly on, trying to get back to the driveway, but after another stop and start in 1st gear there was a grinding noise and no gears. I haven't tried reverse, I didn't want to potentially damage anything else.

I'm not sure where or what to look for. Was there some damage to the transmission from when the axle let go? Did I install something wrong?
As I was putting the axle in, I pulled on it to get the splined part into the spindle and could feel the inner cv joint move, could that have anything to do with it?

any suggestions would be appreciated,
thanks in advance
 

TDIGuy2011

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 2, 2011
Location
Molalla, Oreegone
TDI
1996 Passat TDI
um maybe...you might have pulled the cv joint apart it is splined to move a little but I wanna say when I took mine apart to rebuild it I accidentally pulled it apart
 

smos1

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2008
Location
Seattle, WA
TDI
'96 B4V w/AFN swap, 2011 JSW with a leaking pano
do I need to completely remove the axle to get it back together? how can you tell when it's back where it needs to be? It "felt" fine when I reinstalled it.
 

smos1

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2008
Location
Seattle, WA
TDI
'96 B4V w/AFN swap, 2011 JSW with a leaking pano
I am now an expert at removing and reinstalling axles.

The axle had pulled out of the inner cv joint. When the bolts came out and the shaft was bouncing around in there it fubar'd the end up so that the circ clip wouldn't stay in as well as it should. So when I put it back together, and went for a drive the axle pulled itself out of that inner cv joint.

I figured this out after I'd pulled everything apart and tried to put it together again.
I took the inner cv joint apart, not on purpose, the bearings came out and I learned how they are supposed to go together now. There is a good link on here http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/500/CV_Boot_repair.pdf
and here
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=160759&highlight=cv+knuckle&page=2 scroll down to the jolly green giant post.

Eventually I said the heck with it...or something like that...and picked up a complete NAPA axle. Took about 20 mins to install it. I figured if they don't last that long compared to OEM, with the lifetime warranty I'll just pop out the bad one and trade it in for a new one. It really isn't that difficult to do, just need the 30mm socket and the 12 point and the basic hand tools.
 
Top