Shoul I do it? 2.0 TDi needs a 6 speed manual box

[hugh.venables]

Hi Guys. I have posted on the Seat forum a bit over the years about the Cordoba my daughter has owned for about 10 years. It has been a very useful car that has been very cheap to own with a bit of help from her dad. It currently needs a heater core, the timing belt and oil leak are just about due and it desperately needs a set of radiator hoses, some of which are not easy to find. The second hand gearbox we put in a year or so ago was and is alarmingly noisy in reverse. It has been lightly sideswiped three time on the right side and the clear coat has lifted in many places. Bron is currently a full time student with 2 years to go and a mortgage. I still really like the car but Bron has become wary of it fearing imminent breakdowns. She even joined RACV for the free towing to supplement Club Dad.

She has found a nice Mk 5 Golf 2.0 TDi Comfortline 6 speed manual with a big puddle of oil under the gearbox and the owner has been told it needs a new gearbox. They were quoted $3000 for a "new" gearbox and clutch which requires a new definition of new I think. It has done 221,000 km, has 4 new tyres and the timing belt was done recently. The rego is due. The current asking price is $800.

We have found a guy privately wrecking a Mk 5 1.9 TDi that has done 300,000. The box was overhauled for synchros and the clutch replaced 70,000 km ago. He wants $500 for the box and clutch if I pull it out in his side lane. The clutch may or may not be useable. It had started to shudder which he assumed was the DMF so he decided to wreck it. The local VW dealer quoted me $560 for a clutch, $1500 for a DMF (and $5300 for a box!). Might be able to do a bit better else where.

Is the box from the 1.9 the same as the 2.0 which has quite a bit more mumbo? Is a DMF worth leaving alone at 221,000 km?

And lastly what do you think? TDo or not TDo, that is the question. It's not as if I haven't already got too many projects on the go......

Thanks,
Hugh.

[Bora Sport]

220,000k’s is not much. My wife’s Jetta has done 260k+. The price seems right. Check out the cost of a good low k TDI and do your sums. If you can do the labour then to me it sounds like a plan. My Skoda Octavia 2.0 diesel is only 30 kilometres off 200,000 and it is a gem.
I can’t help with the gearbox details but I would think it wouldn’t be too hard to locate a good second hand one.

[hugh.venables]

OK, so we decided to go ahead. Found a 107,000 km second hand gearbox for $750 from German Car Wreckers who was sure it would be correct for the car (it was). Our local Autobarn sourced an Exedy DMF flywheel, complete clutch and slave cylinder kit for $1050. Inside the box a nice surprise, Sachs flywheel and clutch and LUK slave. The driveshaft and input shaft seals were a reasonable price genuine.

The rear main was a bit of drama. After I had removed it I found a very helpful post on a UK VW forum on how to replace it. The first thing it says is it is a teflon seal moulded into the rear housing that will not wear into the crank and does not need to be replaced unless the car has done over 300,000 MILES and the flywheel is off. Integral with it is the crankshaft position sensor and the trigger ring that has to be pressed onto the crank at No. 1 TDC with a special tool. The seal assembly was $100 from Bearing Wholesalers ($280 genuine) and I was able to hire the tool for $77 for a week from Mechanics Tool Hire.

The original gearbox failure was interesting. The first motion shaft is carried in two bearings, one at the clutch end and the other at the outside end of the box. The outer bearing has a rubberised steel disc pushed in to cover and seal it. The disc was sitting in the undertray because the bearing no longer had any balls, cage or the outer half of the outer race present. Only 3 mangled balls, a tiny part of the cage and the remains of the bearing shield were also on the undertray.

There is not a lot of room under the car and the box was extremely difficult to get out. Before fitting the replacement we removed the hose on the left end of the intercooler, the left lower suspension arm and its mounting bracket and left off the right driveshaft flange. It still wasn't easy but we would almost certainly have damaged the clutch plate if we hadn't removed those. As it was we were able to get the mounting faces parallel from about 30 m.m. apart and keep them parallel until bolted up.

We then found the auxillary belt tensioner roller was noisy ($20 at Bearing Wholesalers) and both outer CV joints were also very noisy. On about the tenth phone call on a Saturday morning I found Action Driveshafts in Dandenong who sold us new joints for $50 each. They are made in China but looked and felt a very well made product.

Along the way we also replaced the shattered left outside mirror, the drivers sunvisor the wrong coloured fuel flap, both the right side tail lights, the left lower front wheelarch liner, both rear shockers (the right was leaking) and found a set of floor mats mainly to cover the hole in the main carpet under the drivers feet.

Some of these came from the privately wrecking 1.9 TDi in Mooroolbark where we originally considered the 300,000 km gearbox. Interestingly, the 6 speed manual in that car looks quite different. Other parts came from Jollys in Ringwood and Imlachs in Clayton.

The RWC was a drama too. I think the guy was trying to prove to us he was in command. He knocked the broken tube to the rear window washer (fair enough and a lot of work to fix), the lower engine mount bushes (OK, they showed cracks but no excess movement) ($50 each for the two large ones from Volkwerke in Doncaster on a Saturday morning and $50 for the small one in polyurethane from Powerflex Australia), cracks in the front suspension lower arm rear bushes and in some badly described rear suspension bushes. I managed to get him to relent on the suspension bushes as the cracks were trivial and non existent respectively and we got our certificate. The rego was transferred today (we managed to persuade the seller to leave the rego on the car) and now all I have to do is a wheel alignment and it's finished, finally. It's turned out well but was a lot more work than I originally thought.

[Bora Sport]

A lot of work but hopefully worth it. My wife has loved both of her diesel Jettas. Both are dsg's but so far touch wood have proved to be ultra reliable with good power, particularly the 125 TDI, and excellent fuel economy. I assume the Golf would prove to be very similar.

[jets]

Thanks for sharing & posting what you finally chose to do, well done. Thanks also for the detail you have gone to help others. I hope your daughter gets a good service life from this car. I will be copying this thread to add to my file for my future reference.