Gearbox

[stevesprite]

I have been driving my Speedster for a couple of months now and am pretty happy with it.

I am running a 1600 beetle engine with a 1300 gearbox. This is great for acceleration and for driving up hills, but not brilliant on the motorway.

I am thinking of re building a gearbox over the winter, but have not had much experience with VW gearboxes. Has anyone done this or does anyone know of a good resourse for information and parts required ?

I have built the vehicle and the engine myself, so would really like to do the gearbox as well, ( rather than just buy one form cogbox)


regards

Steve

[912uk]

cog box was a name I remeber that seamed to be good I think itwas about £500 ops didn't read all the post. I am the same as you would like to do it all. I agree the box is a head sctraching one. I think with the tools you need to do the job it could be tricky but I am sure others have done it and I will watch this post with you as I would like to do my 54 356 box.

[roger]

I bought a gearbox from Cogbox years ago with various mods for a 150 BHP Type1 engine. It ended up with a top gear that was too high. In the end I got a Carter box - think they still available. This had a workable top gear that gave 80 MPH at 4000- revs rather than the previous 68-69 at 4000 with the old box. Speak to Alan at GAC - 01296 613222 - he builds/develops the leading formula VW single seaters and he sourced my Carter gearbox. From memory it was about £350 compared to £500 from Cogbox.

[hot66]

also have a word with www.vwspeedshop.co.uk ,

As far as I can remember, VW box's can be a bugger to rebuild without the correct specialist tools. For the money I good 'built' box cost I'd go down that route.

remeber you don't want to gear the car too high. A VW engine / cooling was designed to run all day flat out ( stock engine / carb etc) at 70mph ish. If you gear the car to run too low revs (eg 3000 rpm) when cruising at say 70 mph the cooling fan speed is too slow to cool the motor properly.

When I specc'd my full on Berg5 IRS transmission we still used the 'stock' 4th ratio as the 5th gear

[roger]

[/quote]the cooling fan speed is too slow to cool the motor properly

If you get a larger crank pulley you can compensate for this.

[roger]

Lets try that again without the gremilns...

the cooling fan speed is too slow to cool the motor properly

If you get a larger crank pulley you can compensate for this

[hot66]

you could but the original VW fan 'stalls' at relatively low revs, so speeding up the fan could have a detrimental effect at the high rpm limits of the motor and with a larger pulley you will rob horsepower from an already low hp motor.

I am kind of talking at extremes here. The scenario of a motor not being cooled properly is when people expect the car to behave like a large engined modern motor that would allow the car to waft along at motorway speeds with the engine turning low revs. It always seems (sounds) like a stock VW engine is being thrashed when travelling at 70 mph + because the stock motor is only really designed to rev upto 4500 / 5000 rpm.

In real terms the best solution is to keep to sensible gearing and modify the motor to allow it to rev higher. A well built 1776 with a counterweight crank, increased breathing potential etc that will rev cleanly to 6500 rpm coupled with a good built box will be more than adequate

Anyway I'm rambling & all this is IMHO

[MdR]

...but the original VW fan 'stalls' at relatively low revs

Not to mention has a tendancy to explode into it's component parts.

[Nige]

you might find it better to either buy a good secondhand 1500 box or a crappy one and rebuild that, the ratio's are higher or lower whatever, anyway it gives better motorway cruising