2nd gear difficulty

[skinnyman9000 0]

2nd gear is becoming difficult to locate, normally after coming from 1st, when changing down it seems fine, but its beginning to be a pain to drop it into 2nd after 1st.

 

Is this the beginning of the dreaded gearbox failure?

[davidwort 0]

2nd gear is becoming difficult to locate, normally after coming from 1st, when changing down it seems fine, but its beginning to be a pain to drop it into 2nd after 1st.

 

Is this the beginning of the dreaded gearbox failure?

 

no, it won't suddenly disintegrate, but the 2nd gear synchro has to take up the biggest jump in speed and gets used the most and so wears the most. Couple this with increased play in all the gear-shift components on an old cable change system and 2nd can get pretty miserable. you can replace some of the bushings from VW and fully synthetic oil will help but ultimately a new 2nd gear synrchro is what's needed to make it feel better, and that will cost you upwards of 200 quid plus fitting.

[skinnyman9000 0]

So short of replacing the 2nd gear synchro whats the best way to prolong its life and attempt to get it changing gear better?

 

It doesnt bother me so much that it needs pushing into gear as opposed to gently sliding it, i dont like gear boxes that feel like butter, i like to feel like im actually pushing it into gear, so i dont mind when it get stiff, its just when it doesnt want to go into gear that annoys me. Mainly because naturally once your arm has moved to the 2nd gear position you raised the clutch, where its in or not, its just a natural reaction. And so of course you get the horrible gear crunching noise, and you look like a tit

[davidwort 0]

I personally like the shift with VW's own synthetic gear oil, 2L cost me 23 quid a couple of months back. Will help but not fix worn synchros and certainly cold running shifts where synchros are always slower. ask for G 052 171 A2 (1 litre bottle)