Octavia and Passat gearbox compatible?

[Hood]

Thanks for all that. There is one from a Scirocco on eBay and your pic confirms it is correct, quite expensive though if I recall.

Looks like I am going to have to get another car for the time being, just back from working on the Cheetah Cat and the closer I got to home the noisier it got and going round corners it was really grinding sound and I could feel a wee bit of snatching.

 

[hotponyshoes]

Have you checked the oil level?

 

[Hood]

Have you checked the oil level?

Bit late for that now methinks

 

[Neilj]

the closer I got to home the noisier it got and going round corners it was really grinding sound and I could feel a wee bit of snatching.

If it gets noisier going round corners I'd say you've got a wheel bearing on the way out. I know you said they were new-ish but there should be no additional load on diff bearings going round a corner. Does it get noisier turning left or right or both?

 

[Hood]

It is definitely not the wheel bearings, the noise is coming from the centre left of the car and I even felt the hubs when I got home today and they were stone cold. The wheel bearing/hub on the passenger side is just over a year old and the drivers side is about 4 months old.

Surely the diff is working when going round corners?

 

[Hood]

Oh and it was noisier I think turning right, making a real grinding sound rather than just the rumble it has been making for the last week or so. It was making the noise even as I turned into my parking spot at 10mph so I wouldn't expect a wheel bearing to do that unless it was absolutely goosed and if so then it would be hot I would have thought.

 

[Neilj]

Yes, diff will be working at anything other than dead straight ahead but as far as I know there's only two bearings in the diff and these are on the output shafts. They will both be turning when going round a corner, just that one will be turning faster than the other. There's no additional load on these bearings when turning a corner so the noise should only change with road speed if they are goosed. There will be planet gears inside the diff that will rotate when going round a corner but these I'm sure will run on bushes rather than bearings. If the planet gears or the shafts that they run on are on the way out it then you'll get noise when turning a corner. In that case I'd expect metal bits in the oil if things are starting to disintegrate, maybe try draining off a bit of oil and see what it looks like?
Edit: if you can feel snatching then maybe the planet gears ARE on the way out and are not meshing properly. Quick check: jack up one side of the car so that only one wheel is off the ground. Put the car in gear, engine not running and try and turn the wheel that's off the ground. If the diff is ok you shouldn't be able to turn the wheel much at all.

 

[Hood]

The joints are too sore today to do look at anything on the car. Will probably go and look at a couple of bangers tomorrow so I can get some breathing space to get this sorted.

 

[hotponyshoes]

Looks like taper roller bearings

I would not trust a wheel bearing though, even if its only 4months old. I have had decent aftermarket brands fail at less than that before.
Did one on a transporter last weekend!
As Neil says, it would be worth jacking it up and rotating the wheels by hand for a good listen first.

 

[Hood]

Do you not think a wheel bearing/hub would have a bit of heat in it after a 25 or so mile drive at 60/70 mph if it was making so much noise?

 

[hotponyshoes]

I would think so but I would still check it before spending a couple of hundred quid on a gearbox.
Plus if the diff packs up you will loose drive.
If the wheel bearing packs up you will loose a wheel.

 

[Hood]

Aye, that is why I am thinking of going and getting a cheap car tomorrow. There are a couple locally for sale, an Octavia and a Saab. Octavia probably just on the small size for load space but I am not sure how the Saabs are. Old man used to have one and it was a nice enough car but it was a Saab, think they are Vauxhall owned nowadays so not sure if they are decent or not.

My thinking is I can get the car to do me until I can get mine sorted and then, because it is cheap anyway, I can put it off road and basically keep as a spare if I ever need it.

 

[hotponyshoes]

If you can feel snatching I would check the cv joints as well,
Jack up, turn wheel by hand. Get somebody else to hold the steering hard on full lock and rotate the wheel again.

 

[Hood]

If you can feel snatching I would check the cv joints as well,
Jack up, turn wheel by hand. Get somebody else to hold the steering hard on full lock and rotate the wheel again.

Changed the drive shaft 3 days ago. I was convinced it wasn't that but as a new one was only £35 I thought I might as well just do it in the vain hope of it being the problem

 

[Ruffian]

@Hood
Got a gearbox in a 2007 Passat tdi
Done the miles (220k)
But only killed due to typical 2.0tdi oil pump failure. Undriven so cannot comment but could do it at a semi sensible price,

 

[Hood]

@Hood
Got a gearbox in a 2007 Passat tdi
Done the miles (220k)
But only killed due to typical 2.0tdi oil pump failure. Undriven so cannot comment but could do it at a semi sensible price,

Thanks, will see how I get on, my mate is checking with his mate to see if he has one.


Oil pump failure, good to hear there is something else I need to worry about now

 

[Ruffian]

Thanks, will see how I get on, my mate is checking with his mate to see if he has one.


Oil pump failure, good to hear there is something else I need to worry about now

Yea the oil pumps fail but usually higher mileage wagons. (Circa 175k+ miles)
Easy enough conversion back to the 1.9 oil pump and sump to make it more reliable if that fussed.
It's still in the car at the moment if wanted so would be a couple of hours to pull out.

Fingers crossed it's something silly.

If anyone is after driveshafts I have been using j+r driveshafts of late and been awesome. (£30-35 a shaft with no exchange including new joints and boots)

 

[Hood]

Yes, that is where I got mine, £34.99 delivered next day.

 

[Hood]

Oh well, the Octavia is sold so will have to look for another stop gap car, for some reason I am just not convinced about the Saab.

 

[Neilj]

2 and 5 are your diff bearings, these will rotate at whatever speed your wheels are. The planet gears I mentioned before are called differential pinions in the drawing, item 3. The larger ones (circled red) are on the inner end of your output shafts, the smaller ones (circled in green) run on the diff pin which is shown just above. This lot sits inside the differential cage (item 1). The planet gears are in constant mesh but don't rotate in relation to each other if you're going straight, as soon as you start to steer left or right they start to rotate.
Classic Mini's were famous for eating diff's, the smaller planet gears had no bushes and ran metal to metal on the pin, which inevitably wore away. Once the wear was bad, the mesh was affected and they would start to snatch. When the pin wear got really bad it would snap and one piece of it would exit the diff cage and punch a hole in the gearbox casing