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Sat May 24, 2025 9:13 am

Hi - having trouble getting oil into my gear box (1960 Beetle chassis number 3129033, engine 3832490). Removed 2 drain plugs and left to drain overnight. Filled via fill plug on left side of gearbox (left as viewed from rear of car). Could only get about 1 litre in before it started pouring out. Left to settle for a couple of hours, turned rear wheels etc but made no difference. The strange thing is that I have found a similar fill/level plug on the right side of the gearbox. Putting a finger down this hole there is no oil. I have tried to find out some info about this but not come up with much. It seems my car has a split transmission? So do I need to put oil into this other hole as well? Both fill plugs are the same - 17mm. All very confusing - the more I read the more confused I get!

Sat May 24, 2025 10:38 am

The fill plug is the one located on the right side of the split case transaxle.

Sat May 24, 2025 1:56 pm

OK thanks. There is a fill / level hole on either side - both the same 17mm and in the same position each side, no other side plugs at all and 2 drain plugs. I removed the left hand fill plug (as I thought this was the one to use) and oil came out so this must have been used before to fill the gearbox. After removing both drain plugs and removing the oil I refilled using the left hand fill hole but as I said only about a litre went in. So my question now is should I pour more oil into the right hand fill hole?

Sat May 24, 2025 9:08 pm

Fill until gear oil runs out the hole.

Sun May 25, 2025 1:17 am

OK thanks - what I think I'll do is drive the car to warm up the oil, remove both drain plugs to drain the gearbox and then refill using the right fill hole. The right plug is much easier to get at than the left as that is very near the chassis. I'll see how much I can get in doing that. I just didn't want to pour oil into the wrong hole. Looking into the right hand hole I can see oily cogs so I think it must be OK.