Rancho Trans Vs. AA Transaxle

[ianNJ]

Im going to do a TDI w/ taller 3rd and 4th. Any pros or cons of either of these? Anyone have experience with turn around times? I have been told that these are the go-to trans folks.
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--Hardwork Pays Off--

90 GL Frankenstine w/Boxeer 2.0 TDI CR, Peloquin TBD
RIP - 2003 Eurovan

Instagram @ian.Surfside

*if you known someone that struggles with addiction let me know.

[syncrodoka]

AZ transaxle, Matt Steele transmissions , mr gas or Rancho. I worked with AAtrans, would skip them in the future.

[elizer]

German transaxle did my syncro rebuild and decoupler. Matt Steedle did my front diff with front locker conversion. Havent driven them yet. But german transaxle was super communicative and near Gears. Gears worked closely with them because all the internals were all from Gears and hisnalumonum carrier. Matt Steedle postrd my front diff on his Instagram page. Fully cleaned, painted, locker converted, and very well packaged for shipping. Clearly he puts care in his work.

[Steve Arndt]

Mike Herbert does the builds for Rancho. He is one of the best.
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Steve
Steve's 87 Syncro project

[Sodo]

One of the biggest problem is "old parts". Your old trans has many old parts. Are they original? Have they been thru 2 rebuilds already?

Some german parts at 100,000 miles are better than some new aftermarket parts. Especially if that trans ran clean lubricant during its lifetime. No doubt you will end up with a mix of original german parts and aftermarket parts. Whatever "worst" part starts shedding steel FIRST into your lubricant, the contamination snowballs into fooking up all the remaining parts. You have to monitor your lubricant condition in an old trans (and in any rebuilt trans !! ) if you want it to last (nobody does this currently, but they will....).

Don't fall into the trap of calling a rebuilt trans a "new" trans. Maybe that could have been done 20 years ago, rebuilding a trans that was never run contaminated, and every part is "first run". But now everything is so old.

Keep in mind that if you run that trans to death with the lubricant full of metal, you now have a POS. And then you'll get back your POS with new bearings. Which isn't great. Some POS will be better than other POS.

Rebuild when the trans is still quiet and you are more likely to get a good rebuild that will go farther.

It also depends how much new parts you buy, the quality of the new parts available to that builder, the attentiveness of the builders inspection process, the quality of that builder's used parts bin, builder knowledge, and builder cleanliness. There are many many details.
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'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[elnatron]

FWIW I have a rebuild from German Transaxle on my tdi. Did a taller Guard 3rd and 4th and a peloquin. It works great and shifts fine, but it’s insanely noisy. Not super impressed with the phone treatment when calling about a warranty issue.

I changed to Swepco 210 instead of their BS fluid and it’s much better, but still louder than others I’ve heard.

Also, do your gearing research. Went with the recommended gearing and it’s not where it should be.

Send your own trans in if you have time. I did a core exchange and that might be part of the problem.
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1984 Westy with Boxeer 2.0 TDI.

[elizer]

On that note Gears sates his straight cut and partial straight will be louder. And gta does only warranty bg fluid. I haven't had to deal with the problems since I dont have my van yet and hope I dont have to.

[elnatron]

Yup, I switched to Swepco per GTA’s suggestion. My warranty questions were not due to gear whine but a bearing noise.

I recommend finding someone who builds TDI transmissions often. They are out there
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1984 Westy with Boxeer 2.0 TDI.

[Sodo]

You have a low-miles transaxle, make sure your transaxle builder understands that you want all your OWN low-mile parts (if good) back in your transaxle. Except for the 3-4 hub. If you are putting a diesel in that van you should get that VW 3-4 slider hub outta there and use a stronger Weddle or Guard Transaxle hub. The '90 hubs are better than the 89.5 and older, but they still break. And that diesel will pound hard on it.

All the more reason to rebuild while it's quiet. New bearings, new synchros, new hub, with a bunch of pristine OEM VW gears and transaxle, you will have a nice trans.

And then get on a maintenance program befitting a valuable antique with an engine that's too big for the transmission. That big engine will generate metal in the trans sooner.... it's now even more important to change lubricant before it gets contaminated.
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'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[E1]

Sodo speaketh truth here...

Our old bus had a Peloquin and our new one doesn't, and for a moment I considered rebuilding this tranny with 130K on it to "justify" another Peloquin.

That moment lasted five seconds. If we were to put a Peloquin in here soon, it would likely be only that and other bits he mentioned, and leave the stock goods alone until they whine like a bus driver after a rollover. Our prior tranny went about 300K before the whine.

Regardless, Arizona Transaxle all the way for us, there's none better.
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‘84 Westy, 2.1L with Digijet, 5.43 R+P, GT Gears
"Adding power makes you faster on the straights.
Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere."
— Colin Chapman

[benandmj]

My GTA Syncro has Gaurd/ Gears taller 3rd and 4th and it’s pretty loud.

I was extremely satisfied with Katica (sp?) and the crew at German Transaxle and their communication. Quick turnaround too. I also switched to Swepco.
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85 Westfalia Weekender
91 Syncro Westy

[Sodo]

Sodo thinketh.....

That if owners changed their transaxle lubricant before it became self-contaminated, that these Vanagon transaxles would ALL run 300,000 miles nice & quiet. But the Bentley says you don't have to change the oil in 90,000 miles, so most of the transaxles have been "chafed" by crusty trousers, so to speak, for 10s, 20s, 50s, thousands of miles. You see the big hairy drainplug magnets, they're all walking around with a scratchy ole' load in their pants, but everyone else is too, so what the heck? That was me several years ago. Back then Vanagon owners thought as long as the heads aren’t dripping coolant, EVERYTHING is good.

Right?

Well here we are now and the transaxles are old, ridden hard and put away wet. Why not hang a big engine on it & change transaxle lubricant ONCE (& forget it)?

Except for the case where some rogue VW owner (who's keeping his van for the long haul and understands maintenance) says "gear oil is only 8 frickin dollars, why would any fool NOT keep the gear oil clean? There's precision ball and roller bearings in there folks!”

And now gear oil costs a whopping $16, (or $36 Kendall, or $70 Swepco or $100 Lubrication Engineers etc) but it's still "why not"?

——For those new Vanagon owners just tuning in——> there’s that pesky problem of the 3rd-4th slider hub” breaking at appx 100-150,000 miles. The hub can run many more miles with one crack. The hub has three holes. Generally nothing happens when it's cracked at one hole. And usually no problems from cracks at the 2nd hole. But when it cracks at the 3rd hole, it's pretty likely to fall apart and then its BIG trouble, you fook up all kinds of expensive stuff. It's bad news to put the power of a big engine thru a cracked hub cuz it will crack more, faster. The solution is to have a rebuilder put in a modern hub, like Weddle, and now, the new Guard Transaxle hub. And renew the bearings, and syncros too. And up your maintenance game (maintain clean lubricant). The maintenance part is pretty easy to learn.
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'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[drj434343]

Got a full rebuild from AA 6 months ago, including a Peloquin. Took about a week. Communication was decent. Price was good.

I have about 1500 miles on it so far. Definitely more noisy, but not awful. Shifts amazing, and no other problems so far.

[Sodo]

[GBA 88West LA]

AA tranny w/3/4 slider modified. oiling plates added, taller gear ratios 3/4th put in eight years ago with Subaru 2.5. not an issue with motor or tranny, regular maint. that's it no issues. the pricing was half of GW & Rancho & what sold me was the personal build & low overhead out the door price
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88 Westy GL Vanaru 07 2.5 EJ25/AA Trans/oiling plates, 1.14 3rd-.77-4th..solar powered cabin

[vwwestyman]

Stuart sent me this thread, as the transmission in my '78 TDI Bus blew up a few weeks ago.

Before I continue, to be totally fair to German Transaxle: I have not yet had a chance to drain the oil, and therefore have not called them just yet.

According to the dates on pages 8 and 9 of my build thread (link in signature) (where I quoted myself from, below) the trans was built by German Transaxle in February of 2015. That means this thing lasted just 3 and a half years.

Besides what is shown below, I don't recall all the exact specs, other than they knew it was going to be attached to a TDI motor and I had talked at length with them about ways to make it stronger. For example, I remember that the Vanagon style oil splash plates were discussed but unfortunately they couldn't fit in the Bus' 091 transaxle.

As you can see from the trans pic, I did add a Super Diff.

Similar to other's comments, I was always a little disappointed with the amount of gear noise that seemed to be transmitted up through the shift rod.

Here's what happened. A couple weeks ago I was driving 65 or 70ish to check out a friend's new office.

A few miles out, I started hearing a faint, high pitched noise. At first I was thinking it was some kind of feedback coming through the radio or something. So I started doing a little experimenting (you know, turning the radio off, turning my head to try to hear where it was coming from, etc). I decided I would shut off the engine and coast to see if that would help, but as I went to put it in neutral, I could tell something felt funny with the shifter.

I tried to put it back into gear and it was just terrible noises of gears clashing and grinding and it wouldn't go. I was able to limp the bus to my destination (by this point I was only a mile or two away) with 3rd gear. 3rd was starting to make the same whining noise but otherwise worked ok. The other gears felt ok the very little they were used.

Had it towed back home.

The whole thing is more or less exactly what happened when it went south like 3 or 4 years ago and caused me to have it rebuilt then. So I simply cannot imagine that the problem is anything other than it being toasted again.

Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I don't expect German Transaxle to do a whole lot at this point. Because it wasn't a factory build and not attached to a stock engine, there wasn't a warranty. I had selected them because I was happy with previous work and customer service on a friend's Jetta's transmission. I was also generally pleased with the communication throughout the process.

I'm not sure if I want to pay to ship it all the way there and back just to be told that they won't give me any sort of help on repair. Again, maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. If so, I will be certain to let you all know.

So, I am following this thread with interest, too. As I'm quite sure I'll need another rebuild done.

[ianNJ]

Thanks for the input. Im going with Matt Steedle http://mattsteedletransmissions.com

The selling point was A. the first two comments recommended him, B. he is close, C. He was nicer to talk with then the other few places I called. D. I had some people even private message me to talk with him over other options....

TDI Common Rail 2.0 and new trans coming soon....
_________________
--Hardwork Pays Off--

90 GL Frankenstine w/Boxeer 2.0 TDI CR, Peloquin TBD
RIP - 2003 Eurovan

Instagram @ian.Surfside

*if you known someone that struggles with addiction let me know.

[Stuartzickefoose]

If your not already, any of those of you rebuilding, I hope you look into a drop in LSD or TBD, traction is SO nice to have
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[cgarai]

What gear ratio did you go with? I have an 87 Wolfburg with a 1.9L TDI PD that I blew the transmission up on. I need to decide on gearing. Any other essential mods recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

[getset]

I have had two trans (different vans) and a decoupler done by AA, and have been and continue to be happy with their service. If i stop switching vans I will hopefully not need another for some time.
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87 Syncro sunroof w/ 2.5 Subaru.
2015 VW golf TDI

Bikes, KTM motorcycles, sailboats, and busted knuckles.