Gary,

The infamous 3/rd/4th slider syncro is what cracks and "goes out" on
the Vanagon trannies. Once you've seen them in person, you can see why
they break. They look like clocwork pieces when compared to a typical
(US)  truck transmission part. Lots of guy work on their transmissions
themselves. Few do it successfully due to lack of either experience,
skill, specialized tools, and/or all of the above.

BenT
http://members.aol.com/bentbtstr8/myhomepage/index.html

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 23:31:20 EDT, Gary Goldey <dieselslave@wmconnect.com> wrote:
> Here I am rolling down the road in the Vanagon "Big Brother" version- 1.9
> watercooled w/4 speed when my shifter linkage busts at the tranny's shift lever
> which looks like some kind of hip replacement looking ball. Well I replaced
> that but found out I lost 3rd and 4th gear. I crawled under "Squeaky and put her
> in all gears manually many times but could pull up no 3rd or 4th gear.
>
> It was always a little rough getting it into 3rd gear before the tragety and
> I figured that is what made the shift lever bust in the first place.
> After fixing the shifter linkage here is my question is...what causes 3rd &
> 4th gear to go out? What is the best tranny fix?-can I open this transmission
> up myself and fix it? I saw the inside drawings of the transmission from
> Mitchell and imagined it may be one of those gear shift rods inside the tranny gone
> bad (since there is one rod for the 3rd and 4th gear).I don't know. How much
> would they cost anyway?
>
> Do I get a replacement and just cross my fingers?  All opinions and
> experiences on this subject are appreciated.
> g.
> 1984 Vanagon "Squeaky"
> 1972 Baha "Beast"
> http://dieselslave.tripod.com