Ben,

I would think, if you knew the movements of the linkage into the
transmission, you could find the gears and note the turn of the axles in
each of the gears.  Look for 5 speeds vs 4 speeds and where the reverse gear
position is?

When I was maybe 15 years old, I had an old 1200 cc VW engine mounted to a 4
speed VW tranny that was u-bolted to a pallet.  I remember turning the input
shaft on the tranny (with the engine unbolted) and shifting the tranny with
a pair of vice-grips on the shift shaft going into the nose cone.  You could
pretty easily make out the change in RPM of the axles, especially if you
held one of them still.

Maybe the T3 trannys wouldn't be that easy to manipulate, but it's just a
thought.

Kim

----- Original Message -----
From: "BenT Syncro" <syncro@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 8:56 PM
Subject: how can you tell 4-speed vs. 5-speed apart outside of the van

> Hi Gang,
>
> I was curious how yo can tel the trannies apart. I'm about to ship one to
> Jake and it occurred to me, I really did not know how to tell one from the
> other. I was unable to read the codes on the transmission except for the
> embossed numbers on the case that said something like 091.301.103 D. I
> cannot be 100% sure that is what it said.
>
> TIA
>
> --
> BenT
>