Plug Bug: Transmission replaced
Some updates on the electric bug. Back on Thanksgiving I was on a slight hill pointed downwards (at Nathan’s house). I put the car in reverse, but missed the gear and stepped no throttle. The car didn’t move, but the motor sped up quite a bit, however, I couldn’t hear it. I slammed it hard into reverse, without using the clutch, and the car made a big “thunk” noise as it went into gear really hard. Ever since that happened, the car would not stay in second gear, and kept popping out quite frequently. It appears I damaged the tranny.
So, I got a new one from Bugformance. Not cheap, as it was about $1000 out the door with a few seals and new gear oil (and that is excluding the $300 core deposit). I could have probably got one online for cheaper…but then I would have had to wait a few weeks without driving the car (or driving it in a rather unsafe manner).
I always have to re-remembrer how to do things, and it took me a while to get the old tranny out:
Then stick the new one on. It went in pretty easily. The new tranny is rebuilt with the gear ratios (1st-4th): 3.8, 2.06, 1.32, 0.89. The casing was quite a bit beat up compared to mine…but I didn’t really have a choice.
So far, so good. This all happened a short bit before 20,000 (electric) miles:
