I used a piece of steel I had lying around from when I did the camshaft on the Golf and used that to prevent the flange rotating while I unbolted it. Next up was to remove the annulus from the rear case. I removed the speedo drive, cleaned that up and replaced the sealing O-ring also. It’s just held in with a snap ring so easy to replace too. I replaced the sun wheel simply because it was cheap for new-old stock part at £7 and that meant a new bush also. There appeared to be plenty of material left on the cone clutch. I replaced the O-rings on the two pistons also. While I had it in bits my plan was to at least replace all the bearings and clean out the various oil filters. I removed the bearing from the cone clutch just by removing the circlip. I removed the four nuts and the bearing carrier and cone clutch could be removed. This is operated hydraulically by two pistons which push against two bridge pieces spring loaded against the bearing carrier. Next was the bearing carrier for the cone clutch.

First off was to remove the rear case from the main case which pulls apart to separate the main case, brake ring and rear case. Much better for cruising.Īs I’d already stripped the gearbox down, the overdrive was removed and ready to be worked on. It basically consists of an epicyclic gear system which allows the input shaft to reduce speed by about 25% in 3rd and 4th gears. Mine always worked quite well so I wasn’t expecting to find anything particularly out of order. It’s a Laycock J type used on many cars of the era. Once the gearbox was complete the overdrive was next up.

Laycock j type overdrive service manual