Hi guys, I'm trying to date the gearbox on my 58 Beetle. It's a non split case so I'm assuming not the original (there's a few other gear related disasters on the car to indicate it's perhaps had a rather hard life and been changed). The number is 3645496.

Ta 🙂

I think its a jan 1961 gearbox,

Guido

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thanks 🙂


Would it be a straight swap into a 1958 Beetle?

Our '55 came with a 60's gearbox fitted. To get the correct alignment the 60's front mount had two extra holes drilled (see pic). I've often wondered whether fitting a 50's nosecone would a) fit at all and b) avoid drilling the front mount.

A problem we had with this off-center mounting method was that the mount would flex a little with the engine under load and, I believe, contribute to it jumping out of 4th gear. This wasn't the only cause of it jumping out of gear and I'm not trying to scare you, but if possible I would try to avoid this arrangement.  IMG_1492.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.

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I would avoid it if I could - trouble is I bought the car like this in 2005 and the miss match has only just come to life! When I got her the front gearbox mount was broken, meaning the box moved about (never good!), then when I went to replace the coupling, I found it was welded on to the shift rod(I originally thought it was to try and stop the box moving, but I now realise it was to get the shift rod in the right place!). Anyway, having a bit of a nightmare trying to get 1st and 3rd gear back. The shift rod seems a little too short as well as in the wrong place, so I think I'm going to have to drill the rod or the hockey stick in a different place.

Mine seems to have had a problem with the front mount as yours. On mine the studs which normally hold the mount on were gone. So we had to weld new bits of rod in.

Here's what mine was like:


As you can see, it was pretty well bodged!


And fixed:


As you can see, infront of the gearbox is badly dented. I'm not sure if this was for clearance or when the box was moving.... or both...

What a mess! Still, looks like you did a great job tidying it up.

I've just remembered that when I was rebuilding my split case gearbox last weekend, I found a 60's nosecone gasket I had laying around. I offered a gasket up to the 50's gearbox and the stud/bolt positions were very different so, with hindsight, I don't think a 50's nosecone is what you need.

I'm sure I remember talking with a very helpful chap from VW Heritage about this ages ago. He flipped through his notes and found something about using a nosecone from a type 2. Sorry to be so vague but that's all I have!

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yeah it was a big mess! They'd welded the front mount to the chassis too, which ruined the rubber. As you can imagine, driving her was like there was a baby elephant running around on the back seat, and you'd get thrown forward a lot! I only ever did test runs with her like this as I knew something was very wrong!

I've read a lot about this over the last few days. Apparently there's an front mount adaptor you can get, or you can fit a late Split nose cone and hockey stick, then drill the hockey stick so the dimple is 180deg from the original Split one, then it should fit.

In theory....