Some of you guys may remember doing Oulton Park trackday in March where my Polo crapped itself - basically lost 5th gear and had to call it a day at lunch time.

Well just managed to find some time to replace the box and here is the damage.

 

Eeeeeeh, nice work Robin! Can you not fit a stronger box from a Golf or something?

 

Nope the boxes from golfs don't fit. Going to look into heat treatment for the gears.

 

I'm no gearbox expert but that looks a bit fooked to me :

 

Overheated lube in the 5th gear casing melted them a bit?

 

Ouch!

 

Nope, too much torque going through the box.

I run a very high quality LSD box oil to help with issues like this but its all a matter of time when it will happen again.

 

I thought you probably might, but because of their 'isolated' position the 5th gear cogs are always prone to overheating their oil more than the others.

The easy way is to nitride them, the hard way to rig up a GB oil cooler for a GB that hasn't got a pump...

 

Wasn't there a supercharged Polo (G40) might have a stronger box? Mind you I think they are cherished machines now.

 

Mine is a G40 albeit with a turbocharger instead of the Supercharger.