Hi all!

Only posting this to ask whether anyone else on here has had a similar issue to the one i'm having.

Took the undertray off my vRS last week to find a puddle of oil laying on the left hand side of it, which was a clear indication to me that there was leak coming from the gearbox. Emailed Ali at Unit 18 as quick as I could, and he told me to take it straight down to him.

He jacked the car up and gained access to the gearbox and found the leak to be coming from something called an 'ident' on the side of the gearbox casing (dont have a clue what it does, but Ali told me that mine had somehow broken off, and that he'd never seen that happen before on a 6spd VAG box....)

Anyway, he ordered the new ident, and installed it with a load of silicone sealant so as to try as best he could to stop it from leaking again.

4 days have gone by, and i've just been under the car again this evening just to check out of curiosity, and the damn things leaking again!

Piccy below shows the new plastic ident, and of course, the leak

Has anyone ever experienced anything similar?

Cheers

Is that the locking pin for setting up the linkages?

I'm no expert but shouldn't they have drained the gearbox oil and then put the silicone on and let it dry or does silicone dry straight away?

Is it threaded into the box??

Better getting a metal bung and washer and cranking it up!

I'm not entirely sure what it does... it's only made of plastic so I wouldn't have presumed it has much of a job to do within the rest of the gearbox components - could be wrong though!

I do know that when the new ident arrived it appeared to have a spring on the back end of it though that fitted into the gearbox casing :think:

Definitely isn't threaded into the casing though. This is a pic that Ali took once he'd removed everything (ident fits into the center circle), and cant see any further oil leaks, so I guess he may of drained the oil to that level

get him to check that the breather on top of the box is not clogged up, they will leak from here if they cannot breath properly as the oil heats up etc

Thanks for that Felicia16v! I will do when i next take it too him

Only problem I've got now though is that wont be until next week.... Suppose I better get the road bike out for this weeks commute to work, haha!

I believe the correct word is detent, a detent is often a spring loaded plunger or ball such as you would find on the square drive of a ratchet, it is used for the positive location of a movable part.

That's the DETENT lock for the gearshift unit.

The alignment of the plug part of the detect lock is critical and sometimes the alignment mark on that plug can be out by as much as 10° :(

Cheers for the clarification on that!

So are you possibly suggesting its leaking due to the detent being mis-aligned?

Cheers for the clarification on that!

So are you possibly suggesting its leaking due to the detent being mis-aligned?

More of these leak than should. IIRC, the alignment mark on the original part can be incorrect. If you scribe a line next to the original alignment mark and then align the new part with your scribe line you can get a problem.

If the shaft of the gearchange unit is 0° then the alignment of the new part should be 45° CCW. Drive home in the unlocked position.

Just thought I'd leave an update on my problem

Went back to Unit 18 today for Ali to have another look. Really had him scratching his head as to why it was still leaking!

The only thing he suggested was to fit yet again another new detent pin to see how that holds up. He also checked the breather was still clear as 'felicia' mentioned (thanks for the heads up on that one )

He didn't apply silicone on this new detent because....well.... it shouldn't really need it

So, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this time it will stay 'leak free' - I'll check in a couple of days and post a verdict!

If all else fails tap it and fit an appropriate bung! Wont leak then

If all else fails tap it and fit an appropriate bung! Wont leak then

That's exactly what Ali said!

I do have a two and a half year warranty on the car from when I bought it last year from SEAT, so I could potentially get a completely new box under that. But I had some work done by them shortly after I had it (only a new clutch switch to get the cruise control working, and a new multi CD changer) and wasn't really impressed when I got the car back to find the right hand side part of the dash hanging off, and numerous pieces of broken plastic in my footwell....

Much rather have the piece of mind paying someone who knows what they're doing!

If all else fails tap it and fit an appropriate bung! Wont leak then

then how will you lock the box up when resetting / adjusting linkages ?

How often do you need to do that in all honesty though?

Once in the cars lifetime if your unlucky

Exactly as Big Jase said. Chances that you'll ever have to reset the box are extremely small.

And sorry for referring back to what Ali said again, but I did ask him this exact question as I did wonder myself, and he told me whenever he's reset one of these gearboxes before he literally just does it by eye and doesn't touch the detent at all!

Well, I said I'd post a verdict; and a week on from Ali fitting the 3rd detent....... NO LEAKS!!

Still curious as to why it ever leaked in the first place, but it was nice to be able to take the undertray off and not be presented with a small puddle of oil!