Final Drive: Disassembly

Place final drive assembly in holding fixture. Remove oil pan and gasket. Rotate differential assembly in case until differential pinion gear opening appears. Use 2 screwdrivers to remove 2 clips retaining axle drive flanges in differential. See Fig 1 .

Fig 1: Location Of Drive Flange Retaining Clips
Courtesy of VOLKSWAGEN UNITED STATES, INC.
Pull axle drive flanges out of final drive housing together with side gear shafts. Turn drive flanges slightly during removal to prevent side gear thrust washers from catching in circlip grooves of side gear shafts.
Remove retaining bolt and withdraw speedometer driven gear assembly straight out of case. If bearings are to be reused, scribe a match mark on differential side bearing adjusting ring and case for reassembly reference.
Remove lock clip from adjusting ring. Using spanner wrench, screw ring out of case. See Fig 2 . On opposite side of case, remove nuts and withdraw the other differential side bearing retainer (cover). Grasp differential and ring gear assembly and remove from final drive case. See Fig 3 .

Fig 2: Removing Differential Bearing Adjusting Ring
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Fig 3: Exploded View Of Differential & Related Parts
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Inside converter housing area of final drive case, mark relationship of intermediate gear shaft and case with scribe. Remove lock clip from intermediate gear shaft. Using special tool, screw shaft out of case. See Fig 4 .

Fig 4: Removing Intermediate Gear Shaft
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From inside case, remove intermediate gear, bearings and thrust washer. See Fig 5 . Remove bolts retaining one-way clutch support to converter housing area of case. Withdraw support and drive pinion shaft assembly from case.

Fig 5: Exploded View Of Intermediate Gear & Pinion Gear Assemblies in Final Drive Case
Courtesy of VOLKSWAGON UNITED STATES, INC.
To disassemble differential assembly, remove 2 differential pinion shaft retaining snap rings. Remove drive shaft from case with drift. Move differential pinion gears around to case openings. Remove pinion gears and thrust washers. Remove differential side gears and thrust washers.
Remove ring gear-to-differential case mount bolts. Using hydraulic press, adapters with support plates, separate ring gear from case. If required, withdraw differential side bearings and speedometer drive gear from case with press and adapter.
Withdraw bearing races from adjusting ring and side cover. If replacement of pinion bearings or pinion shaft is required, proceed as follows: Place pinion assembly in press. With press plates positioned under bearings, drive bearings from pinion shaft.
Place stator support in press. Drive out pinion bearing race along with preload shim and pinion oil seal. Using hammer and drift, drive remaining pinion bearing race out of final drive case. Inspect ATF drillings in one-way clutch/stator support assembly.
Check ball valve in support for proper action by installing a piece of tight fitting hose into ball valve hole. Apply suction. Ball valve must seal to prevent ATF from draining out of torque convertor when engine is not running. If ball does not seal, replace one-way clutch support.