Greetings from a Newby

[georges]

Greetings from "Down Under",

I am currently rebuilding a 1600 type 3 VW engine and gearbox to use in a reverse engine Trike build and apart from my workshop manuals I think I will be seeking guidance during the build especially with the transmission, drive and flipping the ring gear to reverse the drive.

I've started to read the posts and am amazed at the amount of information available which I have no doubt will be of assistance sown the track. May need to set up the laptop in the man cave to refer to posts while working on the beast.

Keep up the good work and I hope to be able to contribute to the forum down the track.

Kind regards,

George

[Marc]

"Flipping" the ring gear is actually a pretty low-tech operation since your only concerns are ring gear lateral position and overall diff-carrier-bearing preload (the latter isn't changed unless you replace any shims, so if it's in spec when you start it will remain so). Easy-sleazy way is to measure the ring gear backlash per the manual, then flip the differential and sideplates...if the backlash is the same it's your lucky day, go buy a lottery ticket
If not, you'll need to juggle shims. So long as the total (left + right) shim thickness stays the same, the preload will be unaffected. Best-case, you'll be able to get away with simply swapping shims from side-to-side...if you can't achieve proper backlash that way, you're going to need some different shims to accomplish the task.
Is this a swingaxle or "IRS" (4-joint, with CVs) transaxle?

[helowrench]

Welcome George.
As always, we need, er, well want really, pictures.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

George, welcome to STF. I think you will find several people who post here from your neck of the woods.

Remember, don't look down to see what we are doing; look up to see what you are doing so you don't get into a wreck. From what I hear things are more stringent there and you have to make due with a lot more than us. You guys have some really good ideas so we appreciate the posts.

Lee

[aussiebug]

Hi George, from another down-underer. Where in Aus (or did you mean down-under New Zealand?)

Sounds like an interesting project. Type 3 engine so I guess you are keeping the pancake style cooling to keep it low - probably just about sitting on top of it I imagine.