Hey polo people. After some help changing transmission fluid on my mk2 polo. Just need to know which bolt to empty it, which to fill it back up. The haynes is a bit vague on this one. Anything else i need to look out for would be awesome too. Thanks for stopping by and any guidance is massively appreciated. Take it easy.

The back of your gearbox should look something like that just with driveshafts on it.

Notice the 2 large hex screws, one at 6 O'Clock of the driveshaft flange and one at 2 O'Clock.

The bottom one is the drain and the upper one is the fill.

To get them off some people use the head of a wheel bolt and a 17mm spanner.

But I've found this can damage the hex of the screw.

I found a set that ECP sell a set that is full of odd specialist bits and one of them is a 17mm hex bit.

That's great. Thank you very much. I'll keep you posted on how i get on.

gear oil smells really bad , wear gloves

You can get 17mm hex from halfords.

Filling the box up using the 'proper' fill hole can be a bit of a pig due to acces. However, if you undo the speedo cable and take out the cork screw gear out, you can fill it from there. Much easier

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

If you're in no huge rush I got a draper 17mm hex on Amazon for I think £2.50 which was cheaper than the cheapo halfords one I found :)

A nice trick i found out (the harder way) is to use a bit of hose pipe, shove it into the hole and get the other end high as possible, i.e top of the engine, where you can fill it with a funnel. :)

Yeah, I'm doing my gearbox oil tomorrow and thats what I'm doing. Bit of plastic tubing from B&Q and a funnel came to something like £2.87 and will make 10x easier.

Edited 22 March, 201511 yr by mbusby993

If you're in no huge rush I got a draper 17mm hex on Amazon for I think £2.50 which was cheaper than the cheapo halfords one I found :)

I'm not in any rush. She's sat in a garage, officially off the road at the moment so i'm taking the opportunity to show some much needed love. I have a to-do list that i'm working through. Just want what every polo head wants, for her to run as smooth as possible. To look good would be a cheeky bonus.

VW recommend synthetic 75W90. The 5 speed takes more oil than the 4 speed.

Regards

Phil

I only got 4 gears. Haynes has list of how much to fill up. I'll do it bit by bit so i don't over do it. Will be using hose-funnel method for shizzle. Pretty sure i've seen that in other posts elsewhere. Thank you very much gentlemen. Or ladies if that is the case. Much appreciated.

I'm going to be draining and refilling my gearbox tonight due to a leaky reverse light switch, how do I know how far to fill it up and how much to buy. I know the obvious answer is to look at my Haynes manual but mine is well used and has missing pages and various fluid stains. As a result there are certain useful parts that are unreadable.

I believe the early gearboxes are 2.7 litres and the later ones are 3.1 litres or the other way round. Anyway buying 3 x 1 litre bottles should do. 

As for filling it up the fill hole (assuming it is a mk2 gearbox) is just above where the drain plug is. Fill the gearbox up until the oil is coming out of the fill hole. Ensure you do this when the gearbox is as level as possible. Also I'd crack open the fill plug first to ensure it comes out. Nothing worse than draining the oil to find you can't fill it again.

Thanks, yeah that had crossed my mind so I was going to open the fill hole first. Worst case scenario it sounds like I can fill from Speedo cable hole from what I read above. Ta.

easy way to fill em via the speedo hole with a funnel rather than messing about the on the side , just glug it in and watch for it trickle out the level plug