Noisy diff bearings? 75hp TDI

Searider

Member
Evening All,
I’ve just got a 2004 Colour Storm 1.4tdi 75hp and thought I had a noisy osf wheel bearing. There was a whining from the osf when turning left. My garage now tells me that they think that the diff bearings are the source of the noise. Is this a common issue and what’s the likely fix?
the car has 110k miles.
 
Wheel bearing would be my first port of call.

Try jacking the front of the car, putting on stands securely, then running through the gears to a high speed - then immediately putting the gearbox into neutral and turning off the engine, then going round to the spinning wheels and listening to which one is making a noise.
 
Spin the wheel and grab the shocker it's amazing how the shocks are a tell tale!

When my n/s/f bearing was noisey I too did wonder if the gearbox was the issue as it was not obvious even the shocker didn't tell me. No play and no noise when spun by hand but horrid when driven over 30mph. Anyway I fitted a second hand hub from a polo (didn't have the tool at the time). It has cured it.
 
Well, as you may have seen on my post recently, I had a rhythmic whirring, grumbling noise, and having replaced all 4 wheel bearings, it turns out my diff is noisy. It gets worse after around 50m lies at motorway speed.
I’ve just bought a fabia box to replace it.
 
Well, as you may have seen on my post recently, I had a rhythmic whirring, grumbling noise, and having replaced all 4 wheel bearings, it turns out my diff is noisy. It gets worse after around 50m lies at motorway speed.
I’ve just bought a fabia box to replace it.
Are you going JDD?
 

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So….I got to swap the gearbox this weekend, not all plain sailing as some previous garage had obviously used a rattle gun on the bolts it coupe used on. 2 out of the 3 dog bone mount bolts on the gearbox , the heads snapped off, and then the driveshaft bolts on the gearbox end were so tight I had to use a 3ft bar to crack them, 2 of which rounded off and resulted in having to grind off the heads! Ridiculous..
the new box went on fine, I swapped the output flanges over, and I had to remove a lug from the gearbox mount, and then remove a bit of the aluminium to allow the gear selector ball joints to clear it. It took me a while to figure out why I couldn’t select second gear, as it was hitting the mount slightly and being in the car couldn’t see what was happening under the bonnet. My friend Jim was a star helping me out to get this all done.
 
A test drive this morning, and all is well. That annoying bearing droning noise has now gone, and it’s transformed it. The clutch is light ( but with a slight judder?)
1st and 2nd are the same, there’s a noticeable step up to 3rd,
70mph is now 2200rpm, and is definitely more relaxing to drive. Im off to wales tomorrow on my weekly commute, and the first time in 3 weeks in this car as I’ve been using Chad, the dolphin grey tdi, which I have to say has been superb since I fitted new driveshafts.
 

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Sweet result (messaged you on the Facebook group too) so a similar 5th to a JDD maybe that's the ultimate in between box and may become more popular, very pioneering well done!
Any pics of the metal removed for second gear to join the party?
Any cable adjustment needed?
 
Sweet result (messaged you on the Facebook group too) so a similar 5th to a JDD maybe that's the ultimate in between box and may become more popular, very pioneering well done!
Any pics of the metal removed for second gear to join the party?
Any cable adjustment needed?
Yes very similar, and of course cheaper!
im off to wales at 5 am, but I’ll try to get pics up next weekend
 
To update my thread, the car has been at the gearbox specialist yesterday and today. I got a call mid morning expecting bad news so imagine my surprise when they said that I had a noisy wheel bearing which they had replaced. There "might" be some noise from the gearbox but not enough for them to want to open up and rebuild the box at this stage. I asked them to change the oil in any case which they reported as old but not water contaminated or sparkly. A £280 bill rather than £750 plus!
 
To update my thread, the car has been at the gearbox specialist yesterday and today. I got a call mid morning expecting bad news so imagine my surprise when they said that I had a noisy wheel bearing which they had replaced. There "might" be some noise from the gearbox but not enough for them to want to open up and rebuild the box at this stage. I asked them to change the oil in any case which they reported as old but not water contaminated or sparkly. A £280 bill rather than £750 plus!
Hi I found in my ewq box had quite a lot of backlash in the diff bearings and also in my 1st Jdd conversion box not as much but enough to notice if you sit under the car and roll the wheel on the passenger side. I could hear both while driving and once I had the Jdd off the car I stripped it down for fun and found it's not the diff. It's the bearing that sits just here . I doubt very much it would cause any issues in the next 100k .
IMG_2540.JPG
 
A test drive this morning, and all is well. That annoying bearing droning noise has now gone, and it’s transformed it. The clutch is light ( but with a slight judder?)
1st and 2nd are the same, there’s a noticeable step up to 3rd,
70mph is now 2200rpm, and is definitely more relaxing to drive. Im off to wales tomorrow on my weekly commute, and the first time in 3 weeks in this car as I’ve been using Chad, the dolphin grey tdi, which I have to say has been superb since I fitted new driveshafts.
This is really useful - there was a parallel thread the other week where I identified a handful of other possible boxes for a JDD/MZN-like swap, but there was no information whether anyone had been able to make them work. Now you've added another box to the "known" list, and some of the other ones here use the same casing parts so should also fit theoretically, possibly with the same moderate machining requirements.

 
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