Seals in manual tranny leaking, hard to replace?

[mtnbob]

Found out today that I'm losing transaxle fluid. It is what was causing my shifter to pop out of 5th gear. Filled it back up and it seems to be doing great for now. Did my switching to mobile one synthetic do this? Is it hard to replace seals in tranny? Should I switch back to non-synthetic oil?
Thanks
Robert

[burn_your_money]

It depends what seals are leaking but in general I would say no. It should be as hard as replacing any other seal.
www.brokevw.com covers most of what you need to know (I think)

[Dakotakid]

You will need a flange compressor tool to overcome the spring.

[bvolks73]

Are there a lot of miles on the transmission? The transmission in my 85 would eat seals quickly because there was so much play in the differential bearings (it had around 600,000 kms on it). It was scary how much up and down movement there was in the differential bearings.

[Rabbit TD]

Synthetic always leaks on these with old seals beause it is so much thinner to begin with.  The one you really have to worry about the most especialy when it is clear full is the one on the input shaft.  It will leak out there and get right on  the cluth disck.  All the seals are pretty easy to change other than having to pull the trans. for the input shaft one.  I hope you didn't already do any damage to your fifth gear   They are actualy pretty easy to change on these though if it comes down to that.  It can be done with the trans still in the car and lowered on the drivers side enough to get the cap off and the housing on the end.  The Broke VW site is real good for the trans problems.

[mtnbob]

I filled the tranny up with Mobil 1 and took off on a 1,400 mile trip with no problems, so I must not have messed up my 5th gear . Would I be better off switching back to dino gear oil? My tranny only has 130,000 miles on it.

[maxfax]

130,000 miles isn;t alot, but age is a big factor when it comes to seals..   You may be able to swap back to dino and cure your leaks..  For the most part it works... My personal car it didn't, but I think just simply changing the fluid and getting all the crud out that was plugging it up is what began my woes...

Chances are if it began leaking that much fluid that fast, you're going to be due for seals sooner or later.. Still not a bad job once the trans is removed, but ad Dakota mentions you'll need a toold to compress the springs on the axle flanges..  Once can be fabiracated rather easily though...

[Rabbit TD]

I filled the tranny up with Mobil 1 and took off on a 1,400 mile trip with no problems, so I must not have messed up my 5th gear . Would I be better off switching back to dino gear oil? My tranny only has 130,000 miles on it.

If you didn't have any trouble shifting into 5th or it jumping out of gear in that amount of time I'm sure it's alright.  I'd change it back to the dino type and if it stops the leaking then fine but if it doesn't then you will need the seals.  It's going to leak way more with the synthetic in it and it's a lot more expensive.  I'd like to use synthetic engine oil but these things burn too much to even think about that.  That's why the little sticker thing under the fuel cap says "Check Oil"