Mk1 Audi TT Quattro gearbox carnage

[VAGslag]

My mums BAM TT was stuck in gear. The stick still moves freely as does the selector at the gear box and it feels like you're selecting other gears, but even when in neutral it's still in gear.

I instantly thought broken selector fork, but that usually means no 1st, 2nd and reverse. My mate who's an ex Audi tech said it could be the selector tower it's self. Which would save me a bloody job if it is!

So I took the car for a little drive down the road to try and work out what gear it was stuck in. Pretty quickly ascertained it was in second then shortly after there was a large BANG, the car still had drive but there was some sort of rotational chattering noise so I rolled to a halt. Now the car is seized fast!!!!!

Can't pull away even though it still appears to be in gear. Can rock the car back and forth about 6 inches if trying to push, but it's proper seized.

Sounds like an odd fault, I guess I'm going to have to get it in the garage and pull the gearbox anyway (FML!!!) but just wanted to get peoples thoughts.

Anyone seen anything like this before?

[S0 What]

Could be it was stuck in gear and you just drove it in another gear (2 at once) and it's shat itself ??

[plasticman]

I have a complete six speed and transfer box that I was going to use in a conversion but changed my mind . It would be much cheaper than pulling apart the old one to see what might be wrong with it . £100 if you want it.

[Andy 308GTB]

Google:
wheeler dealers audi tt gearbox

This may give you some ideas.

[VAGslag]

Andy 308GTB said:

Google:
wheeler dealers audi tt gearbox

This may give you some ideas.

As I said, I'm well aware of selector fork issues, I've fixed them myself before. . . The symptoms on this were different from most broken selector cases I've seen though.

Anyway, pulled the box last weekend. Wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. And don't listen to Ed China, you don't need to remove the transfer box.

Turns out it was a broken selector fork, but not only did it break while in gear, it then decided to chew the selector fork bits up in the gears... Which after talking to a few gearbox people is rather unlucky!

Here's the carnage it actually caused: