I'm looking at a sandrail that uses VW running gear. It's missing a lot of things, including the engine, but the tranny is there. It looked like it might have had a torque converter, but it has some vacuum operated lever thingy by the bellhousing. It also has the shifter stub sticking out of the front of it. WTF is this tranny? Should I ditch it for the regular manual out of a bug?

 

I took some pics of the sandrail, click on the thumbs to get bigger.

No one knows what this tranny is?

Not sure about the vacuum thingy but it should be easy to distinguish between auto or manual tranny I would think. But then again that thinking think has gotten me in trouble before.

How about a pic of the trans input shaft set up and the vacuum thingy?

Could help identify it.

Stumpy

It sounds like an Autostick to me. Mid to late 60's bug IIRC.

Its a late 60-early 70 autostick. You want a full manual. It had a torque converter and a vacum operated clutch. There was a hydrau,ic pump on the front of the VW engine to operate the TC.

 

 

nipper

Sounds like it would be fun for powershifting, but I don't have the torque converter or the hydraulic pump,soo will the manual bolt right in?

Sounds like it would be fun for powershifting, but I don't have the torque converter or the hydraulic pump,soo will the manual bolt right in?

 

The manual will bolt right in. You will also need the pedal assembly . the clutch cable tube is already there.

 

nipper

Nice. Thanks guys, I knew that there'd be some Vw knowledge kicking around.

 

It's a complete tube frame sandrail. Fiberglass seat, VW twin tube style torsion bar front end welded on, and a Vw tranny and swingarms in the back. Looks like a stillborn project, no fuel tank, and there's no shifter, just a hydraulic looking valve thingy? Mabe they were trying to do something fancy with the semi-auto tranny. What do the shift linkages look like? Might have to do some mods to the floorpan to fit them in.

Anyone still have pictures of this?

 

-Tom

I could not get the pic's to open

 But ...It is a VW Autostick they were built from 1968 - 1979 ( I think ).  In Bugs and Karman Ghia's only .

    Parts for these are hard to find !  And the trans is the easy part.

The shift linkage looks just like the manual trans linkage except for the switch at the bottom of the shifter.

  The way the clutch worked  There is a electric vacuum  valve that opened and operated the vac. canister .  The switch was on the shifter ( you put your hand on the shifter and it would drop about 1/4  of an inch ) . and operate the switch.

  To make this work you would need .... a Double oil pump ( one for the engine and one for the trans. )( bolts on in place of the regular oil pump).  the auto trans fluid bottle , the vac. tank , the vac. valve and a bunch of vac. plumbing .

I Put one of these in a VW Powered trike , ( No need for a clutch hand or foot leaver ) I added a switch to the shifter that you pushed with your trigger finger .

I don't think you would be happy with it in a sandrail . it wont spin the tires ...

  You could put a regular man trans in it by just removing the trans a putting in the manual box and  a clutch cable and a set of pedals ( and the tube for the clutch cable ) or hydraulic clutch pedal .

Hop this helps.

-- Bill

Sounds like it would be fun for powershifting, but I don't have the torque converter or the hydraulic pump,soo will the manual bolt right in?

 

More like fun for NOTHING. Autostick takes the bad from auto and manual transmissions and add it next to no parts availability for the fun of it. Toss that in the scrap bin and use a real manual trans. while not as cheap and common as they once were, they still are relatively so.