Frustration cleaning Transaxle

I spent a large part of yesterday with a wire brush in the die grinder cleaning the outside case of ZF. There are a lot of nooks and crannies that are almost impossible to get into, but the most frustrating thing was that although it came up shiny, parts were left with a black appearance. I clear coated the cover but it looked so bad,I reassembled the box and took it to be sand blasted this morning.I did this with the gearbox in my previous project GTO 250 replica and it came up sensational after a clear coat. Thanks to Chris Melia and Frank Catt for help with crosshaft reversal but would like some more pics of gearshift/crosshaft setup Frank

Regards Ross

If only I could figure out how to post pictures -- despite Rons tutorial I still cannot do it, so I will E mnail some to you. Frank

Anyone polishing a ZF case has my admiration. I cleaned and smoothed mine for powder coating, but the surface didn't have to be polished. As it was, I spent several weeks just smoothing.
There are lots of nooks and crannies.

I suggest no one should go through the hell of cleaning a ZF transaxle. Instead all should be sent directly to me, in return I will send you a clean Audi box
Just trying to help you get the car on the road a little quicker.
John

Hi Guys
Frank I was able to open one of the pictures you emailed me but the other one was corrupt. It appears to me photos cannot be hosted on this site so you have to use your own website or other host and create a link.I will host some new pics on my site soon.If you can email pics of your gearchange at the box I would be grateful.you have me intrigued from what I could see from the left side.Dave I wasn't going to polish my Zf either but I cleaned the back part which came up not too bad however the front was impossible.Powder coating sounds like a good thing but I like the alloy look . I hate a dirty alloy look though. John thanks for the audi offer, all I can say is suffer baby!

Regards Ross

I ran into the same problem previously mentioned. Too many nooks, crannies, etc.,
for a good polish job. My solution was to spray the entire gearbox(G50) down with Brakekleen, and then spray it with silver high temp paint. I baked the paint with heat lamps for a couple of days before installing the box. It looks good, and has held up well so far. It is also very easy to touch up if you should ding the paint. And no polishing!

Ross,

Give me a call and I will give you the name of the guy we use to clean our boxes. Cost just over $100 so that should be easy to take also. He does a great job and it would cost you more to pay an apprentice to do it. He is our side of Melbourne also.

Best wishes,

Robert

John, for those of us FORTUNATE (!) to be using an Audi box, I did find out from my local Audi dealer that a complete disassemble, clean and put back together was under $300. That's the route I'm going, unless someone here has had a previous bad experience.

FWIW a pal of mine spent weeks cleaning a ZF tranny to near perfection, & then decided it still wasn't good enough & painted it silver!

IMO the silver paint finish is much better, and alot easier to keep clean!

Now he won't use the luggage tray in his Pantera so he can show off the engine bay properly!

Cleaning the R21 transmission is a whole lot easier as it can be stripped & sand blasted!!