Date:         Fri, 16 Mar 2001 11:58:12 -0800
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Subject:      Clutch replacement report - longish
Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"

I have just finished replacing the clutch on my Œ82 westy, here is a short?
summary . . . 

The van: Œ82 westy, 187K miles, was diesel, I4 gas (1800 digifant) installed
in Œ94 at approx. 85K miles.

Symptoms: clutch becoming noisy, a rattling-scraping noise during
engagement, juddering sometimes, noisy throw-out bearing, some oil leakage
around bellhousing, and last summer the clutch didnšt fully dis-engage
sometimes (after long drive or after parked for a couple of days, although
this problem disappeared last fall).

I didnšt know if the previous owner had replaced the clutch. I bought the
van back in Œ93 with 80 K miles on it. I thought it possible that this was
the original clutch.

I bought a Sachs clutch replacement kit (complete with new throw-out bearing
and nifty alignment tool), an Erling transmission gasket kit (T4S), an
engine rear main seal, and a transmission main shaft seal.

I cleaned up one bay of the garage/barn (in the process of stripping the
varnish from the inside of my canoe, ugh!) and backed the van in on some
wheel ramps, raising the rear end about 8˛.

Removing the trans was straight forward, lowered it using a floor jack,
eased it off the jack and slid it out from under the van and then lifted it
onto the workbench.

The transmission had been oozing oil from the bellhousing-maincase joint,
like some greasy stigmata, collecting dirt. I used a putty knife to clean it
up. The throw out bearing was pretty well worn and one of the retaining
springs had broken allowing the bearing to cock slightly on the guide
sleeve. This was probably why it didnšt fully disengage those times last
summer.

I drained the tranny and removed the bellhousing. This allowed me to drive
the old mainshaft oil seal out from behind. I cleaned and lubed the release
shaft, installed the new throw-out bearing, put a new gasket on the
bellhousing and re-assembled. Then I carefully installed the new seal
(covered the splines on the shaft with masking tape) and refilled the
tranny. I also cleaned and lubricated the shift linkage assembly on the
front of the transmission.

Back under the van I went at the clutch proper. 3 of the cap bolts that hold
the pressure plate on to the flywheel came out without a struggle, but I
managed to round out the 6mm sockets of the remaining 3.  I guess I was
cocky from having no problems with the cv joint bolts and went at the bolts
carelessly, but also the Craftsman socket 6mm hex key is not a perfect fit.
I managed to loosen one of them by banging in my 6mm 12 pt. The other two I
had to grind the heads halfway through and then use Vice-Grips to back them
out (heat of the grinding had broke the bond). I had marked the relative
position of the pressure plate on the flywheel before removing it and also
marked the relative position of the flywheel to the crankshaft before
removing that.

The pressure plate had worn, but not broken, diaphragm spring fingers. The
clutch disc looked like it still had lots of łmeat˛ on it. Mmm, I guess the
clutch had been replaced by the PO. I noticed what looked like a
manufacturing date stamp on the pressure plate suggesting it was made in
1990.

I removed the flywheel, which was in great condition, didnšt need any
machining, only some scuffing with sandpaper.

I had to really destroy the rear main seal on the engine to remove it.

IMPORTANT: get the installation tool/guide to help you install a new seal! I
guess its possible to do it without one, maybe, if youšre lucky...


I used blue Loctite on the flywheel bolts and the pressure plate bolts
during re-installation. I also filed a notch in the pressure plate 12mm to
the left (counter clockwise) of the factory TDC notch. This allows me to
time the engine at 5 degrees BTDC with a standard old fashioned timing
light.

It was, doh, harder to re-install the tranny than it was to drop it. Managed
to bend and break one of the spade terminals on the back up light switch,
argh, sort of fixed it by whittling away some of the plastic insulation
revealing enough of the spade to get a connection.

The new clutch feels oh so much better. No juddering, quieter, and lubing
the linkage sure made shifting nicer!


Alistair