Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 13:13:31 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Clutch shutter, vibation, shaking - why?
In-Reply-To: <vanagon%2007110815265476@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Fwiw I always and only use Sachs clutch discs and pressure plates, from
germany.
Luk claims to be a high quality part I believe.......i might have used one
or two on some car in the past somewhere, of hundreds of clutch
jobs.........but for some reason I know I wouldn't put one in a vanagon.
I'm a real big believer in very original type and german parts on vanagons.
Where the cross shaft pivots in the bell housing bushings.....i might spend
10 minutes spraying that with Prolong brand spray penetrating synthetic
grease until the shaft pivots very smoothly. It's not fun to get those
shafts and bushings out of the bell housing....I just lube 'em in place a
lot and never have a problem. Twist back and forth, spray, twist , etc.
etc.
For sure you can push the lever on the slave up and push the piston upward.
The hydraulic clutch system on vanagons is about the best one in car-domm I
think. Fully and completely automatically self-adjusting for the life of
the clutch. Just about 'perfect' - too bad the pedal assembly area is so
hard to work on though !
( and I have found a worse job on a vanagon or syncro that R & R-ing the
pedal assembly - heater fan. Darn ! The entire interior forward area has to
come apart to deal with that ...well...the pedal assembly is still laying
loosely in place.....i had to remove the brake master cylinder and booster
to get at the left side heater box mounting bolts....., plus dash etc.
Horrible job ! )
To check run-out on a flywheel you'd have to jig it up somehow to turn
freely and check the surface run-out with a dial gauge. They don't warp
that I've ever seen, or even get torn up on the surface that I've ever seen.
I've just cleaned many of them up, on the friction surface, with black
waterproof sandpaper and spray carb cleaner.
Vanagon clutches are so robust that on one diesel vanagon, the guy had
no first gear for about 2 years, always starting out in 2nd. We put in a
good used trans......inspected the clutch, cleaned things up, and put the
same clutch right back in.
It's even like, generally speaking......vanagon clutches last 'almost
forever' ........I've seen many that just had so many miles on them, 150K+
that it was just finally 'time.'
I'd say, generally, that where non-original clutches don't last really
well, it's either non-german, non-original type parts, and......workmanship,
or more specifically, poor and incomplete workmanship on the clutch
replacement job several years ago. I bet I fuss over at least 20 details on
a clutch job in vanagon.
If you think alternator/water pump/ power steering etc is a source of a
noise, you just remove the belts and run the engine a minute or two that
way, and see if the noise stops.
And you spin everything by hand with belts off, engine off too of course ! I
find lots of alternators with loose bearings. ( this run with belts off -
that falls under 'substitute and bypass' as a diagnostic strategy, which is
how I diagnose 90 % of the stuff I do. )
The single weakest part of a vanagon clutch, inside the bell housing that
is ...is the pilot bearing, and the felt seal, and ....you can't get these
metal rings - .a little metal ring pressed in the flywheel to hold the felt
seal in place. Those are often missing. I'm going to try a diesel vanagon
pilot bearing one of these days, since it has a 'real' rubber seal built
into the pilot bearing.
Broken clutch slave bracket......that could just be 'normal metal
fatigued' but more likely it's someone didn't put something together tightly
and completely. A fourth of the vanagons I see......maybe less, but it's
not uncommon to see parts left off, things not in place, like brackets, etc.
One very nice trick on a 'keeper vanagon' is to weld that one clutch slave
cylinder mounting bolt....the aft one that's a pain to get a small wrench on
from below to hold it while undoing the nut on top - I arc weld the head of
the bolt to the bracket, so the bolt is now a stud - makes it about 200 %
easier to work on. The actual weld ( with trans on the floor ) takes about 5
seconds - then paint that to prevent rust. It's all fun !
Scott
www.turbovans.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Nathan Mc Blain
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 12:18 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Clutch shutter, vibation, shaking - why?
Ben thank you, nice to here that even the experts have had this problem.
>Scott says it all.
>I agree with him for the flywheel, they rarely go bad.
Heres my dumb question for the day: What does the clutch controls act like
when the clutch disk is at the end of it's life and down to the rivits? I
just don't want to start grinding up my flywheel.
>So here is my story, it may help a few, when we put the subi inside my van
>we also put a new LUK clutch kit, all seem well, at that time, i had the
>original old trany. So only after a short wile (500miles or so) , when
>downshifting from 2 to 1 i had big "hunting/shaking/chatter's" like the
>engine was ready to come out. So anyway, it staid like that for a wile and
>anyway i was waiting for an AA Transaxle trany so i would change the clutch
>at the same time i would swap trany... the trany came and i have dicided to
>keep the new/old clutch and see if the trany/cluch lever could be the
>problem! Why, because the lever of my old trany was very dificult to move
by
>hand (tany out of the van), so i kept the old clutch even if heavy sign of
>clutch disk dust was present.... Test drive: No more hunting/noise/heavy
>vibration.
So the clutch lever was part of the problem? Any way to test for this with
trans in?
>That lasted for a long wile, but since about few month, a similar problem
>came back slowly, it was now only in first gear wile engaging the clutch,
>sometime in reverse also... i let it go for a wile but in the past week,
>that have become almost horrible, i found a way to cheat that problem but
>still, no way i was going to Mexico like that. You should also know that
>this is not very dangerous as nothing will break in a short therm, just
>unpleasant, just rev the engine a bit before letting go of the cluch pedal.
Weeks ago that's all I needed to do was rev little more, but now I have to
rev even more to engage smoothly- just getting worse seems.
>The conclusion, i did the cluch this week, the slave cylinder and lever
>where working nicely ((((yes to your question, the lever will go up if you
>push on it, and that is not normal in my world, but VW and other guru says
>it is?, that mean that the bearing is always touching the pressure plate,
>plain stupid))))
Ok so the lever can be moved by hand and is vanagon "normal" (whatever that
is:)
If the throwout bearing is always ingaged maybe my screeching noise could
be it? I hear this noise esp. when going down the freeway with the window
open. If I speed up very slightly or slow down slightly it changes, but NOT
nessisarily more noise with more speed, just changes and sometimes goes
away. Or is this more likely my waterpump,alternator,or PS pump?
>, so when i look at the pressure plate before removing this
>one, it was all blue colored where the bearing touch this one, heavy burned
>smell, lot's of dust, no oil leak what so ever...
>-Flywheeel is kind of blue but still straight, plenty of disk mark
So the flywheel can take alot of friction and heat without warping. How
could a home mech. check the straihtness of the flywheel does it have to be
removed from the crank?
>-Disk also show lot of mark and plenty of dust grain (round little dry
ball)
>-Pressure plate is also like the flywheel, but worse.
>-The throwout bearing is carved where it touch the PP and not nice at all.
>
>Nothing is broken and far from it, that mean it doesn't take much to have
>"hunting/chatter". What Scott says is true, most of the time it's oil mix
>with dust disk that will create hunting, but in my case, i'm sure that the
>original trany hunting as create those "Scorch/mark/wear on parts. For a
>long time i was blaming a bad clutch lever or a bad slave cylinder, in a
way
Ben can you please explain more how a bad slave and clutch lever can cause
chatter. Is it because the piston/cylinder in the clutch slave is not
moving smooth enough and letting the clutch ingage smooth? Is there a way
to check it's overall condition?
>i was right the first time. Now, was the clutch disk defective at first! I
>have seen that before...
>
>If you guys want pictures of everything, i can take some.
Yes please!! Thanks Ben
Nate 90 2.1L MT silver non/GL>
>Cheers, Ben
>http://www.benplace.com/vw_clutch2.htm
>http://www.benplace.com/vw_clutch_job1.htm
>
>
>On Wed, 7 Nov 2007 23:02:23 -0800, Nathan Mc Blain <nmcblain@YAHOO.COM>
wrote:
>
>>List,
>> The good news is all the coolant repairs and parts are holding thanks to
>the info gained from everyone Thanks.
>>
>> The bad news is my van is having clutch problems - alot of shaking when
>letting out the clutch. Noticed mostly in reverse but really bad now in
>first,second. Once I get going things are OK but I'm afraid of total
>failure so have stopped using it. For a long time I have had a klinkity
>klink like a penny in a can noise and also a screeching noise at certain
>RPMS. The catalytic converter did come apart and I replaced it and emptied
>the muffler. I hate to ask questions and try to just listen and learn but
>now I have to ask.
>>
>> Some history: When I first inherited this van 2004 it started having
>clutch problems-suddenly there was just very slight grab nothing to move
the
>vehicle. At the time this list and any knowledge of vanagons was unknown
to
>me. It got stuck in my uncles yard. To make a long story short he tried
to
>help me without my knowledge and while heavily intoxicated. He just
floored
>it until it grabbed layed a good strip of grass and rubber when it reached
>the asphalt-not nice to my van:( At the time I thought oil was on the
>flywheel and sprayed brake cleaner in the access hole with the motor
>running...probably washed grease out of places it should be and other bad
>stuff - stupid me!!!
>>
>> This Sunday I described this and everything I know to a young
>professional mechanic acquaintance (execpt for the brake cleaner blunder)
of
>mine- he's a very good mech but not at all familiar with the uniqueness of
>our vans or the expense of the parts. He's too busy to take another job
but
>has offered to let me pull the trans with his tools at his house. Anyway he
>thought my flywheel is warped. And together we came up with the thought
>that one of the dampening springs in the clutch disk may have broken. I'm
>wondering if one of the springs on the clutch disk broke and is bouncing
>around in the belhousing? That would account for the penny in a can noise.
> Is this possible, plausible, common?
>>
>> While I was under there today preparing trans removal if needed -
spraying
>all the corroded bolts trans/engine bolts with liquid wrench. I tried
>pushing up on the clutch lever to see if the slave would move and it did
>with medium resistance. Is that normal? Can air in the clutch system do
>this? And cause my shuttering and shaking? My mechanic acquaintance says
>no what do you say? I read somehere in the archives that it could but it
is
>difficult to always determine fact from fiction as EVERTHING is in the
arcives.
>>
>> FWIW:Under the boot the slave is wet- some weeping. I also have a weep
>coming from the dash end of things but cannot see if it is brake master or
>clutch master. So air could and probably is entering.
>>
>> Sorryfor the longwinded e-mail. In short:
>> What's the most likely cause to severe clutch shutter?
>> Do the disk springs ever break, could that be the cause?
>> Is it easy to warp the flywheel?
>> Can air in the clutch system be a cause?
>>
>> TIA,
>> Nate 90 2.1L MT silver non/GL- who just wants to avoid unessisary trans
>removal and fix the shaking
>>
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