Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 12:49:14 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: acceptable transmission leakage?
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Looks fairly normal to me.
I'd say if there are no drops of gear oil on the ground,
and the oil level stays full,
and you don't want to get into a whole 'open it up and rebuild it' ...
then leave well enough alone.
particularly if the syncro's syncronize like they should, it's not noisy in
any gears ...
then it's a 'servicable used vanagon manual transalxe' and you could just
take good care of it, drive it nicely for now,
and rebuild it someday.
if it is noisy in any way ...I'd say don't push it 'long term' since if say
....the ring and pinion gears are worn or pitted...
that would make it non-rebuildable.
If you check the magnetic drain plug on it......
there is often a fairly large lump of magnitized particles sticking to it
...like a globe of fine metal the diameter of a dime ...
that's fairly common even.
If there is anything like a tiny piece of gear tooth there though ....it's
rebuilt time, and hopefully it's not too late.
how many miles on it ? Does it shift well ?
oh ...I 'could' almost say vanagon manual transmissions, rebuildble ones
....they are not quite 'rare' .........but they are valuable.
I turned in 3 vanagon transaxles about a year ago, hoping that two would
have good core value ...even up to $ 400 each ...
thus making the dollar-outlay of getting one new rebuilt one pretty
reasonable ...nope ...they said there was barely enough between the 3 cores
to make one good new rebuilt one, and I don't think they were ripping me
off.
point is ....don't run it until it's not even rebuildable.
But 'most' vanagon transaxles that have not been rebuilt look like yours.
Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "pickle vanagon" <greenvanagon@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 10:40 AM
Subject: acceptable transmission leakage?
> Since we're moving to the city in a couple months, I'm trying to figure
> out
> the high priority things I need to do before the move, since doing major
> work on the van will be pretty difficult for the next few years.
>
> One potential issue is what seems to be a very slow seepage of
> transmission
> fluid. I've put up pictures at the links below. It generally just seems
> "wet", and, although some drops seem to collect in places on the
> transmission, the ground underneath the van is always 100% dry.
>
> My sense is that this is best left alone, and that my time is better spent
> finishing the seam rust project, and other things. What do other people
> think?
>
> Thanks!
> Wes
>
> pictures:
> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wes/tmp/SDC12237.JPG
> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wes/tmp/SDC12238.JPG
> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wes/tmp/SDC12239.JPG
> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wes/tmp/SDC12240.JPG
> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wes/tmp/SDC12241.JPG
> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wes/tmp/SDC12242.JPG
> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wes/tmp/SDC12243.JPG