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Date:         Tue, 10 May 2011 18:41:38 -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: Trans upshift
Comments: To: camping.elliott@gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

hi. re Well, the trans was pulled last fall to get rebuilt so it was probably re-adjusted at the time, though I didn't notice any difference in shifting.

Likely no difference in shifting because all the did was rebuilt the trans and put it back in. I don't think you can expect 'regular car shops' to fuss over the fine details... they probably wouldn't even know how and when a vanagon should shift even really.

that's the kind of 'extra detail' work that I don't think you can find anywhere really. the super fine tuning to make it 'just right.' that fine tuning is why it takes me as much as 8 hours more work .........*after* an engine is in a van and running, on fine tuning and careful sorting out. Even more than that sometimes.

let's see.. 'control pressure' .. I don't know too much about the inner workings of the trans.. except to say that the lever position ( i.e. how far you are holding down the gas pedal ) and governor weight speed affect pressures in the trans which determine when it shifts up, or down. There are three inputs we can say .. throttle input, governor shaft speed, and what gear is selected. it's a mechanical computer sort of, it takes the inputs, and produces an output - . turning the rear axles ....at whatever speed the inputs tell it to.

I hear it all the time .. 'I just had that worked on, don't you think they would have checked or adjusted that part too?""

NO no ......they usually don't. the majority of car work done is 'get it done and out the door..........make it look like you did the work, and hopefully it will work like the work was done right .........but don't expect the minor details to get fussed over.'

Like this . say I was replacing someone's trans ..or clutch .. if the van also happens to have 18 psi in the tires,.. I can not give them back the van with their dangerously low tires. Find a shop that will do things like that .. a more holistic approach. One that really cares. One that cares about the details. The details that really matter. Most car work is about '80%' at the most. *much* of what I do is about re-doing things that should have been done better or right in the first place.

glad you got your shifting points improved ! and people get to learn from all this and your success.

Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: Rocket J Squirrel To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans Cc: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 5:16 PM Subject: Re: Re: Trans upshift

On Tue, 2011-05-10 at 17:02 -0700, Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote: he's talking about removing some weight from the governor weighs on the side of the automatic transaxle.

that round cover on the left side, held on with a wire bail clip .. under there .. you pull a little assembly out, remove two weights and take about 10 to 15 % off the end of each one, put it all back together. for engines that are more like 6,000 or 7K rpm engines, rather than waterboxer 5,000 rpm engines.. this makes the trans wait longer before shifting up.

you shouldn't need to do this at all. and just think.. all these many last decades and miles your trans throttle rod has been out of adjustment.

Well, the trans was pulled last fall to get rebuilt so it was probably re-adjusted at the time, though I didn't notice any difference in shifting.

So when a fellow pulls away from the stop sign, not kicking it down but trying to get some speed up, and he notices that the trans shifts from 1st to 2nd at, say, 2500 rpm, hardly up in the power band and well before he'd shift manually, and sees the same behavior when the trans shifts from 2nd to 3rd, what determines those shift points if not that governor?

-- Rocky J Squirrel


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