Date:         Sun, 31 Mar 1996 10:42:50 +0000
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         sw@smus.bc.ca
Subject:      '88 Trans & Power Steering Update

(Sorry for the length on this folks)
Thanks to all who offered advice on filling the trans oil. Being a 
hopeless cheapskate, I opted for a large funnel with an 18" flexible 
tube ($3.49), over the fancy pump setup ($20), thinking I could 
always get the pump if it didn't work. As it turned out, I could 
insert the funnel in the hole, then twist it over the top of the 
trans & pour from the driver's side into it. A third hand would have 
been nice, but it worked better than expected.
I was a little worried about fill qty - the book says 3L or 3.2 qt - 
I only had 3.0 qt of Redline MTL. Then I noticed the updated bulletin 
states 2.5l, or 2.7 qt (I think), so I guess I'm ok.
The magnetic plug had about 1/8-1/4" of filings stuck to the tip, 
which doesn't seem too bad (?) for 160K km. No bigs chunks of metal - 
just very fine powdery stuff.

Someone mentioned breaking one thing while fixing another, which 
brings me to the Power Steering...

During a trip in to town to warm up the trans, I noticed the faint & 
intermittent lack of steering assist had suddenly become pronounced 
and regular. ie: turning at normal speed would result in a brief 
boost, then none, then a bit more boost. Coming out of corner meant 
having to yard the wheel a bit to center it - it wouldn't center on 
its own. Most noticeable at low speeds, but didn;t seem to be engine 
speed related - tried some low speed turns with engine at 3000rpm+ 
and same symptoms.
So, being the hopeless optimist (and cheapskate), I thought "gee, it 
must know I have a nice fresh bottle of ATF to feed it..." So, I bled 
the system using Tim's method, after removing all the bits in the tank - 
they were really grungy - and re-installing. I used Castrol DexronIII 
which was similar color as the old stuff, but *much* thicker.
A test drive showed no improvement, in fact maybe worse...
The Bentley is a little thin on this, but it list possible problems 
as: clogged filter (I cleaned it as best I could), sticking pressure 
valve, or not enough pump pressure.
I guess I'll need to get a new filter anyway, but does it sound like 
the pump is gone?

Thanks.
==============================
Shawn Wright, sw@smus.bc.ca
'85 Jetta TD, 345k (Jenni)
'88 Westy, 324k (Kyra)
==============================