Bill it takes a special kind of person to admit error and for the sake of the group help them to avoid the same.You need pep talk from Uncle Joel.I gave him mine a couple of weeks ago and now it's time to share this with the group. See attached and pls read word for word and maybe a few more times.If you never work on your Vanagon just delete.
Murphy Law at work
A few months ago I had a noise coming from the rear and I knew this noise as I have had it in the past. Wheel bearing no doubt about it,so I go and get the bearing set and seals for one wheel. A month or so past as I'm thinking about doing this job myself. I'm not driving the van much as the noise is really loud. Ok now which wheel is it? So I have my wife in the rear seat and ask her where is the sound coming from. She says under the seat in the middle, I say what I don't believe that, She says ok let me drive and you listen. And I also hear it coming from the middle and under seat.Dam thats the trans I had rebuild 4 years ago for $1100.00. So another month goes by. My brother comes over and I remove the right tire and drum. My logic was this I had the other side done about 3 years ago. We inspect the the hub area and find what appears to be grease brake down(leak) That it . Its this wheel. I got cold feet about doing the job, So I took it to my local Billy Bob.Small town.I told which bearing to replace and they did. After the job, they drove it and it had the same noise. I kept the old bearing and that should give you a hint where this is going. The guys said it had to be the trans.Oh well what ever. I called the guy who I trusted on the trans.Explained what the deal was and told him it even made noise in nutral and he said sounds like main bearing in trans and the job was $350.00. I told him I didn't think I could drive the 44 miles to his shop. No he said $350 if I took just the trans to him. Otherwise another $100 to pull it and another $100 to install it. Ok not a big deal as I have done this befor that is pull out the trans. Befor I go any farther, the trans thing could have been stop at the beginning. If I had told him that the noise was only there if I was moving. He thought when I said I could hear the noise in nutral that I was at a dead stop. I found out later. OK back to the confession. I remove all those things to pull the trans. Go to pull it and it hang up.I look and can't see what the problem is. So I pull harder thinking it's stuck in the clutch spline. and it comes out along with throttle line. I forgot to remove. and didn't see cause it was mounted on top of the trans. while the trans was hanging up on the throttle line the end was being scratch on the pressure plate. I now take the trans for the guy to fix. That ends the dumb story, now for the dumber. Few days later he calls and says the trans is ok,problem must be somwhere else. I go and pick it up. He said he went completely thru it and it's fine but he had to remove the scratchs on the shaft and told me to check pilot bearing. He charged me $120. On the way home I got a new pilot bearing for $3 wow. I check the old pilot bearing looks good to me but what the heck I already have a new one and all I have to do is pull the fly wheel, no big deal, right? I got a new 10mm hex and tried to remove the bolts with my small impact wrench and they won't give. So what would Tim Allen do, buy a bigger impact wrench. So I did and they still won't give except two. So I call the trans man and he says to hit them real hard with a hammer. Ok that worked. Now I can really see the bearing up close. Still looks good but I do have that new $3 one. Checked around for a puller none to be found in this small town. So someone said he just took a chisel to it, and so I did. About 3Hours later the old was out and the new was in.Now things are good right?? put the fly wheel on clutch in and tighten pressure plate with my plastic spline in place. Oh things are good. Then I find I can't turn fly wheel by hand, hum must be on compression stroke right? My son and I put the trans back in and I connect everything back together. Try to start it up but starter won't turn the fly wheel What the hell is wrong here. I pull on the belts motor won't move even an inch. So I call my trans man and he says maybe a washer or a rock got stuck to the fly wheel when I laid it down. Well I not that stupid to lay the fly wheel down on the side that goes into the main oil seal, but what the heck. I remove all those things to remove the trans. This is where I shorted the starter red wire to frame. Oh well probably need new starter but will deal with that later. Got trans out and all the other things. Checked with my finger behine the main seal, hum something doesn't feel right but I can't really tell what it is. I put the fly wheel on but befor I tighten the hex bolts I was able to turn the motor and after I tighten them, no go. Fly wheel won't move.That it I quit this van goes to the trans man.But of course I had to put trans in to transport. Called wrecker and paid $72. Hey Joel wake up and pass the popcorn. Ok no need to put everything back together so put in van along with old wheel bearing. Week later Trans man calls and says van is ready. Bill was $ 350 and here is what he found. He had to remove the main seal and three shims. Behine these shims is a thick washer that has a slot cut out of it, which fits in a groove on the crank. Well remember he told me to hit the hex bolts with hammer? This some how make the spring that holds this washer in place to shift and the washer wasn't in the groove. So when I had tighten the hex bolts on fly wheel it locked the crank up. And yes the left wheel bearing was bad. He took the old one from the right and put in the left. Now to the fire and then the end of this story. With my head down low I paid my bill and drove off.Hum guess I didn't burn up my starter after all. It's 4pm and traffic is heavy not LA heavy but heavy. Van is runing good but about 4 miles it act like it wants quit. I'm in the left lane and nobody will let me over to the right OH Jesus I need you now. I go about 3 more miles and the van stops with smoke coming from the engine compartment. I open hatch and slowly open motor cover and see a fire. At that moment I thought this van is gone and it may take out a few other cars. I had to put this fire out. It didn't look like a gas fire, so I removed my shirt and put the fire out. Then a Saint stopped and helped me to get the van on the right side of the road. Boy was I lonely ,Hundreds of cars passing me by. I did a close inspection of the fire damage and notice that the wiring harness to the fuel injector did a complete melt down and the fire was fuel by old oil on the padded license plate. I also saw that the coil wire was melted to the harness. Ok thats what cause it right?? Called wecker and paid $75 to get it home. Well thats when you guys come into the picture. I get on the internet and find a new friend Kyle Wade, who has a harness I need. He tell me about Vanagon.com. For $162 I get the harness from Kyle in Calf. In a couple of hours it in and the van runs good. But this harness get a little to hot I think.But I don't normally go around and touch my harness. OK thats the end so far of this story. Murphy law at it's highest peak.
I hope this true story can help someone in the future I paid the dues maybe I can save you from the dues. Who knows.
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