Important parts issue

[raygreenwood]

I rant a lot. I'm long winded....but I have been owning, driving and working 411 and 412 cars for 34 years now.
I want to appeal to those of you who are serious type 4 owners....not just got one for cheap or by accident or wanting to take one on for a project.

I am in my garage posting this. My only message is...........buy parts if you are serious about keeping these cars on the road. I mean buy them now...long before you need them. I don't mean trim, interior, sheet metal and light fixtures.....those count too.....but I mean serious one of a kind suspension parts, suspension joints ......and most especially wheel bearings and transmission bearings. I like to buy brick and mortar to support the cause...but in this case...F that. Get them where you can...and buy quality. Put aside from beer and food and spend the occasional $30 for the future.

Do you even know the part #s for your rear wheel bearings, ring and pinion bearings?

I can tell you this. I have better part stocks than most....but if you do not have pini8n bearings for your 004....and you WILL. need them.......you will have a very, very, very hard time finding them....ad almost as hard of a time finding quality ring gear bearings with equally hard to find rear wheel bearings.

They are out there. The rear wheel bearings fit about 10 vehicles....but they are all old. E bay shows plenty of listings for differntial bearings...but few are "differntial quality".

Old stock made in France Timkin is your lowest denominator. SKF is great.....but very suspect lately if they are new....with the huge India counterfeit crisis. FAG are gold. I just scored last week 4 old stock Timkins with races...in the boxes...so old they have no bar codes. Those we're made in France and are as good as any.

The pinion bearings are very hard. The VW #s and crossmatch #s are worthless. You will need SKF or Timken #s to. Find anything. Also they take a different race than is normally sold with that bearing so you need both #s..

Buy these parts now when you spare cash. Or...you may be screwed when you need them.

I also just bought two timkin diff bearinds....no races...but $10 each. Yes they are the same as for an 091 tranny....but quality is getting really hard to get....and I can tell you from tearing into many of these units....that you MUST have quality bearings or it will destroy things you cannot replae.

Another example... I just bought two type 4 steering dampers at $25 eacg. Get them while you can. I built a special bracket 15 years ago to use two end to end. Huge improvment in steering control....and it quadruples tthe life of both of the units...because neither is working that hard. Ray

[kirk knighton]

Thanks for the rant, Ray!
I've owned five type-4s since 1984; I still have three. Looking for parts has been a hobby, almost a lifestyle of mine for the past 12 years. I've accumulated a pretty good collection. You never know when you might need them. When my L-Jet 412 was on the fritz this past year I tried everything. Finally I took it to the shop along with a bunch of FI parts I have stored up over the years. Turned out the major problem was one of the parts I happened to have - obsolete, of course. But I had a NOS one and the problem was solved.

[raygreenwood]

A little more update.

All of you who own type 4 004 manual transmissions will have this problem so I hope you are reading this thread.

The pinion shaft bearings are very tricky to replace and adjust preload on this car. Thats not the issue at hand.

The issue is getting the bearing. My last complete (nearly) rebuild on one of these boxes was actually about 1998. By that I mean last time I had to do the differential.

I had to go back through my notebooks to find that I had the same issue then as I had now on this same transmission. I had to leave the original bearings in it (which were in about 70% condition at the time... serviceable but wearing normally).

The issue is that these bearings are pretty much unobtanium. I am working with suppliers right now.

The outer race part # is obtainable. It is M86610. That is an SKF part # but I believe theTimkin part # is LM 86610.

The large danger is that is you will try to order the bearing you need for the 4 speed by using the outer race #......a bearing supplier will tell you that the bearing cone that goes with it is M86649 in SKF or LM86649 in Timkin....and that its the same as the pinion bearing for the automatic.

Sadly....only the outer race of the type 4 pinion bearing sets are the same part # as the outer races of the automatic transmission pinion bearing set.

You will end up buying this bearing...happily going home and visually comparing it to the one that came out of your transmission...and then try to install it with a press.....and quickly destroy the mainshaft trying to press it on.

The correct BEARING CONE part # for the 004 manual transmission is 331457 in either SKF or FAG. The race part # of M86610 is correct.

The bearings are identical except that 331457...the correct bearing...is .0025" LARGER in inner shaft diameter.

This is a unique bearing set. If you find them...they will likely be $60-80 each. At that price they are a bargain.

I am exhausting my two best bearing sources this week. If I cannot find them....I will be investigating what is required to grind or mill those two shaft areas down by .0025" to allow installing the more readily available 86649 bearing.

To make it simple...the ring and pinion bearings should ALWAYS be replaced in these units whenever significant work is done....or even when just opening up and checking because everything in the world right now is 40 years old. When these wear out...and they are a wear item....it will eventually destroy the ring and pinion.

The automatic is slightly less susceptible to wear even though it has the same design...because the gear carrier for the differential has less flex. Its cast steel. Ray

[vwrenault]

RAY have you tryed KING BEARINGS?

[raygreenwood]

The only King bearings I can find of sifnifigance is King engine bearings....wrong kind of bearing.

The only other reference I can find is King bearings and applied industrial technology in Modesto CA. No web site.

I am dealing with the larger interconnected bearing houses. If its in a warehouse network they will find it. Its likely not.they don't keep bearings that are rare or unique. They don't move for decades. If there were any it will be on dusty shelves in small private un-networked bearing dealers.

The problem here is that these bearings....just like the mainshaft ball bearing...were unique and made for VW by the bearing mfg.

The bearing dealers I. Have spoken to note that automotive has many unique bearings. The mainshaft ball bearing as far as I can find has no real crossmatch to its #.

This does not mean there will be no crossmatch. The suggestion today was to take it in for measurement to someone like Motion industries. Ray

[Bradey Bunch]

Anyone try calling for a pinion shaft bearing for a '99 golf? Apparently its a match for the rear wheel bearings, wouldnt surprise me if oem was available.

http://www.cip1.ca/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=VWC-411-501-283-E

Im sure the cip bearings are chinese, but its worth a shot calling into vw.

[raygreenwood]

Yes...oddly...the rear wheel bearings on the type 4....once an oddball bearing hard to get in the mid to late 90's.....has popped up as a differential bearing on more than a handful of cars.

The really interesting thing about what is called a differential bearing...typically tend to be massive and of high quality.
I was surprised at how easy it was to find rear wheel bearings compared to 5 years ago....but one thing I am noticing is how much spotty quality there is. Lots of "national" and third world produced "Moog" products....you might get away with it in wheel bearings...but not ring and pinion.

I remember how much trouble I had with even the quality issues of Timkin in the late 90's and early 00's....when SKF and FAG went to once a year August construction of the rear wheel bearing for type 4. The only things you could get were CR and Timkin made in France.
While Timkin is excellent and very consistent.....the toleranes are different. In this usage on the 411/412...you will find that it causes you to either run with the spacer correct but preload loose....or spacer tight and preload correct...or vica versa unless you have new spacers machined or shim the spacer.
Typically Timkins are 30-40k mile earings in the rear wheels...whereas FAG and old school SKF are 100k easy if kept adjusted and greased.

I spent years asking VW both VWOA and VW in Europe about both pinion bearings and mainshaft ball bearing....no other usage trackable by the number used on the bearing.

See....that's the problem. Bearings have common codes and nomenclature....but auto manufacturere screw this up by occassionaally assigning unique #s that make them untrackable.

I juust recently downloaded a 200+ page SKF auto manufacturer to bearing mfg parts cross match book. I'm hoping I find somethinf in there. Ray

[raygreenwood]

This is a REAL problem. Of the three 004 gear boxes I have on hand...this one has the most "damage". Its fixable but also its worth destroying if need be... to find the last ins and outs and documenting them for others.

I am not actually doing the rebuild until July. I am sourcing parts and bearings right now. I am photgraphing everything...and will post it online in e-zine/flip page fashion.

The two important keys to get across to people concerning these transmissions are:

1. If there is any even moderate wear to either of the pinion bearings...you must replace BOTH of them.

Why?...because of the opposing nature of the two bearings and their location within the cast steel pinion carrier....unique to this transmisson and rarely found in any other type....you cannot remove either without damaging the other to some extent....unlessyou have a large amount of specialized equipment. And..with the rarity of these units...it would be foolish to leave a bearing with wear in a transmission this hard to find.

2. Unless I can find an answer or a cross match to this bearing....we will have to live with the specialized bearings that it came with.....which are not maufactured anymore....have not been maufactured for maybe 30 years.....and will only be available by lucky finds on old dusty shelves.

I am exploring having the pinion gear shaft end lapped. I can do that fairly easily between a set of live centers with some masking. That would allow the poinion gear end to use the more standard bearing....readily available. It needs to be lapped down by about .0018".

However...the bearing opposite the pinion end cannot have its shaft poistion lapped down...because there are four sets of splines between the shaft seating position of this bearing and the end of the shaft it slips over.

Lapping the splines .0018" would give loose fit for the mainshaft gearing. Not an option.

So I am exploring having the inner bore of the bearing precision lapped or ground with a diamond. hone. It would suffice to have .0018" removed....and like the other end....could now use the readily available bearing that comes with the race normally.

Bear in mind that the bearings are hardeneded..and the shaft is case hardened. If I can successfully lap one bearing...it may be simplest to lap both.


Ray

[raygreenwood]

This is a very worthwhile PDF from Timkin....all pictures....showing diagnosing tapered roller bearing damage. I am also photographing the collection I have to show what should be replaced and what should be reused.

http://www.timken.com/en-us/products/maintdiag/Documents/6347.pdf


Ray

[anglodeutsch4]

How's this bearing job going Ray? Interesting findings so far. Standing by to see how much is applicable to the 003 AT in my 412...

I'm going to go back into my AT before putting the 412 back on the road, a reseal if nothing else, about 40K on the previous friction reline and reseal...wondering what I'll find when pulling the pinion shaft to get to the aftmost (installed in the car) seal...hoping the pinion bearings (original Fafnir IIRC, with ~140K miles) are OK. They looked OK at ~100K miles.
_________________
Lane
MGVWFAN (STF)
anglodeutsch4 (Samba)
73 VW 412 (the Nomad, dropped valve seat land now, argh!)
67 MGB (Built-In Rust from Abingdon)
2002 NB TDI (40 MPG)
2009 JSW 2.5 (love it, love it, love it!)