TheSamba.com :: View topic - IRS/Clutch issue in traffic after long drive.

Mon Oct 21, 2019 8:03 am

I took my fastback on a 400 mile trip last week into the big city of Seattle and over three mountain passes. It’s a 68 with IRS conversion and my 75 mile-a-day commuter. I was on a pretty important mission transporting a pet that had just had $urgery. After 200 miles I got stuck on I5 in 5 lanes of gridlock. As I’m putting along in traffic all the sudden it “feels like” my clutch is slipping badly. I can get a little friction moving me forward in 1 or 2 gear but any throttle and I’m revved up like neutral. I’m worried now as the dog can’t walk and there is nowhere to pull off. I drive like the clutch is made of glass for another 1/2 hour and then try to put in third gear. It grabs in 3/4 not slipping. I baby it through the hilly Seattle area using all gears and get back on Hwy headed home. No further issues. The next day at home I check splines (good), heat the clutch up hot as heck and try to make it slip on me and it doesn’t. Any ideas? I am very focused on the car and have driven aircooled vws for thirty years. When the car acted up there was no change in pedal, free play, smells or oil leaks. I’m wondering if there is a pressed gear area in gears 1/2 that might have gotten hot and allowed slippage. I wish I would have tried 3rd gear when it was slipping to see if it grabbed then. At that time I didn’t want to stress it at all. Any ideas?

Trans is super-beetle, has input shaft bearing noise (for several years) and throw-out bearing has just started to make noise on the release as it spins down from engine rpm to 0 rpm occasionally.

Mon Oct 21, 2019 8:40 am

1-2 do not have pressed on hubs, also there is no such thing as a "super beetle" trans. Did you go thru any water?

Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:24 am

It was raining in mountains pretty bad but I’d been on dry roads for 100 miles or so. Transmission once lived in a Superbeetle. It’s a 3.88 r&p IRS.

Mon Oct 21, 2019 11:34 am

Might be time for new pressure plate, new disc, and have the flywheel resurfaced or replaced.

Mon Oct 21, 2019 1:29 pm

While the motor is out inspect the forks on the cross-shaft?

Might be starting to crack?

Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:47 pm

maybe the cable was getting hung up or the throw out shaft is getting hung from binding or something like a broken or dismounted bowden tube.

could an animal have left a big acorn on top of your transmission and it fell and got stuck behind the throw out shaft so it couldn't return all the way, then after driving awhile it fell out and now is working properly. sounds crazy...probably not the problem....but this kind stuff happens.