TheSamba.com :: View topic

Wed May 31, 2023 7:38 pm

Hi All,

Any recommendations for grease type for clutch cross shaft?

The shaft obviously had moly grease still in place and working well from the factory after 50 years.

As it goes back together, I am tempted to use Permatex Synthetic Grease as I have been very impressed with it and it is safe on the rubber seals in the brass bushing. These seals look perfect surprisingly. Bushings don’t appear to have significant wear.

(It is also interesting that the smaller bushing (photo below) has a checkerboard appearance, almost like it is designed to hold the moly grease. Thoughts?)

( I had a cheap floor fan and it started making a racket after a year due to poor lubrication on the motor bearings. Tried all sorts of lubricants that lasted a matter of months. Finally used the Permatex and no problems for over 7 years. Great stuff!)

Wondering if a bad idea to go away from Moly grease, although may not have any.

Thanks!

Wed May 31, 2023 9:33 pm

It worked for 50 years......

Thu Jun 01, 2023 4:42 am

Moly if that was what was there. For 3 reasons the bushes are pourus grease retaining so they will have residual grease in them even cleaned and will react and break down with a different grease as the majority of different types of grease are non compatible.
The other reason is the moly grease is designed for high loads at low to medium speed as they have extremely low frictions coefficients and stick to the load areas, that's why it is used in cv joints but not in high speed wheel bearings as the extremely low friction coefficient can allow needle/ball bearings to skid at high speed across the surface at times and allow the needle/balls to be out of sink at times leading to scuffing. The other reason is moly grease is designed to stick to the load service . So even though synthetic sounds better moly is actually better at staying where it's needed and as it's friction coef. is better for this specific purpose moly is the one ,but is too iregular at high speed.
Are you sure it is not clutch spindle shaft grease in there. As they are quite similar to moly but for even lower speeds and even more capable to stay in situ in the load areas and I would of thought vw for manufacturing efficiency would of used the same for both.

Thu Jun 01, 2023 7:06 am

your clutch return spring is broken. I use CV joint grease.

Fri Jun 02, 2023 9:54 pm

Nitramrebrab72 wrote: Moly if that was what was there. For 3 reasons the bushes are pourus grease retaining so they will have residual grease in them even cleaned and will react and break down with a different grease as the majority of different types of grease are non compatible.
The other reason is the moly grease is designed for high loads at low to medium speed as they have extremely low frictions coefficients and stick to the load areas, that's why it is used in cv joints but not in high speed wheel bearings as the extremely low friction coefficient can allow needle/ball bearings to skid at high speed across the surface at times and allow the needle/balls to be out of sink at times leading to scuffing. The other reason is moly grease is designed to stick to the load service . So even though synthetic sounds better moly is actually better at staying where it's needed and as it's friction coef. is better for this specific purpose moly is the one ,but is too iregular at high speed.
Are you sure it is not clutch spindle shaft grease in there. As they are quite similar to moly but for even lower speeds and even more capable to stay in situ in the load areas and I would of thought vw for manufacturing efficiency would of used the same for both.

That is excellent information and much appreciated I was thinking the bushings could be porous, so what you are saying about incompatibility makes perfect sense. And very educational about low speed versus high speed grease.

The remaining problem is that I don’t know that it is moly instead of clutch spindle shaft grease. Moly was the only dark VW classic grease that I was aware of. Does anyone know what VW originally used on the clutch cross shaft?

Sat Jun 03, 2023 4:14 pm

It appears that clutch spline grease is low fling molybdenum, so this should work on the clutch cross shaft bearings.

This clutch spline grease on Amazon is well rated: (Sachs 4200 080 050)

https://www.amazon.com/Sachs-4200-080-050-Clutch-S...&psc=1

I see there is a genuine VW clutch spline grease also: VAG G000100

https://www.amazon.ca/Grease-splines-Convertible-Corrado-G000100/dp/B0199I15YS

Thanks all!

Sun Jun 04, 2023 6:26 am

runamoc wrote: your clutch return spring is broken. I use CV joint grease.

Thanks for the observation about the broken return spring. I need a new one. And yes, CV grease should work fine also if moly based, as most are I think.

Cheers