New clutch slippage, engine chirp, and general grabbers suck ;)

[YosemiteBound]

Soooooooo,

Just had the vanagon in pretty good shape. Rebuilt 1.9 in April. New clutch put in a few weeks ago. New slave, new tie rods, new tires, new alignment. New fuel and coolant lines and hoses, fuel tank reseal etc....

Our Westy was feeling good. Just had some upgrades I was looking forward to getting to. Then, we decided to take it to Huntington Beach for the air show....

Halfway home - on the 5 - my clutch started slipping again. What the heck? I just had a new clutch put in. I didn't do it myself. I had a local mechanic that came recommended by a samba friend. Who had done his clutch years ago and is still going strong.

Clutch started slipping in 4th. Blasting up to 5k RPMS without gaining any speed or momentum. Mainly up hills. A little bit in 3rd, but mainly in 4th. The pedal now feels different. It engages now way further out than it did a couple weeks ago when I first got it back from the shop. It felt perfect. Now it feels like it did when it was slipping last month... before the clutch job. We got it home okay. First and second seem fine.

Why would a new clutch slip? Any ideas? The slave was replaced but not the master.

THEN we got off the freeway to take surface streets home and my wife says - hey what's that chirping noise? Sure enough the engine is chirping. I pulled the mattress out and had a look - thinking it was just a belt - but nope. It's shaking and chirping. Why would that happen at the same time? Dumb luck? That can't be related to clutch slippage in any way I imagine.

I took a video of it. It isn't at acceleration as that levels the engine out. It seems more at idle. Also the engine is shaking more than I've noticed before.

Lemme know what you think from the video (I can't seem to embed it)?


Link

I called the guy who did the clutch and he said he'll take a look on Tuesday. He said - regarding the chirping - it couldn't be a motor mount as they had a look at those when they were in there for the clutch. And they seemed fine. I dunno.

And THEN we make it home and I hop out and notice a large tumor sticking out of my brand new General Grabber tires. Has anyone seen anything like this? These tires are a week old.

I know everything can be fixed. But we picked up this rig about three months ago and have sunk a ton into parts and fixes already (me doing what I can - being a newb). It has 130k miles on it. Is that the problem? It's time for all to fail? Of course it's starting to feel like a money pit. And we were due to take it up to NorCal next month and a three week winter trip to Canada and WA in December. Very unsure about that as something seems to fail with every day trip.

I realize it's an old vehicle. And that I am going to need to know how to fix things... I just didn't realize it would all happen so fast. Just about every little day trip we've taken with it something has broken. Still love driving it though.
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1985 Westy Round Headlights "Liam"

[sjbartnik]

[YosemiteBound]

[sjbartnik]

yeah you would have noticed one that would do that!
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[Sodo]

Whoever sold you that tire will replace it.

Clutch is not cool. Sorry about that. Clutches are pretty reliable, this is strange.

130,000 miles is a nice, low miles van. Get it dialed in and you have a good long run ahead of you. Many vans are in the 300s.

Change your transaxle lubricant so you KNOW its clean. If thats an OEM 130k trans you wanna keep as many of the original gears and shafts as possible by changing oil as often as you can tolerate, like every 15,000. Or 30,000 next time if the magnet was real clean at 15.

MKeep in mind there are some OEM parts that may break between 150k & 200k and cause trouble. There’s something to be said for using this time to find a transaxle repair shop that you trust, and have them change the bearings and “3rd/4th hub” soon before the hub breaks. It’s called a “rebuild”. But doing it this way (before it breaks) you keep all your own valuable lowmiles OEM gears together. Don’t trade your 130k trans for an off-the-shelf rebuilt trans that might have 400k miles. You’ll just make some other fella real lucky.
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'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[YosemiteBound]

Thanks Sodo. Just got it replaced for free. America's Tire. They said it was a defect and checked the others. Bizarre. I did drive it over there - as it's pretty close and it looked even worse. Bulging in multiple areas. Can't believe I made it.

Regarding the clutch the mechanic is going to look at it on Tuesday. He said he thought it might be the master cylinder or the hydraulic system needs bleeding. Would those things cause slippage?

And did anyone watch that video? Just normal chirping and movement? Nothing to worry about? I hope. Just hadn't heard it before. And the engine looks a little more shaky than I remember.
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1985 Westy Round Headlights "Liam"

[danfromsyr]

the clutch pedal slave and or master will not cause slippage unless you are riding around with your left foot on the left most pedal..
which you shouldn't. but I've seen some driver's who learned/were taught that.. so I don't assume either way..

left foot rests on the floor while driving..

clutch slippage is either from worn clutch disc, worn/weak pressure plate or oil on the clutch from the rear main or transaxle front seal..
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[YosemiteBound]

[Wildthings]

If the clutch pedal engagement point has risen up fromr the floor higher than normal it could be a blockage in the clutch hydraulic system somewhere that is not letting the pressure to fully bleed off and thus not allowing the clutch to engage fully, so yes a bad clutch master or slave cylinder is suspect. If the rod between the clutch pedal and the cylinder is too long it could cause this as well.

That said your engine vibration would be an indication that the clutch lining is falling apart and thus might be the cause of the slippage as well.

These rigs get better with time, though it is a long continuous search to find decent quality parts. 20 years ago I would never have expected a new clutch disc to blow apart in normal driving, while today such failures have become all too common.

[E1]

It's pretty easy to get a marginal/warped clutch to chatter (or maybe pressure plate warps first...?).

The way to avoid chatter to highest probability is to rev it a hair, and let the clutch out pretty quickly and not give it much throttle until the clutch is fully engaged.

Chatter does its thing best when giving throttle while letting the clutch out, if indeed there's some warpage.

As with all such tests, best if done when remote and relaxed, and not when an Amtrak is coming.
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‘84 Westy, 2.1L with Digijet, 5.43 R+P, GT Gears
"Adding power makes you faster on the straights.
Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere."
— Colin Chapman

[Abscate]

Once the clutch starts slipping, you start overheating and damaging the pressure plate and flywheel, so park it and get the engine out and get the job done.

Tire is just a defect as you found out.

Get it done and back to fun!
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.ssS!

[djkeev]

Before you embark on your big trips, schedule in a lot more small trips. Start driving it to work, to the grocery store, Mom's house for Sunday dinner.

One problem with these Vans is that they sit........ a lot!

Almost all,of us have "better" cars for commuting and errands.

Sitting is absolutely horrible for automobiles. Many systems that are usually trouble free can become troublesome in a surprisingly short period of time from simply sitting.

Short trips will allow you to work out the gremlins while being close to home and have the ability to fix it in the comfort of your garage, rather than a dirt pull off spot on a major highway.

I redid my 86 front to rear and side to side.
Sadly, it sits quite a bit unused. I just rebuilt the front brakes because of rust that built up from simply sitting,

Dave
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Ghia
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=392473

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http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6315537#6315537

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[Wasted youth]

My opinions on this are not backed by many years of Vanagon experience...

Clutch: I agree with Wildthings; the clutch is operated by the team effort of the Clutch Master Cylinder above your feet and the Slave or relay cylinder on the driver’s side of the transmission. If that fluid flow somehow is held captive... either by a chunk of crap in the tubing, or by a mal-adjusted unit, then the fluid might be keeping the slave in operation, when it should relax. If that happens, then the clutch action hangs up. Like Abscate notes, once that begins the clutch plate might start to glaze which creates more chance for slippage. You start to go down a slippery slope at that point until it’s just awful.

Poor quality Clutch M/C and Slave units have been a problem for a long time, just like bad ‘brand new’ wheel cylinders. Get a strong flashlight and take a close look at the Slave unit on the transmission (driver side, just ahead of bell housing) if it looks wet, that’s a problem.

My money is on the system of Master and Slave. Work through that first before you get ass deep and change the clutch again. You might get away with fixing the Master/Slave system. Your clutch “might” not have glazed over too much and you “might” get lucky.

Chirp: I watched your video. To me, the chirp is a result of something that is loose or chafing. The chirp is a product of a shaking engine, not the chirp causing the engine to shake. Note how it happen right after the engine shakes? So that is a concern, but the biggest concern is why your engine is now erratic. Lots of possibilities there. Loose wiring or vacuum tubing causing engine ‘miss’

You will need to figure out what is causing your erratic lope/miss. It’s not constant and even, so that tells me it is probably not something internal like bent pushrod hanging up valve action. To me, it seems like it is probably a loose vacuum hose ready to detach or a wire related to primary ignition with a bad connection or small break. Might be a fuel injector plug that is loose... they have small square wire clips holding the plug on, but most of the time the plastic plugs are cracked.

I also agree with djkeev that cars that sit are prone to cultivating annoying problems. Seals dry out and you start getting leaks. Gas tanks start to rust inside. Wiring connections start to corrode. Rubber grommets get hard and latches start to stick. Brake fluid turns to shit.

[MarkWard]

Do you know if the shop that did the clutch had the flywheel resurfaced? If not, that may be a problem. If they did, they would most likely have sent it out to a machine shop and they may have mismachined the step. Both could affect the clamping.

New parts fail. It's a pain when a part so buried does not hold up. For info, the first time you sense a clutch slipping. You need to immediately back out of the power. It needs to cool back down. It sounds like you just kept going and my bet is when the trans comes out, the flywheel will be blued from heat.

It takes a lot of time and money to make a vanagon cross country worthy. Our 82 has had every thing looked at with one exception. The rear wheel bearings are original.
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[Abscate]

Ghosting mark...

The classic machine job fubar is resurfacing the flywheel and forgetting to take off the same from the pressure plate mount face.

This reduces the pressure on the clutch disc....leading to slippage.
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.ssS!

[YosemiteBound]

Wow. Thank you so much for all of the replies.

It sounds like it could be something fairly simple like the hydraulic system/cylinders. And replacing those could fix the clutch issue and the shake/chirp. OR it's major... and I need to go through all of my vacuum hoses etc and possibly replace my clutch again AND the flywheel etc.

I guess I'll see what this mechanic says on Tuesday. Hopefully he's a master diagnostician. I'll keep everyone posted. Is the consensus that he should do right by this clutch? He replaced it two weeks ago. Or, if it needs to be replaced and the fly wheel etc that's going to cost me... my wife is going to kill me.
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1985 Westy Round Headlights "Liam"

[Igeo]

Did he give some kind of warranty on the clutch? The guy will very probably bleed the system first as he most assuredly would (should !) have done as part of the install. If that doesn't work, as I suspect it won't, he will have to pull it apart to to investigate. The sudden higher engagement point suggests the flywheel wasn't properly resurfaced as previously mentioned. As the disk slips and wears thin due to insufficient clamping, then the engagement point rises. Did the clutch feel like it was gripping strongly when you first picked it up?

As for your shake at idle, can you hear the irregularity at the exhaust? A good mechanic knows how to perform a power balance test to isolate the weak cylinder if one exists. You should definitely he checking all vacuum lines first though.

[Wasted youth]

[Sodo]

[jberger]

Maybe I missed this.. but is there oil dripping from the bell housing? Can you see oil on the back of the flywheel through the flex plate bolt access hole? I would guess your clutch plate is contaminated with oil.

J