Building a better Vanagon automatic transaxle

[Butcher]

I would not waste your time/money on cleaning/flushing anything. With that much debris, there is something that is not right and the only way you are going to find the cause is to disassemble it.

Something is obviously wrong. Certainly more than Type F.

[h00drat]

[vwhammer]

[h00drat]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[kourt]

[danfromsyr]

all I can see this doing is grinding more swarf out of wherever it's being removed from.
better to drink $17 or your favorite beverage and get on with R&R the transaxle.

[vwhammer]

[kourt]

Got it--I stand corrected. And even though his website says:

"I'm dedicated to providing reliable, high quality manual transaxles and service. I specialize in all models of VW, and many other manufacturers of manual transaxles."

...he does have a photo of an automatic transaxle on there. Good to know this is another resource for our community. Thanks for chiming in.

kourt

[MarkWard]

Did you check the pressures per the manual? That swarf is bad. Your description of moving and not sounds like the splines on the pump shaft or turbine shaft failed. Flush it till the cows come home. It’s toast. Sorry. If you do put it together, put a pressure gauge on it using the test port.
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[AtlasShrugged]

Just my 2 cents...That is a lot of swarf in the pan for 3k miles. It looks like fiber/friction material and some bright metals too.

It looks like the clutch pack(s) are wearing out rapidly.

I have seen this when I internationally tightened up the clutch pack(s) end play to get a more firm shift. I played with the "C" clip thickness and pressure plate thickness. The experiment did not do well. The forward clutch and D/R clutch wore out very quickly.

If possible I use the tighter end of spec. No more.

I dont think a flush and fill will help. The torque converter will be full of junk and will re-distribute that mess again and again.

Bite the bullet and carefully disassemble the transmission. Find out what happened. On reassembly check that the correctly marked frictions are in the correct clutch packs and the end play is good.

And get a rebuilt torque converter or have a reputable shop flush out your old TC. The contamination in the TC, if reused, can damage a perfectly rebuilt transmission.

[Butcher]

I can assure you all that metal and clutch parts are not from the valve body. By spending the time and effort to R&R and D&A the valve body to clean it, will not result in finding the root cause of all the material that is floating around.

It is possible that the valve body caused a clutch failure, but you still need to find the cause of all that swarf. That can only be done with a disassembly.

Do as you wish but it is a total waste of time unless you are a unscrupulous used car lot.

[vwhammer]

[ALIKA T3]

[AtlasShrugged]

[sandcough]

Matt did a great job on my automatic. Highly recommended.

[h00drat]

For some reason I stopped receiving email notifications on this thread, so I missed a lot of comments here. Wasn't ignoring you guys.

At any rate, I'll start working on pulling the trans and tearing into it tonight.

Appreciate all of the insight thus far.
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<<Tyler>>
1987.5 Wolfsburg Weekender / CHC / 2.0 ABA
CHC Top Thread
Engine Conversion Thread (2.0 ABA Swap)
ABA Swap - Image Gallery
Auto Trans Rebuild - Image Gallery

[vwhammer]

Well kiddos I finally got around to starting to reassemble my trans but I found something that I don't think anyone has mentioned in this thread.
I will get to that in a sec but first...

If anyone was paying attention, you may recall that the frictions and steels in the direct drive assembly from my Audi trans were pretty wrecked.

Here are some pic of the steels that I did not show before.

A pic of the only good one in the bunch compared to the bad one.

Also found some concerning marks on the final thick plate for the pack.
For starters it looks like it is scratched all to poop.
There are a lot of marks that just look like scratches

Then there are all of these weird marks that look like it is coated in glass and it cracked.

I am going to take it to work tomorrow and check it out under the microscope and maybe do a little light sanding on one of our surface plates to see if I can clean it up some without removing too much material.

I believe on this pack the play in the pack is actually adjusted by picking retaining rings of different thicknesses.
I might be able to take enough off that it won't matter but worst case I have to find a new ring of proper thickness and diameter.

Anyway, back to that thing that I was talking about.
Naturally I wondered why the direct drive clutches were so jacked up in the first place.

On this note I also found something else interesting.
I rigged up a quick and dirty way to relieve the pressure on the spring plate while I removed the retaining ring.

The Bently states that there are 24 springs that push the applicator piston back on the Vanagon trans.

However, in the assembly from my Audi trans, there are clearly only 16 springs.

Maybe I missed it but did anyone else notice this in their upgrade/rebuild?

I am going to tear the Vanagon DD assembly apart and count coils and measure the wire diameter on the springs to see if they are the same just so I have some comparison.

I now also want to compare all the bores and springs in the valve bodies from both the Vanagon and the Audi to see if maybe I can come up with a reason why there are fewer springs on the Audi unit.

I would like to know for sure that this is indeed the number of springs that this thing should have.

I have no reason to believe this trans has been disassembled in the past but the scratches in the main trust plate or whatever it's called and a 34% reduction in the number of return springs makes me think.

Other than that I did manage to get my forward clutch assembly back together.

Decided to store it in a safe place until I sort all the other bits out.

Going to keep crackin' with the research and rebuild this week in the hopes that I have a complete unit by the end of the week.

Until then...

[MarkWard]

I’d say it was someone’s idea to modify the spring tension against the apply piston. 99% sure it’s not original. I could check my Audi manuals if it’s a bet. I have a complete drum from an early vanagon 010 from an air cooled that had the same gearing as the pre 84 Audi. Would gladly sell it on to you. It has no swarf. You can PM me here. Mark
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[vwhammer]