Mexican Bellhousing input shaft

[MarkWard]

Have a vanagon with an engine conversion in the shop that appears to have a Mexican upright bellhousing for an inline engine. The input shaft pilot bearing was wiped out and the input shaft end is galled badly.

Eurospec/Overland parts seems to have closed up. Looking for a replacement input shaft to work with the Mexican bell housing. It is quite a bit longer than the gasser or diesel ones.

Thank you.
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[djkeev]

A Mexican Bellhousing?

Please tell us more, what does that mean?

How does it differ from a German one?

I've seen a bell housing made from an old wheel rim, that was some post years ago in a "3rd" World Country.

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

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[crazyvwvanman]

In Mexico they produced watercooled Bay Window Buses in the late 90s and early 00s. These were VW inline 4 engines mounted "upright" since the Bay engine compartment was tall enough. Since the trannys were based on 091, the bell housing VW made for these vehicles can also fit Vanagon trannys. There is a special VW input shaft, etc along with the special VW bell housing. These special VW parts were sold in the US for use in engine conversions, usually TDIs. Some people used them rather than use an adapter plate from Kennedy. Most people prefer the Vanagon diesel engine mounting angle since it better clears the lower Vanagon engine lid and the Vanagon diesel parts are in far greater supply than the Mexican upright mounting parts. Since the later TDI engines have a different block that doesn't lend itself to using the Vanagon diesel mounting angle there is a demand for the "upright" mounting stuff too.

Mark

[Escorial Syncro]

I researched this Mexican option a few years ago. At that time I was directed to German Transaxle as having a few of these setups. You might try them for spare parts like an input shaft. Just a thought. Joel
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Joel Lane
1985 Vanagon converted to syncro, ALH TDI, Reimo Primus top with Westy interior
2002 Toyota Tundra 4x4
1974 Honda CL360 Scrambler (for sale!)

[MarkWard]

Joel I will. Otherwise we will weld it up and machine it back. Mark thanks for posting the details of the bellhousing setup. I’ve always been aware of these and thought they were common. Based on my experience with this one, probably no longer a viable solution for inline engines in vanagon.
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[mackaymanx]

In the gallery

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[Vanagon Nut]

[MarkWard]

Neil, the problem is that the OD is a precision fit into the pilot bearing. The speedi sleeves are more suited to lip type seals that have some room for give. It end could be machined down to fit a sleeve or a brass bushing that might be fitted. Just trying to keep it stock for the moment. There is enough material front and back of where it was damaged that we have a reference. Time is money though and a replacement shaft would end up saving the owner money over trying to save his.
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[Wildthings]

I have certain seen some pretty nasty looking shafts that still seemed to function well and give long life to the pilot bearing. If the shaft is badly enough eaten up and a better one can not be found, then the shaft could be turned down slightly to good metal and a custom pilot BUSHING made.

[Vanagon Nut]

[vwwestyman]

Hey! Those are my pics! Glad I didn't have to dig for them myself.

ha ha

Don't quote me on this because it has been 5 or 6 years, but I am pretty sure when I bought all the Mexican parts (I paid a guy who lived in El Paso to make a trip across the border to a Mexican salvage yard) he neglected to get me the input shaft.

I seem to remember being able to order one from Weddle. It seemed like they were buying Mexican transmissions to get parts and had a pile of 'em.
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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[vwwestyman]

Here are a lot more pics and such with regards to the Mexican Bellhousing. I've been talking to Samba member Wheely Applegate aka Dave G about this. He's got an AHU in a Vanagon that has burned up a regular clutch or two, utilizing the old Eurospec kit that used the Mexican bellhousing too.

To bring everyone up to speed: The Mexcian setup uses a bellhousing that is uniquely deeper than any Bus or Vanagon transmission we got in the US. Our theory is that at least one reason for this is to push the engine back a little and give clearance for the head coolant outlet.

As stock, it uses the same clutch disc and pressure plate as a Bus or Vanagon. The flywheel has a sort of "snout" to put the clutch/ring gear in the right position, and also a longer input shaft to correspond with all this.

So far, Dave and I have worked out that to use a DMF with this bellhousing, we will need to:

*Figure out how to move the flywheel/ring gear further away from the engine block, to put the ring gear in the same position as the Mexcian flywheel, and theoretically also put the fingers for the throwout bearing in the right position. This will likely be through having a spacer made, and is the main focus of the pics.

*Have an input shaft that has the correct splines to accept the DMF's clutch disc, but is longer than the currently-available product. I believe the overall length would need to be the same due to the fact that it sits in the bearing in the crank. Splines certainly need to be in about the same place, though it seems there should be a little leeway in exactly where they are.

*Maybe get a new starter adapter that pushes the starter out slightly? (See comments by pic below)

*Maybe somehow also deal with where the surface of the flywheel where the engine side of the clutch lands? (It is deeper into the flywheel on the Mexican and original Bay flywheel, though also that seems to be made up for by the pressure plate clamp side.)

Anyway, a bunch of pics.

First, pics of the starter and current adapter. I bought this from Karl Mullendore back when he started making them, in like 2012 or 2013. It may have even been a prototype. I modified it somewhat to work on this bellhousing.

Now, the Mexican flywheel. (For all the flywheel/ring gear depth pics, I had the dust cover removed from the block and mounted the flywheels. One end of the gauge was against the block, the other against the teeth.)

These are the DMF:

And 1997 Passat TDI:

Crank side of DMF and Mexcian comparison:

Mexican crank side:

DMF crank side:

Passat TDI crank side:

Comparisons of all three. Order is Passat, DMF, Mexcian in all of them.

Crank side:

Clutch side:

All three with their clutches:

So I think that if the ring gear ends up in the same position, that the clutch will work itself out. I was nervous about the depth of the Mexcian flywheel's clutch area (about an inch) compared to the DMF's (about a quarter inch) but the Bus clutch disc surface of the pressure plate also protrudes into that space, whereas the other two clutches it isn't as deep and the pressure plate doesn't protrude correspondingly. Does all that make sense?

Mexican flywheel depth:

DMF depth:

I also wonder about the starter adapter... If the adapter's Karl sells/sold were made to go with the larger DMF/Passat ring gear, then maybe I've just gotten lucky with it spinning mine. There is a difference in the diameters of roughly 3/16 inch (sorry, I should probably buy a metric ruler sometime!) It almost looks like my starter wasn't engaging with about half of the teeth on the Mexcian flywheel, which means perhaps with the larger flywheel, it would still work with this starter and actually engage more of the teeth?

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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[MarkWard]

The larger diameter input shaft that works with the dual mass flywheel is the same length as the stock diesel input shaft. In other words, it’s the shortest. I applaud your effort, but you’ll need a way to move the pilot bearing out towards the bell housing. If the goal is to shim the DMF away from the crank, your spacer might be able to incorporate the pilot bearing relocation. Or 2 pieces instead. A flywheel spacer and as second that one end would be solid that presses in place of the original pilot bearing and a cup on the opposite end to hold the pilot bearing in its new location.

Makes sense to adapt to off the shelf parts for future wear. Sorry if you already addressed the pilot bearing and I missed it. On my first cup of coffee.
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[vwwestyman]

[MarkWard]

My DMF came as a complete assembly. The flywheel bolts were already inserted. It did not look like something that was meant to be taken apart. So, substituting a disc might have some challenges.

At this point, I'd probably abandon the mexico bellhousing and go a different route. I recall reading recently about a company in the UK that was making an adapter so you could run the diesel bellhousing, but with an upright engine and DMF with the proper input shaft for the TDI. Ultimate Engineering. I purchaseed and oil pan adpater recently and was a good experience. Tim Shettle was who I dealt with. Probably worth checking with.
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[vwwestyman]

[MarkWard]

I understand. We drive our vanagon all over the country. It needs to be reliable and if something fails easily fixed with hopefully off the shelf parts.

When Eurospec was selling the Mexican Bellhousing setup, I was impressed with the idea.I owned a bus at the time.
We had a Vanagon owner with a TDI mated to a Mexican Bellhousing that had destroyed the input shaft. We were lucky to find probably the last one in North America. I believe we had Kennedy build a stage 2 clutch built for it and had a machine shop grind the flywheel to ensure the "step" was correct. Eventually it all went back together. Now that the clutch could handle the power, eventually it ate the transmission.

Its always the weakest link that fails. I ran a stock NA 1.6 diesel flywheel and clutch for 40,000 miles with zero problems. It started to slip on hard acceleration from a stop shifting into 3rd. I went with the upgraded input shaft and a TDI single mass flywheel setup. Another 20,000 miles and the transmission was done. It took the van off the road for six months during Covid. Fortunately we were home. I believe in the DMF setup. Still the plan it to tear the transaxle down at 60,000 and see what wear occurs. I'm watching your thread. Good luck.
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[OlisGarage]

[vwwestyman]

That is good information about the flywheel spacer.

It seems that the difference between the Mexican flywheel and the DMF is right around 18mm, and you say the spacer is 15mm. I wonder if that 3 mm difference is critical in this application?

For David and I to use your solution, it would require buying not only the spacer and inputshaft, but also bellhousing and adapters. Which probably starts to come close to the cost of having the input shafts we need custom made.
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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[?Waldo?]

I did not read through all the posts yet, so maybe this has already been covered.

Can you just dispense with the crank spacer and instead mill the contact face of the Mexican bell housing so that you remove the same thickness as the spacer? That would allow the DMF to mount directly to the crank AND reduce the distance the engine needs to move back.