Club 80-90 Forums

Terrible day today, woke up with a streaming cold and a bad head, but I wanted to get my clutch sorted out, so I spent 8hrs faffing about. Still got a stinking cold and headache but now I'm fed up as well because the damm clutch still doesn't work.

My van is a 1990 Syncro, 2.1MV, I've just swapped gearbox and front diff so I can have diff locks. I've put a new Sachs clutch in and changed the Clutch fork for a new one.

After fixing a leaky pipe, I seemed to have trouble getting air out of the clutch pipework, eventually once the air was out the clutch was still soft but no leaks either from pipework, master cylinder or slave, it was only actuating the clutch at the very end of the pedal stroke.

Swapped over the slave for a spare I had (wow, that's a nice job to do on your own, without lowering the box or removing the water pipes, makes the 2wd seem like a doddle). Noticed the shaft out of the replacement slave cylinder was 3-4mm longer. With the new slave I proved the piston does come all the way down when the clutch is pressed, I'm now getting more movement but still not enough. I'm happy with the hydraulic side of things.

The ball on the clutch actuating arm is a bit worn, surely not enough to stop it working. Did I put the arm back on the end of the clutch fork correctly? It's hard to get it wrong surely, there are serrations to line up, can't see that being wrong.

Have I got the clutch disc the wrong way round?

Tried to space the slave cylinder bracket back by adding washer to where it bolts to the bell housing, thus giving more down movement to the clutch arm. I'm almost getting enough movement buy not quite enough. Can't see why i don't get enough movement.

With the slave cylinder removed, there is free movement on the clutch actuator, is this correct? How much movement should there be?

I've noticed someone has elongated the holes on the support bar that strengthens the slave cylinder bracket. Also the gear change in this van with the old gearbox was always very hard but the clutch that came out was almost like new.

Right I'm fed up, I'm going to have a few beers and get some sleep, maybe it'll make sense in the morning. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

thanks

Where did you get the clutch release fork, Not from just kampers or GSF I hope?
I bought one from Just Kampers a couple of years back and the groove that dictates the location of the arm had been manufactured in the wrong place. went to GSF and theirs was from the same manufacturer (danish company) and exactly the same.
There was no way it was going to work. I ended up bashing poor old Adiens ears (still owe him some beers for that) for a good forty minutes.
Eventually after a couple of days I sussed it out and ended up buying a second hand bellhousing to get me out of the s**te.
I thought exactly what you are saying, have I fitted the clutch plate the wrong way round ect..ect....
Also the arm had to bashed on where as Aiden said the arm should have slid on and off relatively easily.
Rob.

A definate possibility, I was told it was NOS from VW but I've got no way of being sure. Intresting you said the actuating arm should just push on, I was just reading that on the Samba, no way would mine push on.

Just been wondering if I had the wrong clutch (number matches what came out) or if the syncro used differnt slave cylinder, etc from the 2wd, that didn't make sense and Part numbers all seem to be the same.

Looks like gearbox will be coming out again next weekend, can't wait, followed by an order to Aiden.

slaves vary FAG or ATE both also available as pattern, the better one has the reinforced nylon cup on the end of the pushrod, the other one has a black nylon cup which wears badly on the arm, but they are both correct; however they are different internally and have different length pushrods so you can't mix and match parts from them as they have the same stroke but different start point. GSF selling nice reinforced cup version at the mo, pattern, no country of origin on the label but it seems to be ok, germanic name on the box I forget which it is
I only use genuine clutch forks as all the pattern parts seem to have faults in size, allignment or welding or all three, genuine ones aren't cheap (£55+ retail) and it's worthwhile if you have welding facilities to rebuild the tips and grind them back to shape and regharden them, you need to remove the fork from the bellhousing to do this successfully as the heat involved will muller the nylon bush and rubber gland seals if you do it insitu
RJES will soon have new clutch forks available to suit various clutch set ups including standard VW a bit cheaper than the VW ones so I'll probably use those going forward
remember peeps copperslip on the back of the release bearing tabs where the fork sits, generous blob

Any news?

just for information, actually worked on a customers van yesterday and there is about 10mm of free movement in the arm with the slave off and about 15-25mm of travel in operation

I’ve had no time to work on the van through the week and probably won’t work on it this weekend as the wife and kids are off to Europe next week (complete with VW shopping list) so should spend some time with them. Wednesday will be the next chance.

About 10mm of free movement is what I had but I’m not getting 15-25mm of movement, it’s definately noticeably less than the movement I get on my 2wd vans. I’ve ordered a new slave cylinder to compare.

I’m going to experiment with a longer slave cylinder rod made from bolts, see picture below which came from the samba to prove a point before stripping anything down.

pattern, no country of origin on the label but it seems to be ok, germanic name on the box I forget which it is

Would that be schalburg or something like that?
Rob.

Quick update,

Managed to get a couple of hours on the van last night. Put a nut above the slave cylinder push rod, giving about 15mm extra possible travel. Finally i can select all gears and my van drives. The new clutch feels great.

I'm no longer hitting the bottom of the slave cylinder. In reality I think I only needed 2 or 3mm extra movement, couldn't find my vernier to do any measurements. I'll measure up at the weekend and finalise the solution.

Wish I'd never bothered with that new selector fork.