Release bearing blues

[HotVWheels]

Guess it's everyones worst fear, stepping on the clutch pedal and with a faint 'click' sound - NO CLUTCH :shock:

Well, friends that is exactly what happened to me yesterday afternoon while driving the Bay, and guess where? At 15:30 on the N1 highway heading South, just before the Rigel offramp at the East of Pretoria. Generally regarded as one of the busiest roads in South Africa, and with the current road works, a nightmare.

Well I limped to the nearest garage after pulling over to the side of the road and starting the Bus with first gear engaged. (Never knew it is possible to change gears without a clutch, but it is indeed. Not easy, but possible, one tends to learn fast with some BIG trucks behind you :shock: The trick is to rev the engine a bit in Neutral, wait for the revs to come down, and then gently slip the lever into gear. )

At the garage I climbed down under the Bus, and much to my surprise found that the clutch cable was still in one piece. OK, release bearing then?

I managed the 60km home by the R21 road on a wing and a prayer (that is past the OR Tambo Airport, and on the R24, another VERY BUSY road), and with some luck and a lot of help from Above I got home before dark. All the traffic lights were green for me when I got to them (first time ever) :shock: and not once did the traffic come to a complete standstill, which would have been fatal for me...

So I took leave today, and started early this morning to pull the engine of the Bus, sequence more or less as follows:

- Disconnect Battery
- Loosen petrol pipe and block to stop flow of VERY EXPENSIVE petrol
- Loosen accelator cable
- Disconnect all electric terminals and unbolt terminals from altenator
- Remove air filter
- Remove rear bumper
- Remove rear valance
- Jack Bus up and support gearbox with stand
- Remove 4 nuts bolting engine to gearbox - OOPS! - top nuts are hard to reach so
- Remove rear wheels to access top engine bolts, and support Bus on stands
- Found that top right bolt loosens from the inside of the engine compartment - DUH - so right rear wheel removed unneccesary
- Unbolt rubber dampers from rear crossmember
- Put trolley jack under engine, and seperate from gearbox
- Lower engine and pull clear from Bus

Well after all the above was finished (and it sounds easier than it was :? ), I had a first look at the release bearing, and this is what I saw:

The release bearing had completely broken apart, and the 2 spring clips were broken too ! No wonder there were no clutch...
What you see below is usually supposed to be 1 piece, with the clips attached to it :shock:

Clutch luckily looked fine, and not damaged. I don't like these '3-finger' clutches, but I'll replace it later

So I jumped in the pool and had a good scrub in the shower afterwards and quickly went to town to get a new release bearing with the wife's car. Luckily Midas had one at a reasonable R 60.00. Got back home, smeared some grease on the sliding tube, and put the new bearing in. I'm not gonna bore you with the replacement sequence of the engine, but it is basically the removal sequence above, in reverse :wink:

Was luckily in time to fetch the wife from work, so the 25 km test drive in peak Friday afternoon traffic, was succesful *sighs relief*

Looking back, what worries me is that this happened quite suddenly yesterday, and except for a faint 'krrrrrrrrrr' sound when the clutch was engaged a few days earlier, there were no other warning that I was due for such a fatal malfunction. Imagine this happening while on tour, you would at least use a day to remove and replace the engine! I'm still a bit worried about the quality of the new bearing, but it was the only one I could get.

 

[Araon]

Your clutch slider appears to be a metal one? instead of the standard plastic slider or am I wrong...

I know theres some pressure on the bearing but that looks a bit severe...

60K and no clutch :lol: a few people following curseing VWs then :lol:

 

[HotVWheels]

Hi Araon, the slider (part that bolts to the gearbox) is indeed metal, don't think I've ever seen it plastic? The inner part of the release bearing (part that slides over the 'slider') is plastic though. I think the old bearing just seized, I do a lot of peak traffic city driving, so it works hard.

 

[halfpint_fighter]

Glad it all got sorted in the end. reminds me of 'Little Miss Sunshine'.

 

[HotVWheels]

Haven't seen it yet?

 

[halfpint_fighter]

Basically they are driving across America in a VW camper to get to a beauty competition and the clutch breaks.

The garage can't get the part in time but tells him to bump start it in second and then shift without a clutch. Cue lot's of funny scenes of the family chasing the camper trying to jump in!

Oh and then the horn gets stuck on :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWyH_twcMl0

 

[HotVWheels]

UPDATE: And so the amazing Bus clutch story and woes goes on. It's been 8 weeks since the release bearing went, and almost 12 000 kms (city driving) later. About a week ago I noticed that it was getting harder to get the Bus into gear, so I climbed under it, and gave the clutch cable a bit more tension by turning the large wing nut at the end of the cable. End of problem - or so I thought :shock:

At about noon last week, while in the town of Boksburg, engaging a gear became increasingly difficult, to almost impossible. I had a bad feeling about it, and bought a new LUK clutch kit (luckily spares shops are quite common in Boksburg.) Phoned the work and told them I'm taking the afternoon off. Got home, and started to take the Bus engine out. I was afraid that the 'house brand' Midas (a spares shop franchise in SA) release bearing was on its way out, and thought one couldn't go wrong with a new clutch kit anyway (R 650 at Autozone - another spares shop franchise).

When the engine was out at last, I saw that one of the bolts (marked with an arrow on the pic below) was loose. Funny enough, the other two had some welding on to keep them tight. I don't even want to think about the amount of damage it would have done if the bolt came completely undone!

So, it was OUT with the old clutch, and IN with the new!! (Old one available for free to anyone who wants it)
I know it is technically speaken advisable to rather have the flywheel machined first, but mine still looks good and I simply did not have the time to have it done.

This is what the complete new kit looks like:

Friction plate installed with (supplied) centering tool:

Diaphragm installed:

Put the engine back, and the gear change is better than ever!! :drunks:

PS: The 'house brand' Midas release bearing is still brand new, and shows no sign of wear. It looks identical to the one supplied with the LUK kit. Put the new one in though 'just in case'.