From: "Blake Thornton" <blake@MATH.WUSTL.EDU>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 4:59 PM
Subject: Help, Clutch

> Well, I haven't attacked my clutch or transmission before, so I guess now
> is the time.  My clutch is slipping (it won't stay in and it will alway
> stay in gear).  I limped my van home, but I don't know where to start.
> Perhaps I can do an adjustment?????  What do I need to do????

Absent something very, very unusual, there's no adjustment that will fix
this.  Slipping can be caused by the disk just plain wearing out or by
transmission or engine oil leaking into the clutch housing and lubricating
the disk.  Either situation calls for installation of a new disk itself (at
a minimum), but most likely more than that will ultimately be required.  If
you have an inexpensive VWFLAPS nearby you can pull the clutch, see what's
wrong, and get stuff piecemeal, or just bite bullet, buy everything you're
likely to need and replace it all while you're in there.  Most people would
take the latter course under the theory that as long as you've gone to the
trouble of pulling the clutch you might as replace everything at once.

With my air-cooled engines I'd probably opt to pull the engine to get at the
clutch but with the water-cooled engines with all their extra plumbing it's
probably easier to drop the transmission.
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Tom Young                       '81 Vanagon
Lafayette, CA 94549         '82 Westfalia
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