I've experienced a couple of failures over the years but not on a Vanagon.
Flex plates flex carrying that heavy torque converter, and that will
ultimately lead to failure.  Some fail sooner than others.

KEP had cracking problems with the welds on some of their early Subaru
conversion plates, and my son-in-law's Alfa also failed at about 150k.  That
thing was a three point spoke affair and, incredibly, it still powered the
car when completely fractured, but made an awful noise at Idle and at shut
down!  Sad end to that story--he was in a hurry installing the TC after
replacing the plate, and missed one of the three input splines.  That took
out the tranny pump instantly and he had no gears when he started it up.
Compounding that, after a $4000 tranny rebuild he bent a valve replacing the
water pump and donated the car to our public television station.  I only let
him work under my supervision now!

Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
kenneth wilford (Van-Again)
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 3:14 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Weird problem, broken flex plate in 85 Vanagon

I am near the end of mechanically going over a customer's 85 Westy.  It made
a lot of noise and ran poorly when we brought it in.  Needed a new exhaust
system which helped quiet things down, however after that was fixed I became
aware of a loud tapping sound that was coming from the bellhousing area.
After doing some research, I guessed that it was the flex plate (automatic
transmission van) that was broken.  It would make this noise only at idle.
Once you revved it up, the noise would go away.  I got a good used flex
plate from a list member (thanks Zoran) and we pulled the transmission
today.  Sure enough the flex plate was cracked in an almost complete circle
where the flat plate is indented before it gets to the area where the rivets
are.  If we had let it leave the shop it would not have lasted very long.
After we got the old plate out, I was surprised to find that it has a VW
parts sticker on the back (from the 80s or 90s).  In other words it wasn't
the original flex plate but a replacement one!

I have never had a flex plate go bad on me before.  Does anyone know why
this replacement plate would go bad?  I mean it lasted for a long time, but
the original one must of gotten damaged or went bad back in the day too so I
am wondering what would cause this type of failure?  If anyone has any ideas
or experience please chime in.

--
Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com