

| Subject: | '88 Trans & Power Steering Update |
| Date: | Sun, 31 Mar 1996 10:42:50 +0000 |
(Sorry for the length on this folks) Thanks to all who offered advice on filling the trans oil. Being a hopeless cheapskate, I opted for a large funnel with an 18" flexible tube ($3.49), over the fancy pump setup ($20), thinking I could always get the pump if it didn't work. As it turned out, I could insert the funnel in the hole, then twist it over the top of the trans & pour from the driver's side into it. A third hand would have been nice, but it worked better than expected. I was a little worried about fill qty - the book says 3L or 3.2 qt - I only had 3.0 qt of Redline MTL. Then I noticed the updated bulletin states 2.5l, or 2.7 qt (I think), so I guess I'm ok. The magnetic plug had about 1/8-1/4" of filings stuck to the tip, which doesn't seem too bad (?) for 160K km. No bigs chunks of metal - just very fine powdery stuff. Someone mentioned breaking one thing while fixing another, which brings me to the Power Steering... During a trip in to town to warm up the trans, I noticed the faint & intermittent lack of steering assist had suddenly become pronounced and regular. ie: turning at normal speed would result in a brief boost, then none, then a bit more boost. Coming out of corner meant having to yard the wheel a bit to center it - it wouldn't center on its own. Most noticeable at low speeds, but didn;t seem to be engine speed related - tried some low speed turns with engine at 3000rpm+ and same symptoms. So, being the hopeless optimist (and cheapskate), I thought "gee, it must know I have a nice fresh bottle of ATF to feed it..." So, I bled the system using Tim's method, after removing all the bits in the tank - they were really grungy - and re-installing. I used Castrol DexronIII which was similar color as the old stuff, but *much* thicker. A test drive showed no improvement, in fact maybe worse... The Bentley is a little thin on this, but it list possible problems as: clogged filter (I cleaned it as best I could), sticking pressure valve, or not enough pump pressure. I guess I'll need to get a new filter anyway, but does it sound like the pump is gone? Thanks. ============================== Shawn Wright, sw@smus.bc.ca '85 Jetta TD, 345k (Jenni) '88 Westy, 324k (Kyra) ==============================
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