

| Subject: | Clutch chatter |
| From: | Don Gibbons |
| Date: | Tue, 2 Sep 1997 16:14:00 -0500 |
There have been a few postings about clutch grabbing/chattering and shaking. I had a vanagon that did this too, but would go away and be good for months at a time. What is happening: A clutch can be considered to be a system like a wheel suspension system. Where a wheel has a spring, damper (shock) and mass (either the car or the earth) and has to have the right amount of damping and spring rate to make the mass act nicely. A clutch has the same things: the springs are the springs in the clutch disk and maybe windup of the drive train. The mass is again the car or earth. The damping is much harder, newer cars (golf II/III) have hydraulic dampers built into the motor mounts, older vanagons have no designed damping. Porsche, BMW, and Audi have dual mass flywheels that have dampers and springs in them Anyway, When the clutch is engaged there will always be some amount of torque variation that CAN make the car shudder and shake. If there is the right ratio of damping and springs (called transmissibility) this vibration will not be transmitted thru the drive train to your butt. If the transmissibility is wrong and the amount and freqency of vibration is right then an incredible amount of shaking can be generated. But just at a certain frequency! What can be done: 1. Reduce the clutch torque variation, Get good clutch parts and make sure that they are true and flat. 2. Make sure that the parts are and stay clean. Oil can do real bad things to the frictional variation of a clutch disk. 3. Make sure that the motor mounts are in good condition. This may mean replacing mounts that visually are OK. Rubber parts can change their properties over the life of a car. 4. Make sure that the loosness of the drive train is OK. Worn CV joints or drivshafts can make the effective spring rates of the drive train change. 5. Try changing the speed that the clutch pedal is let up. Not too quick though.
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