> although some have had it work, many have had
> endless chatter problems even after new associated
> parts.

And therein lies my belief that the culprit is not the clutch.  Many
vanagons, all with the same drivetrain, same body, same clutch.  Most have
no problems, but then a small percentage experience chatter problems. (And
it is a small percentage, take it from someone who sells a sh*tload of
clutch kits.) Some of them are 1.9's, some are 2.1's, some 2WD and some
Syncros.  If a poor clutch design caused it, they'd all be doing it, or at
least the vast majority of them, not a small percentage of them.  You can't
look at the empirical evidence and say "most people who had the problem had
Sachs clutches," because that logic is flawed. Most people who _didn't_ have
the problem also had Sachs clutches.  Most people whose rear hatch struts
failed also had Sachs clutches. This doesn't indicate causation.  My point
is that most people have Sachs clutches one way or the other, since it's by
a huge margin the best selling brand and is probably in 90% of the Vanagons
on this list. So of course the ones that fail will overwhelmingly be Sachs,
because that's what's in the overwhelming majority of the Vanagons in the
first place.

So is there a common denominator among the vehicles that experience clutch
chatter?  Well, it's very likely not related to the brand of clutch, since
the results there are very mixed.  A check of the archives shows that some
people reported no problems with sachs clutches, others reported problems.
Some people reported chattering with other brands of clutches, too,
including Volkswagen brand (which could be either Sachs or Luk, depending on
the time of day). Unfortunately, although the subject has been brought up
several times, no definate common denominator has been identified. I think
it's a combination of things.  If you do a clutch job and don't resurface
your flywheel (or it isn't resurfaced properly), you're a good candidate for
a chatter.  Same thing if your motor mounts are worn.  And there are
probably other factors as well.  Replacing a clutch can bring to the surface
other drivetrain problems that were not noticable before, in the same way
that replacing an old clutch master cylinder can cause the slave cylinder to
fail shortly thereafter, because the old part can't stand up to the
increased pressure created by the new part that was introduced into the
system.

I'm sure plenty will disagree with my assessment, but I feel confident
enough about it that I didn't hesitate in the least to put a Sachs kit in my
own '89 last month - and it's working just fine.

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  http://www.busdepot.com
  (215) 234-VWVW