Today at my shop, I had my first run-in with the famed and often feared
'Viscous coupling'. I was working on a Westy Syncro that I am getting ready
to sell, and decided to test said coupling. Jacked the rear up, started it
up, put it in gear, and........nothing! Not the slightest movement from the
front. Well, I happened to be so lucky to have a 'spare' van here, so I
pulled the front diff and transplanted it to the Westy. Works fine!

Now for the 'fun' part. Having had a father who was a tinkerer (that's how I
got my start in this business), I of couse had to pull the old diff apart to
have a look at what troubled it. Wonderfully easy to remove the viscous
coupling! On the bench, I removed the two small plugs from the side plate.
Nothing ran out....hmmm.....it did have a somewhat foul odor though. Not
knowing what to expect, I lightly placed the coupling in a vise, to hold it
together as I removed the large snapring that holds it all together.
Carefully loosened the vise, nothing popped apart. A couple taps with the
plastic mallet, and the thing seperated. I have always been under the
impression that these viscous coupling were some really complicated device,
but it is not so. Basically, a cup-shaped housing, a side plate, a hub, and
a stack of thin plates, alternating ones having holes or slots. Quite a
simple assembly, IMO! This particular unit had very little fliud in it,
however all the plates appear in very good condition, free of warpage. There
was a small amount of fluid (more like sticky 'motor-honey') on the plates.
The failure that allowed the fluid to escape was one of the seals on the
hub. That's it--one little seal. This brings me to my next idea: if we can
somehow get our hands on the fluid, as well as the two seals and one o-ring,
we (or I) could rebuild these things at a very reasonable cost. Am I missing
anything in my thoughts? Is there any reason, outside of finding the bits to
'rebuild' them, that this is not a possibility? Please pardon me if I missed
any pertinent postings recently, I guess I am guilty of using the delete key
excessively. So, lets talk about this. Any thoughts?

Karl Mullendore
'87 West Syncro x 2 (1 FS)
'87 Syncro 7-pass x 2 (both FS)