Tuesday morning the van turned over slowly, but did start. I had to drop by a couple of places before getting to work, and on the second stop the starter died. Nothing, no click, no movement. Did a rolling start to get to work and there I checked out things ( connections, battery) and decided the starter was kaput.

I have to admit that the starter had been acting up on occasion for the last 6 months or so. Occasionally it would spin but not engage the flywheel. I agree, I should have known better.

As luck would have it, workplace close by my work had a hoist and it was free. The owner let me use it and later that afternoon I got it up on the lift.

I really wasn’t in the mood to document the job, but I did take a couple of pics and while things are fresh in my mind I have a couple of notes about the job.

Bentley does a fair job of describing the procedure, and there are a few threads on the Samba with additional tips. This was the first time I had taken out a stater in a syncro with engine in van, and I had to use both sources.

Battery disconnected

Van still on ground, S boot on air intake and air filter removed. To get access to the upper starter bolt.

Upper bolt for starter mounting removed. 17mm wrench size on nut on engine side, hex key on transmission side (forget size).

Van lifted

Driveshaft disconnected from transmission. I found the boot ripped so I took driveshaft completely out. I had a ready to go spare axle assembly and I felt chuffed about that. This kind of preparedness doesn’t happen very often

Diff lock actuator. Now this is a little bit of a bear. I found the nuts that Bentley said were welded to the bracket weren’t. Also found that the rubber sleeve covering the actuator shaft was a section of heater hose. So there was no pushing that up to drive out the roll pin, I cut the hose off. You can sort of see the cut hose in this pic.

Driving out the roll pin wasn’t as hard as I expected. Room is limited in there but I managed to do it and leave the roll pin still actuator shaft.

Now the lower starter mount nut, and the jiggle and wiggle to get the starter out. Once the gear end was out and it dropped down a bit I could remove the electrical connections. Took the starter to the bench, took apart the solenoid. Look ok I guess, it would retract under power if I gave it a helping push. Removed one end of the starter and, well, have a look.

Brushes worn down to a nub. Commutator burned, dirty, ugly.

Next morning took starter to rebuilder in town. I can’t really explain why I chose to have it rebuilt instead of buying new (or factory reconditioned, whatever that means). Starter would be ready that afternoon.

Back out to work. Had some time to swap in my spare axle, but left transmission end up attached.

Back to town for starter. Labour charge CA115 ( 84/hr rate), parts 43 bucks. New solenoid, brushes, drive gear, commutator turned, armatures checked. Looks brand new.

I really don’t like how the signal wire is attached to the solenoid by a spade connector. So I soldered on a female spade connector, then crimped and soldered on a long pigtail to the spade. Heat shrink and silicone grease. Pigtail will lead to a relay in the engine compartment that I installed a few years ago.

Diff lock actuator boot – well I copied what the previous owner did and used some hose. Polybraid stuff this time with a little window cut into it so the roll pin could be driven home. You know, the acuator shaft was pretty clean when I removed the hose so I figured it worked well enough to do same.

Getting the roll pin back in is a little tricky. What helped a bit was threading the roll pin onto the end of some stainless welding rod. It fit nicely and fetched up on the ID stamp of the rod.

Pic shows the idea without the clutter of the vacuum gizmo and the home made boot. The wire allowed me to get the roll pin in and engaged, then I could remove the wire and tap the pin home with small punch and hammer.

I replaced the starter bushing in the bell housing. Used a 7/16″ tap and screwed the tap into the old bushing and as the tap bottomed out in the hole the bushing screwed up on the tap and out. New bushing was a bronze, oilite type bushing so I soaked in oil before hand and gave it a bit of pressure between fingers with bushing filled with oil. Fingers on open ends. I thought getting  the bushing in place would be tricky so I made a quick install tool from some brass rod. Rod turned down to fit snugly in the bore of the bushing, shoulder on the rod, and the turned down section just a little longer than the bushing length so I could feel the entrance to the hole. That worked out pretty good.

Acuator in place, starter then wiggled and jiggled up and into place. I used sealant on the mating surfaces. I made the lextrical connections when the starter was partly in place. Oh, forgot to mention, made a new wire from big stud in solenoid to alternator.

Inner cv joint connected

While van was on lift I decided to rotate tires. Noticed scraping noise on rear drivers side wheel. Pulled drum and found the adjustment lever had broken and the spring dangling. The broken bit was still in drum. Have no idea how that happened. So off comes the shoe, some prep on the metal, and I welded it back together.

Then van down to the ground, upper starter bolt installed, all the other mess in engine compartment cleaned up, the new wires from the started connected.

And yes, the starter worked. Jeez, much faster than before. My starter was dying a slow death.

Seems to be a real busy time of the year for me, just the time to put a new slave cylinder into the old syncro. It had been leaking for a few weeks, but it still worked the clutch. I procrastinated replacing it until I felt like hurting myself.

I’ve swapped in a slave cylinder a couple of times on a 2wd vanagon, I4 powered ones at that, and it was not that bad. But the stock motor in the syncro makes access to the bolts holding the slave to the bracket really painful. The rear most bolt is somewhat accessible front he engine compartment but the nut for that bolt is pretty well hidden by the bracket. A good fix for that is to weld that nut to the bracket so you only have to deal with the bolt and no need to hold the nut. The front bolt is somewhat easy to access, from under the van. I tried to get those bolts off, but I couldn’t. I even bent a wrench to get it in there, but no luck. I had heard that some folk take the bracket and cylinder off as a unit and that means taking the actuating arm off the shaft that goes in the bell housing (and moves the throwout bearing). There is a cir clip on the end of the shaft and theoretically, on a brand new van, when the clip is removed you can slide the arm off the shaft. I don’t see how you can do that easily on any van that has seen any kind of use. The arm is on there but good.

I had a spare arm (and shaft) so I decided to grind the arm off. I used a steel burr on a die grinder. Yes I chewed up the shaft, I got sloppy. But I didn’t do enough damage to make the replacement arm a poor fit, still went on tight.

I tagged the bracket too.

The arm.

Now it was just a case of removing the 13mm head bolt on the bracket support strut and the 17mm bolt holding the bracket to the bell housing. Then you can ease the assembly down and let it hang by the hydraulic line. Great thing here is that the syncro has a flexible nylon line to the slave (and banjo bolt) rather than the steel line of the 2wd.

I had the new, FTE brand, cylinder already to go, bolted to a spare bracket. A bracket from a diesel vanagon… yes, you know what’s coming.

I had welded the two nuts to the bracket, here is a pic of the front nut. Yes, you know what’s coming.

Quick with the swap over and now bleeding with the cylinder hanging.

And up it goes into position… except I forgot the support arm is held to the bracket by that front nut which I had welded on. Doh, what a bonehead, ok off it comes with the zip disk. Right, up again with support arm attached…except it didn’t fit. The support  arm would not line up with the bolt hole in the transmission. Son of a bitch. Out it comes, let’s compare with the old bracket.

Gee, whaddya know? They are different. It takes a special kind of bonehead to assume a 2wd diesel vanagon bracket would be the same as a wax syncro bracket. I am that special bonehead.

And, to add insult to injury, after cleaning off the muck from the bracket I could see someone had brazed on the rear nut and had brazed on the nut to the support bracket. So i could have removed the slave by itself after all. Well, no, not really. The bolts were in there real tight. Even with the bracket held in a vise I had to grunt with the spanner to remove the bolts.

Righty oh then, back to the van to install new slave and old bracket combo. All went well, replacement arm on shaft, cir clip in place, slave bled. I tried the clutch pedal. The friggin pedal stopped hard about 2″ above where it should stop, no clutch activation. What the heck was going on?

The arm would move when the pedal was depressed, but only a little way before the pedal felt like it was hitting metal. I pulled the push rod from the slave and compared it with the one from the old slave, it had a longer effective length. New push rod at the bottom of the pic.

With the rod removed the clutch pedal would not move, with the shorter old rod the clutch pedal would move down a bit, with no rod and the bleed screw open on the slave the pedal would press down full range. Can you guess what was up? I couldn’t at that point. I talked to Dave the mechanic, we both were stumped but were leaning to an internal problem, perhaps the throwout bearing retaining springs had come adrift. Looked like a tranny pull. I was so desperate that I looked on the Samba and found something interesting, here is the thread. Now I had some hope, so I quickly made a bit of an extension using the old rod (I removed what remained of the plastic that was inside the metal cup end) and some polyethylene.

I made a hole, stepped hole, to mimic a socket to engage the ball on the lever arm. I installed it and yes, more pedal travel. Not quite enough so a made another using some Delrin rod. Here it is. BTW, it is a press fit into the metal socket.

And, yes, success. Clutch works just like it used to, perfectly. Man, I was relieved. The modified pushrod had overall length of 112mm, socket in the Delrin was 4-6mm deep giving an effective rod length of 106-108mm. That’s  18-20mm longer than the new FTE push rod.

So what the heck was going on with the new slave? As I didn’t want to take it out and measure I can only guess that the new slave had a shorter piston stroke than the old one. And even with a longer push rod it was not enough to fully activate the clutch. And before you ask, I did have the slave cylinder properly installed in the bracket. I wonder if the syncro bracket locates the slave higher from the arm than the 2wd bracket?

Warning: what follows is a very long-winded and tedious description of my further exploration of propshaft U-joint angles. Experienced and knowledgable readers, please, cut me some slack and refrain from face palming at my antics.

Being quite adept at re-inventing the wheel, I’m now re-inventing measuring propshaft angles. If you are a regular reader of this blog, and man it feels good to write that (evidence of my amusement with small things), you know I have spent some time exploring the flange angles of the transmission and front differential (my previous attempts, one, two, three.). I came cold to this subject, never having to deal with anything like this before, and Bentley has nothing to say about the matter. So perhaps I could be forgiven for my naive approach to the matter. Perhaps, but really no, I should have cut through the crap right away.

A little background

The transmission is connected to the front differential via a propshaft. On each end of the propshaft are U-joints (single cardan joints) that allow a little bit of misalignment between and movement of the transmission and the front differential. Now the problem with U-joints is that they do not transfer the rotational motion of the propshaft perfectly smoothly, ie. without pulsation, especially when the U-joint angles are greater than 3 or 4  degrees  and also if the angles differ from each other more than 1 degree (more on those angles later). Most of you know this, and also about the correct phasing of the the U-joints on each end of the shaft, but I do recommend having a look at this document from Spicer that explains all:

Spicer info on driveshaft install, angles, vibrations, etc. (pdf). 

And this Spicer document on measuring angles succinctly describes using Spicer’s angle finder doodad.

Spicer info on measuring angles

One subject not really covered well in that document is compound angles. That is when there is mis-alignment is in 2 planes, ie horizontal and vertical. I’ll go into that at the end of this post.

Over time I became dissatisfied with my last attempt at measuring flange angles with my laser tool. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a pretty neat way of measuring the flange angles and it measures both in vertical and horizontal planes. But you need to have the propshaft removed.
After some email exchanges with J. Slider, I reconsidered the protractor/angle finder method of measuring flange angles. I wasn’t very happy with the results I got when I tried this method a while back. I was unable to get consistent results measuring the flange angles with my propshaft removed. It came down to getting the electronic angle finder positioned correctly on the transmission and front differential flanges. But Jon’s argument for the angle finder method convinced me to try again.
I was sidetracked by an idea of a false propshaft jig thing. I reasoned that if I could make a jig that mimicked the propshaft but was constructed so that flange angles could be more easily measured it would be a good thing. I even thought of making a false propshaft with fixed, *ideal* flange angles that I could use to adjust the transmission and front diff. mounts. I still think this would be a worthwhile tool to make for those folk who install propshafts in vanagons.

– This flurry of innovative thinking (ha!) coincided with me removing my propshaft and having it checked for balance by Royce at Island Torque Converter & Driveshaft. Royce is THE guy to take your propshaft to for repair/balancing. He does good work, prices are very reasonable, and he is willing to work with you in solving driveline issues. Local (Vancouver Island) phone # is 250 388 4248 –

Royce and I talked about the syncro propshaft and about making a shaft with Rzeppa type CV joints. That discussion is another story but when I was Googling around with the idea of Rzeppa joints on shaft I came across a document describing the install of a marine, Rzeppa jointed, short prop shaft. In that document (you can see it here) the use of jigs that I described above is detailed. Foiled again. Is it always to be thus? Are all my ideas “a day late and a dollar short”?

I took my propshaft to Royce around the 15th of December and got it back the next day. But with one thing and another I did not get the shaft re-installed in the van until the 9th of January. During that time, when I was not working, eating, drinking, Xmas shopping, sleeping, putting up then taking down Xmas trees, etc, etc, I was mulling over the propshaft jig idea.

Too much mulling, not enough action. So I ended up going back to the protractor/angle finder on the installed propshaft method. You’ve seen this before, and it is described in the Spicer document, I just added a very minor twist.

Home-made tool

I mentioned at the beginning how I was never happy with the measuring propshaft angles with the angle finder because I could not get a good surface to place the gauge on. So I decided to do what others have done and use the ends of the U-joint bearing cup as the reference surface. That meant making a little tool.

A bit of scrap steel from some failed project.

Turned it down and machined a recess in one end to accept a rare earth magnet.

Fits in fine, held in firmly by magnetism and Locktite.

The magnet face is recessed from the rim of the tool by a gnat’s crotchet.

Here is my other propshaft, to be used for trial fitting. Big note here, ideally the circlip should be removed so that the tool can lie directly on bearing cup. But I reasoned that these circlips would be lying parallel to the bearing cups. Any dirt or damage to the circlips would screw things up.

Tool on the joint.

Angle finder on tool, held by magnets on side of angle finder. It looks like the angle finder is resting on flange, but it is not.

Angle finder on end of tool. I was not sure at this time which way would be better.

A bit of channel to provide a base to measure the propshaft angle.

Trying out the tool

Ok then, out to the van. First I had to install the re-balanced shaft (not the red one pictured above). I jacked up one side of van and supported on blocks. Wheels off the ground.

Small aside, I finally replaced the 1/2″ bolt used to hold the jack adapter onto the jack with a gated pin thing.

After the propshaft was installed (please note, I do insist on loosening the 3 bolts that go through the rubber mounts on the front diff. when I am installing/removing the shaft) I took the van off the blocks, released the parking brake and chocks, then crawled under to have a go at measuring angles. First I moved the van back and forth so that a bearing cup on the U-joint yoke that is attached to the flange was pointing directly down. I gave it a bit of a scrub then attached the tool.

See how the angle finder is a little askew on the shaft of the tool? This affects the angle measurement. It was hard to get the angle finder aligned true to the shaft when I was scrooched up under the van. Would have been much easier if the van was on a lift. But I persisted, went on to measure the propshaft angle.

And see how I do not have the angle finder aligned along the channel? It is askew too, and this affect the readinghh. And then on to the front diff. end of shaft.

Repeated the procedure a few times.

A bit better alignment on channel.

Again on the front.

And on the rear.

But I was not happy with the procedure, I was not sure of confident of the accuracy of the readings.

V-block modification and engine carrier adjustment

I tried a nice little Starrett V-block on the tool. I thought it might help me to keep the angle finder aligned along the long axis of the tool.

I was running out of afternoon and I wanted to try something more. I knew from previous measuring that the transmission flange pointed down more than the front diff flange. I wanted to reduce that angle, but I also new that there really is no easy way to do that. The transmission mounts towards the front of the transmission are really awkward to get at and fiddle with (especially when you don’t have a lift), so that leaves the engine mounts at the rear. But the arrangement/relative placements of the mounts means that it takes a fair bit of movement at the engine mount to effect a little movement at the transmission flange. Perhaps these data from R. Jones illustrates this (front diff. data included).

“4) I measured the distance between the flanges and the
mounting points, tranny and front diff, and worked the ratios.
Using washers, here’s what one can do:

a) raise front mount, front diff, lower flange.
1 unit raising gets 0.83 units lowering the flange.

b) raise rear mounts, front diff, raise flange.
1 unit raising gets 1.2 units at the flange.
This is the wrong way however.

c) lower tranny at front mounts, lowering flange.
1 unit at mount gets 1.25 units at flange.
Again, this is the wrong direction.

d) lower engine at carrier attachment to frame,
raise flange.  1 unit at engine gets 0.25 units
at flange.  Hardly worth it.”

I wanted to try “d”. So I supported the engine carrier (“moustache bar”) with a jack and removed the 2 bolts, each side, that hold the bar to the van frame. I had no time to record flange angles vs. amount of lowering of rear carrier, and I decided to try 5/16″ as the distance lowered. Handy number, I had some 5/16″ aluminum plate scrap on hand. On the top side of the flange on the van body that the carrier mounts to there is a steel backing plate. I used that plate to lay out the bolts holes in the aluminum spacer.

Holes drilled.

And spacer inserted. I used longer bolts. Damn mudflap mounting strut interfered.

Maybe you can tell, the light was fading fast. I got back under and measured angles, using the V-block innovation.

Transmission flange angle.

Front diff. flange angle.

By now it was dark and I was cold. I left things as they  as far as I got to: rear engine mount dropped by 5/16″.

It now occurs to me that I have not mentioned another little thing I did (a year ago) to resolve flange angle difference – I removed the topmost metal washers of the two rearmost mounts of the front diff. This did drop the flange of the front diff. a bit – I reasoned back then, that if I could not reduce the flange angle of the transmission the I would increase the flange angle of the front diff. I hoped that matching the flange angles did more to reduce vibrations than trying to get both flange angles below 4 degrees. I’ll clear this up at the end, I know this story is getting very muddy right now.

Road test

Okee dokee, I drove the van for the next couple of days. Felt pretty smooth, my 50-60 kph minor vibe has gone. I do have the very, very slightest vibration especially when accelerating, at around 40-45 kph. But I noticed this when the propshaft was removed so I am discounting that it has anything to do with the shaft.

I was pretty happy with this. I’d say that the re-balanced shaft is sweet.

Further modification to the tool

But I still wanted to measure the flange angles with somewhat more confidence. I cut a chunk of 1.5″ X 0.25″ hot rolled flat stock, drilled a hole, and screwed it (1/4 “- 20) to the end of the little tool. I checked it for square, was good. Now I had a better reference surface to place the angle finder against, and I could line up the long axis of the plate with the propshaft.

Here it is on the transmission end of the shaft. It is much easier now to use the angle finder to determine that the tool is pointing straight down, and the  plate can be lined up fore and aft with the propshaft. Those two things are important in measuring the true angle of the flange. Remember, the tool is on the bearing cup in the flange yoke of the U-joint. That means it projects the angle that the transmission flange is making with respect to the propshaft.

One way of doing it. The angle finder was inline with the bottom plate of the tool. This was not a recorded measurement, I had not adjusted propshaft so that tool is pointing straight down.

I found that having the angle finder in this position was the best. The magnets in the angle finder held it to the vertical shaft, but still allowed it to be aligned to the bottom plate.

A another measurement (using the channel) of the propshaft angle.

And a good measurement of the front diff flange angle.

Results

Ok, I was getting more consistent measurements, now to look at some of the data. Remember, we are measuring relative angles here, not absolute angles. For example, the propshaft could be pointing down towards the front at 1.30 degrees, or at 2.85 degrees depending (apart from measuring errors) on the level of the van (ie just exactly where it was parked in my driveway). The sketch below summarizes my results. The top cartoon represents the situation right after I installed the propshaft. Let’s go over it, bit by bit.

The transmission flange (and the transmission and engine) is pointing down towards the front of the van at 5.5o degrees. The propshaft is also pointing down in the same direction, but only at 1.30 degrees. If we subtract the propshaft angle from the transmission flange angle we will find that U-joint operating angle, and it is 4.20 degrees. Remember: if the angles are in the same direction then subtract the smaller angle from the larger angle to find the joint operating angle.

At the other end the front diff. is pointing down towards the rear of the vehicle, in the opposite direction of the propshaft angle. I added a negative sign to that measurement to remind me of its different direction. So in this situation the absolute value of the front diff. measured angle, -2.50 degrees, is added to the propshaft angle of 1.30 degrees. Result is a 3.80 degree joint operating angle. Remember: if the angles are in opposite directions then add the absolute values of the two angles to find the joint operating angle.

As clumsy as those two paragraphs are, I hope you get the idea of how the operating angles are arrived at. Of course with an electronic angle finder I could have zeroed on the propshaft angle and read the working angles directly. But I thought it would be clearer to me and to you if I did it explicitly.

Now the measurements after I installed the 5/16″ (8 mm) shim back at the engine carrier.

And finally, the same set up but this time more accurately measured (bottom plate added to my home-made tool).

I am fairly confident in this last measurement. Even if it is not perfect, I am sure the two flange angles are within 0.2 degrees of each other, though I do wish that the operating angles were less.

Compound angles

At the beginning of this post I said I was going to discuss compound angles, so here we go. The above sketches show angles in a vertical plane, but you can imagine that the same thing could be going on if you could look down from above. The transmission and front diff. could be laterally mis-aligned. What is interesting, is the combined effect of both lateral and vertical misalignment. The Aquadrive document I linked to previously has some good information on compound angles.

The accurate formula for calculating the compound angle is:

Lovely stuff eh? Shall we do an example? (and please God, let me do the math correctly).

Let’s say we have a vertical flange angle (ie the kind we have been measuring ) of 4.1 degrees. And let’s say the lateral angle is 1.0 degrees. First step is to find the tangents of those angles.

tan 4.1 = 0.0716808913

tan 1.0 = 0.0174550649

we square both of these numbers and add them together:

(0.0716808913)^2 + (0.0174550649)^2

= 0.0051381502 + 3.0467929066e-4

= 0.0054428295

then we take the square root of that number and we get:

0.0737755345

now we take the arctan (inverse tangent) of that number to find the answer, our compound angle:

compound angle = arctan (0.0737755345)

compound angle = 4.22 degrees

(Another example – 4 degree vertical angle and a 2 degree lateral angle, then the effective compound angle would be 4.47 degrees)

Not much of a difference, 4.22 degree compound angle compared to 4.10 degree vertical angle. So should we worry about lateral misalignment? Well, in the stock set up there is some room to laterally adjust both the transmission and the front diff. The old trick of leaving the front diff. mount bolts a little loose after installing the propshaft, then driving the van for a few miles before tightening those bolts, probably serves to reduce or eliminate lateral mis-alignment. But with vans that have non-stock engines/engine carriers installed, then there is a very good chance of having the engine and transmission laterally askew enough for that trick not to be enough.

Conclusions:

•  no matter what you read or hear, in the vanagon syncro the propshaft operating angles should be 4 degrees or less (but not zero degrees). Ideally they should be less than 3 degrees. Unfortunately there is no easy way to adjust the front diff and transmission vertical flange angles to achieve this. On vans with engine conversions and modified engine carriers, careful attention MUST be paid to the transmission angle.

• U-joint operating angles should be the same or within 0.2 degrees of each other.

• measuring the angles can be done fairly accurately with home-made tools. A smart phone with an inclinometer app could be used instead of my little electronic angle finder. But some sort of adapter between the joint and the phone must be used to ensure accurate and consistent readings.

•  lateral misalignment of the transmission and resulting compound angles are very important to check and deal with if a non-stock engine has been installed. Remember that the angles combine and result in an effective angle greater than any one of the individual angles.

• Your man on Vancouver Island for propshaft balancing is Royce at Island Torque Converter & Driveshaft. Phone # 250 388 4248

Today, after the latest storm blew over and rain stopped, I got under the van and pulled the propshaft. “Again?” I hear you say, yes again. This time prompted by a few things:

1. I still have the slightest bit of propshaft vibe around 55-60 kph

2: J. Slider and I have been having an email correspondence discussing measuring flange angles on shaft. I want to re-do my measurements after the exchange of ideas we had.

3. I have a jig in mind to set flange angles.

So I pulled the bugger and it will be taken to driveline guy to check balance. So seeing as I have it off, I thought I’d check how the internal Delrin bushings I made back in June are holding up (the original posts describing how I made them, part one and part two). Well, the fit of the shaft in the bushings is as tight as it was when first installed. I tried to get some pics, in one of them, you can make out the split bushing still intact at the end of the bore. I have to admit that I worried that the split bushing wouldn’t last, I’m pleased that the Delrin held up.

I hope the story that follows will help someone be less stupid than I have been the last 2 days. No, that doesn’t sound right, no one would have been as dim as me notwithstanding.

Story starts with passengers complaining of squeaks from front left brake/wheel. Further development was noticing a clunk/rattle when going downhill on washboard/rough roads this last weekend. Noise seemed to be affected by brake application. Signs say examine front end and brakes. So I do that, could not find any loose or broken suspension components but did find that my brake pads were getting thin, and one pad on pass. side had a broken spring. So here is where I should have sat down and thought things through more. New pads are a good idea, but what about new rotors too? I did measure old rotors, they were within wear spec, so ADD boy here rushes out and buys some expensive Pagid pads and leaves rotors alone.

Quite a difference in thickness between old and new eh? Hint: that should have triggered a response in my brain other than “gee, look at the thickness difference”. Oh and another oversight, I mentioned that I measured the old rotor thickness, doing that I did note the ridges on the rotor (peripheral and internal) where the pads do not touch. I didn’t think that would be an issue, ha!

So I popped in the new pads. Bentley describes the procedure well, but did I do a careful reading? No, I didn’t. I removed both bolts from the caliper slider and removed slider to install pads. That is NOT how to do it. There are bold warnings not to re-use those slider bolts and the new pads came with just 2 new bolts (with pre-applied thread locker). I was puzzled by this, I thought I was shorted 2 bolts. So I used loctite and re-used the old bolts. This was both good and bad as you will see later. I finished pad replacement Monday evening and did not take van for test drive, yet another dumb-assed mistake. Next morning I had an important errand and as I drove out I noticed a rubbing/clicking noise from front right wheel. Bloody hell, drove back and popped that wheel to look. Rushed examination, pulled pads, noticed scoring on inside pad where it was hitting the un-worn area of rotor. Aha I thought, and beveled that part of pad a tad with stationary belt sander. Noise still there. Borrowed car and rushed out. I had the chance to drop by Autospiel that day and talk to Russ about this noise. I explained situation, he asked if I had checked that the rim, or balancing weights were not hitting caliper, I said no, I believed it was the pad on the un-worn part of rotor. Why don’t I listen and think? I decided to by a couple of new Brembo rotors from him (39 bucks a piece), and at same time, noticed them on the counter, a set of radius arm bushings (mine are old and worn out, I’ll post about replacement later, nothing to do with brake job). Got back home and set about rotor replacement.

This time, doing it right. First remove the pads. Undo lower bolt of caliper slider, in this pic I have 13 mm wrench on bolt and crescent wrench on flat of slider rod.

With that bolt out, the caliper body swings up and the pads exposed. Pull out pads.

Now those aneurism inducing 22 mm bolts (2) that hold caliper body to suspension upright. They are on tight (200 ft-lbs) and not much access for the lift deprived driveway “mechanic”. Shoot, forgot to state the usual warnings, ie support van SECURELY on jack stand/good wooden blocks during this procedure. You are really putting a lot of grunt into the van when loosening and tightening those bolts.

Ok, caliper off and hanging on breaker bar stuck in suspension. The slider part came off and is sitting to the right in this picture.

That hex socket bolt need to be removed, 5 or 6 mm? can’t recall.

Then the rotor should slide off the hub. Well, it started to but then hung up on something. At this point I really was not sure of anything, I consulted Bentley again, and again, finally used a puller.

I think it was this rust that was making the rotor difficult. Look at the state of it! What in the name of all that is holy was I thinking when I first decided to leave the rotors alone?

What it looks like with rotor off.

New and old.

New rotor on. I must say that it did give me a warm fuzzy feeling to look at it.

Caliper body re-installed and 22 mm bolts torqued back up to, ugghh, 200 ft-lbs. Pads installed, caliper slider swing back down into position and new bolt used in bottom position. You may find that you have to press in the brake piston to get the caliper to fit over new pads. I used a C-clamp to push piston in.

Other side done, wheels back on, tools put away, brow wiped. Ok, test drive…. rub, rub, rub. Son of a gun (or words to that effect), the noise is still there. Noise goes away when braking, that is a clue. On passenger side I had installed a no-name (drivers side is a Girling) caliper a couple of years ago when I broke the nipples off both calipers. I cannot recall why I got a Girling for one side and a no-name for the other side, but that is the way it is. I looked closely at the caliper. Oh yeah, scoring. So it seems that the added thickness of the new pads pushes the slider outboard enough to hit the rim (stock 14″ steelies yeah, yeah, I know I need bigger wheels. It is on my to do list)

And one of the curious little tits on the rim that is hitting.

Allright! Time to do some real work. Blending disc.

Grinding disc.

Caliper modified.

And yes, happy ending. Rubbing noise gone, and as a bonus, the brakes work.

Summary time:

– read the manual closely, don’t be a dolt like me and skim.

– replace rotors if replacing pads. Don’t screw around, the rotors are so inexpensive it is not worth having them turned. I suppose if you liked experimenting with different pads rotor replacement would get expensive. I have read that for good pad break in, the rotors (if not new or turned) should be scuffed to remove any old pad compound. But after all I went through, I’d recommend just buying new rotors and be done with it.

– be careful with those 22 mm bolts holding caliper on upright. The buggers are awkward to get full force on, don’t let wrench slip and for god’s sake support van well.

– think before and during  doing this job. Please don’t be like me.

– Russ told me that the Pagid pads I chose are excellent, the only downside is that they make more dust than the stock pads. That might be a concern if you had alloy wheels.

The other day while replacing the upper control arm bushings on the van I wondered if the spring could be removed without using a spring compressor (Bentley shows compressor being used). I asked on the Yahoo syncro group and a couple of listmembers said it could be done, and they have done it. So today I had a go at it, and at the same time try out the spring spacer I made.

I have to warn you, while this procedure does not expose you to the same dangers as using a compressor , there are dangers to life and limb. That might sound like hyperbole but it isn’t. Please take care if you do what I am about to describe, take it slow, think, be cautious.

Also, what will be described was done on a van with stock springs and with a modest spring spacer. I do not think that it will work with longer springs or thick spacers.

Ok, on with the show. Van jacked up and supported by some solid 8X8 shorts, wheel off, sway bar drop link disconnected, radius rod/arm removed (inner adjusting nut not moved). The lower shock bolt loosened (22 mm socket).

Upper ball joint disconnected, those 2 socket cap bolts.

At this point I was not sure how this was all going to work, seemed like the spring perch would hit drive shaft.

Plastic cap removed from shock shaft end, 17 mm nut loosened but not removed.

Bottle jack supporting shock through hole in lower control arm.

Shock bolt was driven out easily.

And look at how clean that bolt is. I’m lucky, while I have some nasty rust on body, most if not all of the “mechanicals” are in great shape.

When the bolt was driven out and the bottle jack released, the lower control arm fell down. I did not expect this, of course in hindsight I should have.

The 17 mm nut was removed from top of shock and then shock and spring fell out.

Slight digression here, comparing the orange spring (2 white stripe code) from my ’82 diesel westy with the newly removed syncro spring. 20 mm difference between them. Confirms IG16 Wiki data.

And what do you know? The spring pads are different after all. Same part number (although writing this now I recall the syncro spring pad part number has an “A” suffix).

Shock fully extended with syncro spring.

Shock fully extended with orange spring. I would say a shock shaft extension would be need to use this spring in the syncro.

Side by side comparison.

I had to make some slight adjustment to the collar of my spring pad spacer to make it fit the syncro spring pad. Needed to reduce collar diameter a few millimetres

My T-handled tool in through access hole under seat to engage and guide shock shaft up through hole in shock tower.

The shock spring combo needed to be drawn inward to allow shock shaft to go up through hole in tower. I used a ratchet strap.

Here it comes, I’m using the bottle jack to push against the bottom of the shock. Lower shock bolt is installed.

You have to guide the shaft so that the step on the shaft does not get caught on edge of hole.

There you go, installed with spacer. You can see “shadow” line on spring pad that shows how much was in tower without the spacer. I did not re-attach sway bar or radius rod, but did put on wheel and drop van to ground. I bounced van as best I could and measured hub to fender distance. It looks like the spacer did the trick, now 19.25″ at front, 19.125″ at rear. Very preliminary measurement, probably will be a little different after driving.

So then I took it all apart again and removed spacer. I only have one spacer made, but the exercise was worthwhile – I can remove spring without a compressor and I refined my spacer to fit right.

And a bonus, I think I found my pesky squeak – it might be the bushing between sway bar drop link and the sway bar. I had made my own bushings from polyurethane skate board wheels, I greased them during this work and now squeak is gone.

As I am planning on fiddling around with my syncro’s front springs and shocks I thought I might need a tool to guide the top of the shock back into position when re-installing. Bentley calls for VW tool 3141, the best pic I could find with a quick search is this Snap-On one. I had some 1/2″ diameter aluminium rod handy, and a M10 X 1.00 tap (same thread as used in pressure sender on engine, I needed one to make my sender relocation manifold). The lathe made making the tool easy, shaft is a press fit into handle and is pretty secure, but I probably still need to blob on a bit of weld on the joint.

End of shaft.

End of old 2WD front shock – it has the same thread.

Tool screwed onto end of shock.

I hope to be able to show you how it is used when I pull the front springs from the van, but I need to borrow a spring compressor before I get going with that.

So on our last trip I noticed a squeaking when suspension moved, noise coming from front driver’s side. I suspected upper control arm bushing so I set about replacing them on that side. It is a pretty straight forward job, and here are a couple of diagrams illustrating where the bushings are.

I jacked up and supported driver’s side front of van and removed wheel. When I detached the upper ball joint I could move the control arm by hand, and the squeak was there. 19 mm nut on one end of camber adjusting bolt, other end is 14 mm socket. Arm off and in the workshop.

Close up of one bushing.

Other side of bushing. There is a good chance these are originals.

Here is one of the new bushings. Vaico brand, I don’t know where they fall in the quality line up, but I got them in trade for some used vanagon parts. There is a great Samba thread on UCA bushings here.

I wondered if an O-ring would help keep any grease in.

Then I tried some silicone over the O-ring, a variation of what Tencentlife did in above mentioned Samba thread. I ended up removing the silicone and adding a second O-ring.

Now getting the old bushings out. I don’t have a press so I used a bit of aluminium tubing, a biggish socket, and an old 2WD control arm bolt, and a heavy hammer to drive the bushing out.

Look at that clutter. Workshop is in a real sorry state.

Old bushing out.

Bore of UCA where bushing fits. On the syncro it is a simple press fit, no spot weld needed.

Using a vice to press new bushing in.

Part way in. Ok, you’ve noticed that I painted the UCA. A very casual crap job and wasn’t needed (original paint still good), but I had a can of orange paint and I thought it might look cool. Overnight drying time was not enough, paint still soft, came off here and there. Perhaps I should lock up the paint.

A bit of pop can in UCA to keep a large socket in place while bushing driven home.

And the other bushing pressed in.

Out at the van, rear of support where bolt goes through and eccentric washer sits.

Front of support.

Rear eccentric washer in place. It was a fiddly job offering up the UCA into correct position and not have the washers fall out.

But in it went finally. Everything re-assembled. Guess what? I still have a squeak!

Next post will deal with camber adjustment and perhaps finding the squeak.

Not really much to add to the previous rad replacement expect that it is my van (’86 syncro) and I thought I’d make it a post just for my documentation/memory aid purposes. I suspected my rad needed replacement for no other reasons than I think it is the original rad and that I noticed the rad fan coming on more often when idling after a hwy drive. The replacement is a Behr unit, made in South Africa. The old rad still had the a/c condensor rad attached in front, probably not helping heat escapement. The new rad did feel lighter than the old one, whether this is due to deposits in old rad or construction details I can’t say. No real details to note except that it is a pretty easy job. I clamped off the coolant lines so a total coolant replacement was not done, I glued on the little rubber washers on the spikes on top and bottom of the rad (so that they didn’t fall off during installation, and I sprayed Fluid Film on exposed fasteners in the general area. After install and bleeding, I have only idled van long enough (took 20 minutes) to get first stage of fan to come on, no road test yet.

I’m just back from test drive after installing my re-bushed propshaft and I can report that the noise I was hearing, and that I had thought was transmission noise, has gone! I’m chuffed!

But to ward off the Evil Eye, I’ll not claim victory.

I decided to make a split bushing for the internal location. I first turned down some Delrin to final inner diameter (23 mm to match the turned down yoke shaft), then mounted it on a mandrel to turn down OD to 28 mm (was OD of upper bushing and I guessed that the inner one was the same).

I kept the bushing on the mandrel and clamped it in my wee milling head. I also used a small C-clamp on the bushing to stop it from popping off during slot cutting. I used a 1/8″ end mill to cut the slot, made the slot 6.8 mm wide (chord length) which I estimated to be slightly more than needed.

Finished split bushing.

And as I tried to install it, I realized I had no way of holding it compressed to get into the narrow bore, no grip after it goes into outer bushing area. Oh, btw, this is how the bushing should appear when it is finally in place at the bottom of the housing.

I had an idea, some stainless shim stock to act like a funnel.

That worked and I was able to tap the bushing home. You can make it out, down at the bottom.

The yoke shaft would not fit in, I had to chamfer the end of the shaft a little more, and polish the end. But I finally was able to tap the shaft in and it is nice and snug. Quite snug actually, it takes about 20 Nm to rotate the yoke, but no radial movement at all. Oh and another thing, I removed that flange on the upper bushing, didn’t make any sense. I’m feeling quite chuffed in managing to get some sort of bushing replacement made. I hope they will wear well.

(note: holding stub axle by the splines was an error duly pointed out by David in the comments. Axle re-measured and post updated.)

I was complaining to Phil Z. about my wheel bearing failure and he suggested I have a look at the stub axle. So I chucked it up on the lathe, holding it by the splined outboard end (was careful to have the chuck jaws positioned correctly on the splines) and then I measured a couple of things.

Where the outboard bearing seats had 0.009″ runout.

At the inboard bearing seat I measured 0.015″ runout (sorry, fuzzy pic slipped past me).

Where the seal rides, 0.020″.

The face where the CV joint mates had 0.010″ runout.

I did not measure that outer edge of the CV mounting flange as I thought eccentricity there was not  important as the cv is aligned by the bolts.

And here is a quick vid of the assembly spinning.

What does all this mean? How does a new stub axle measure up? Was this runout the cause of my bearing failure?

Addendum: Crow eating time. David’s points about where I was grabbing the axle (splines) was correct. I re-measured runout with axle held by outer bearing seat.

Runout at inner bearing about 0.005″.

At seal, 0.007″.

Flange face, 0.002″.

Looks a lot better in motion.

So there, no smoking gun after all.

Bloody vans eh? No sooner than I fixed that wheel bearing than another problem bites me. Last couple of days I had been noticing a slight whiff of coolant when I got out of the van. I couldn’t see any leaks, inside or out. Then yesterday I noticed that my coolant overflow tank was empty and even I could not ignore the fact that I had a real live leak somewhere. I topped up the tank and fretted about expensive repairs. Today after a short drive, the smell was much more pronounced and I did find the leak. Thank the Vanagon gods that it was a hose leak, short section that runs from the thermostat to the lower of the two crossover pipes at the front end of the engine.

This pic from above does not show any wetness (the bad hose is the lower, thick one). Update: I think it is this hose featured at Van Cafe.

But from below, you can see the marks of a leak.

I had to remove a bracket that holds the remnants of the Webasto coolant heater system to get at the short hose, and remove the bell housing vent to get it out of harm’s way (syncro bell housings are sealed to the motor and a vent is provided that leads up somewhere above the gas tank). No surprise I suppose when I broke the plastic elbow when removing the bracket, so it goes.

With the bracket out of the way, I could get at the hose. Off it came and time to look at it closely.

Just a pinhole really, but big enough to piss away 1 litre of coolant in about 30 minutes of driving. I had some used hose that I took the chance with, and I got it back in place. I had a closer look at the broken vent elbow, it was plugged solid with some sort of crap.

Then I made a jury rigged repair to the vent elbow using some silicone tubing, stainless tubing, and a bit of stainless wire wrap.

Yeah, I know, this hose leak is a not so gentle reminder that all of the cooling hoses on the van are old and tired. The thing is, I have it in mind to swap in a different motor so I’m being a bit cavalier with this old wasserboxer.