It occurred to me that I should have mentioned how I removed the 46 mm castellated wheel nut off the rear wheel in the last post about the bearing failure. The nut is on there good and tight, Bentley says to torque it up to 360 ft lbs (for the 10 slot castellated nut, the older 6 slot nut was torqued to a lesser value, something like 285 ft lbs). I don’t have the heavy duty air tools that would handle this but I do have a 3/4″ drive, imperial socket that fits (1 13/16″ – handy metric to fractional imperial chart here), corresponding tommy bar, and a 3 ft section of thick walled steel pipe. You can apply a lot of twist with this set up and can even get a fairly good idea of torque applied if you know your weight and where about on the pipe you are applying it. You know the drill, 100 lbs of weight one foot from the axis of rotation is 100 ft lbs, same weight two feet out is 200 ft lbs. You loosen the nut before you jack up the van, and have the handbrake on. But the other day when I was doing the bearing job I had a dickens of a time getting the nut off without the wheel turning and the van moving, and it was impossible to loosen the nut on my parts van as the transmission is out and the free end of the axle was just hanging in space. I did try the slug wrench mentioned in my original post on wheel bearing replacement, but it did not budge the nut.

So how do you stop the wheel from turning when you are grunting down on the end of the 3 ft extension? Well, you have to jack van up and support it securely on good jackstands. Remove the wheel, and use the lug nuts to secure some sort of metal bar to the brake drum. I have lots of scrap bits of aluminium around, so I used some 1/8″  3/16″ thick angle. The angle bears on the ground stopping the hub from turning. Here is a snap taken today when I pulled the drum and hub off the other rear wheel to have a look at the brakes. Not very clear in the pic, but there are 2 lug nuts holding the angle to the drum. Note also the old house jack supporting the socket extension.

This really worked, no drama, no movement of the van. Used the same technique when tightening the nut.

Oh and here is what I wanted to look at. With the hub out of the way I could see the gubbins clearly and I wanted to be sure all the brake springs were installed correctly (I *think* they are). Plus I wanted to pull off the threaded adjustment bar and clean it up so that it would actually adjust (I hate the Vanagon rear brakes).

Almost exactly a year back I replaced the bearings in right rear wheel, but a couple of days ago I noticed some play in that wheel. I thought more play than there should be (i.e. none to a teensy amount). So I pulled the bearing housing and this time taking the driveshaft and CV joints with it. That meant CV joint to transaxle connection detached. I had a spare assembly, all greased up and ready to go, was from my old ’82 westy and still ok.

Got it installed ok, never really a fun job. Then I had a look at the one year old rebuild. I had the notion that maybe the bearings might be loose in the bearing housings, but no, they had to be driven out with some effort. The outer bearing looked fine, but the inboard bearing looks discoloured.

And it feels slightly rough when spun. So what’s the story? Did I not lube it enough during install? This picture from then looks like I did not put much grease into the bearing, but what you see is the stuff I had smooshed into the bearing, more lube was put on after the bearing was in place.

Maybe I did screw up, wouldn’t be the first time.

Update: looking at the bearing again, I’m not so sure it overheated. It looks more like corrosion on the outside of the outer race. Still puzzling.

Addendum: I cleaned up the CV joints on the axle I removed and one joint is ok, the other is on its way out. I have to admit that I had not serviced the rear CVs since I bought this van a couple of years ago, it really should have been done. The grease was a bit dry on both joints, and one showed signs of impending failure (Ed. jeez, that sounds a bit over dramatic).

Outer race removed.

Expected and acceptable wear.

One of these balls is not like the other ones.

Inner race, would this erosion spread?

You kinda wonder if tri-annual repacking of CV joints is the way to go, or just replace them every seven years or so. It is a bit of a chore getting the axles off, and more of a chore cleaning and repacking. CV joints are about 90 bucks a piece here, I don’t know what is the best strategy.

Seems like a slim subject for a post, but perhaps some of you don’t know it can be done. The shafts that stick out of the front of the van, and to which the wiper arms are attached, have a plain bearing sleeve. I bet that over time any lubrication in the sleeve is lost and the shaft gets that little bit harder to move.

I have a spare wiper assembly in the barn, so here are some pics of the shaft and housing.

Front view, showing the splined area that the arm meshes with, the threaded end for the wiper arm securing nut, the threaded base that the big nut that holds the housing in place on the sheet metal (the housing is also held to the van by phillips headed screws that you can see at the front edge of dash board near windscreen). You might be able to make out a circlip just above the large threads.

Circlip removed, 2 washers, and a rubber grease seal.

Back, inside view of above, circlip and washers removed and the shaft pushed back. This exposed shaft is what need lubed.

Make sense? Ok, out to the van. First pry off the plastic cap at the base of the wiper arm. See the little slot on wiper arm base where you can insert a screwdriver to twist off the cap?

Cap off, 10 mm nut exposed. Often it is pretty rusty in here.

Remove nut and thin washer, wiggle wiper arm and remove from stud. The splines will look cruddy like this one, no worry, clean the splines out with a pin/needle. It’s these splines which bite into the softer metal of the wiper arm that prevents the wiper arm from slipping, not how tight the 10 mm nut is. So spend some time to clean the splines out.

Pry off the black plastic shroud. Careful, don’t scratch the paint.

That big nut is supposed to be somewhat tight, 69 in. lbs (8 Nm). You can see the golden coloured circlip, remove that (don’t lose it!).

In this pic the circlip and the 2 washers have been removed, and the 10 mm nut put back on the shaft (to give me something to hold on to). The shaft was pushed in and out a little and that made the grease seal pop out.

Bentley says to use molybdenum disulphide grease on the shaft, I used gear oil. If I had the shafts right apart then grease would make sense, but seems to me that oil is better in this situation.

And then it is just a matter of putting it all back together. The circlip might be the hardest part to re-install. The wiper arm nut is tightened to 5 Nm (43 in. lbs). Do not over-tighten, risk of strippage! I place the arm on the shaft and before tightening the nut, I move the arm into proper resting position Then tighten the nut and the assembly draws up without moving out of position. Oh, and another thing, I glob some waterproof grease onto that nut to reduce rusting.

A few months ago my driver’s side door was allowed to swing open hard (van parked on hill, happened on this trip) and the check strap snapped. Got around to fixing it today. I had a spare assembly from my ’82, straightforward swap.

After the door card is removed, you can see the check strap assembly inside the door. The ’86 has a plastic cover over the works, the old ’82 did not.

Cover removed, two phillips head screws holds the mechanism on.

Removed and the broken end on the other side. The remainder of the strap, the part attached to the door jamb and held on with a pin and circlip arrangement was removed when I snapped the strap.

The replacement unit, and the waterproof grease I’ve been using recently for this and that. The stuff really does seem to resist washout better than regular grease (ie on shift linkage)

Installation is simple, no gotchas, here is pin on body end of strap.

Addendum: In the comment Jon asked if the check strap could be adjusted to give more resistance. I can’t see how that could be done, perhaps Jon’s mechanism is broken? Here are more pics of the “resisting elements”, the hard faced rubber bits that pinch the steel strap.

Some more images of the slots on the slotted plates of the VC. Any burr or ridge is not so clear, but perhaps there is one on the worn side of the plate. The series show the same plate, un-worn, then worn side. Clicking on the pics will bring up larger version.

Un-worn side.

Worn side.

Un-worn side.

Worn side.

I took some pics (btw, all the pics can be clicked on to get larger image) of the plates in an attempt to see those “burrs” on the holes or slots that are implicated in the hump or STA (self torque amplification) event. I think having my sketch diagram of how the plates and spacers are arranged would be useful here:

Here is the stack as it comes out of the VC. Note that the circlip and shims are not on the end of the shaft. Also note that the top plate is not held in the stack by the circlip, but rather is pressed against the endplate when installed.

The reverse side of that top plate, obviously worn.

And the slotted plate below.

Now remember, these two top plates are not spaced apart. The next plate however, is spaced from the slotted plate you see by approx. 0.025″. Mis-focused on this pic, but included it to keep the arrangement clear. See the wear on it even though it is spaced from the plate above?

Here, with the above plate beside, slotted plate turned over.

Closer view.

Here are the adjacent surfaces of another pair, same arrangement as the worn pair above, ie has spacer separating them. Note that they are not worn.

Now lets get a better look at the punched holes.

Closer, I’d say there was a raised rim, very subtle.

And a shot of worn plate holes. I think you can see where the rim/burr whatever you want to call it has been worn.

I only had time to get one close up of the slots in the other plate type, no rim evident on this side at least.

Well, this exercise demonstrated, to me at least, that there are burrs on the punched holes. As to the role of these burrs, I will deal with that in part 3.

Last week I swapped  new radiator into my friend Simon’s 91 syncro westy. What forced this swap was the failure of the threaded insert where the fan thermoswitch goes. We were trying to install a new switch (old switch was not working properly) and the insert just gave up the ghost.

So Simon left the van at my house and came back a few days later with a new rad and I had the pleasure of doing the install. A bit of background on this van’s radiator, about a year and a half ago we did the thermoswitch replacement, the story is told here. I think I should have nagged Simon a bit more to get a new rad back then, that eroded switch could not have been a good sign.

Removing the rad is a pretty straightforward, if messy, job.

– drop spare and remove clamshell

– clamp off coolant lines

– disconnect wires to rad fan

– remove upper and lower grills

– disconnect thermoswitch (obviously I did not need to do that!)

– remove the (probably rotten) cardboard wind deflectors from around the rad

– I found that removing the passenger side “L” bracket ( 2 X 13mm bolts)  first allows you to get access to the spring clamps on the coolant lines, leave the driver’s side bracket untouched for time being to hold the rad in place. Passenger side bracket removed:

Note: see the rubber washer on the plastic”tit” between the coolant hoses? There is a tit on each corner of the rad, the upper ones fit into holes in the van body, the lower ones into holes in the “L”  brackets. Don’t lose the rubber washers. Well, go ahead, lose them. Garden hose washers would probably make an ok substitute.

Driver’s side bracket still in place (pic taken before I removed the lower cardboard wind deflector):

– cut or undo any cable ties holding up the coolant hoses or the fan wiring so that the radiator will not hang up when it comes down.

– remove the driver’s side “L” bracket. Careful, the rad will drop down.

– drag the bugger out from under the van and swap the fan and shroud ( 10 mm self tapping screws) over to the new radiator.

Installation is harder than removal as you have to fight gravity and get those upper tits into the holes while lying on your back below the van. A helper at this point would be, well, helpful. Don’t forget that the driver’s side “L” bracket interferes with the spring clamps on the coolant hoses, and don’t forget to push up on the “L” brackets as you tighten the bolts to make sure the rad is seated tightly.

Now the fun part, Sawz-All plus Simon meets the old rad. He cut it in half then cut the plastic end caps off. We found the remains of the threaded insert and a whole lot of gunk at the bottom of the rad. Remember it is a 2-pass rad, hot comes in and directed by end cap up to upper half of rad, then it goes across from passenger to driver’s side and down the other end cap, then back across lower half. The junk was found in the lower, passenger side, ie just before the exit and just below where the thermoswitch (rad fan) is installed.

Note: I drained all the coolant and flushed the system on this van, then recharged with fresh coolant. I found bleeding the Vanagon and Subie EJ25 combo to be much more of a chore than stock or my old inline four in my ’82 westy.

A hardy few met at Beaver lake today. All Westies (if I can include my conversion), three syncros and two 2wd. One Tdi, one Bostig, one 2.5 Subie, and two stock wasserboxers. Was fun to kibitz  and see each other’s vans.

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