Transmission mounts / clutch stuff

David, how are your motor mounts on the subie 2.2 engine?  

David- For a little background;

1- is your car swingaxle or irs?

2- does the bowden tube have the correct amount of bow in it?

3- stock VW front and 2 rear trans mounts? how old are they?

4- does the engine sit level (side to side) in the engine compartment?

4- is there a rear mount that attaches the engine to something solid other than the transaxle?

5- do you (or anyone else)know how much heavier your subie is than a VW aircooled engine (which is about 240? lbs)

 

I'm thinking that maybe the heavier, more powerful engine may be overpowering the mounts, causing the trans to twist back and forth against the mounts and even twisting/bending the frame horns ever so slightly. I think you're right- some new VW trans mounts (don't even look at the poly stuff; poly is harder so it transmits more noise through the car and they tear after not too many miles), a Berg mid-mount to keep the trans from rocking back and forth against the mounts (you do have probably twice the hp of a stock VW engine, afterall) and a kafer bar to properly support the frame horns, as even a stock VW engine can cause this damage.

 

In a beetle with more powerful engine (or even a stocker driven "spiritedly) the answer is an "engine support bar" that goes under the back of the engine (just in front of the oil pump) and is supported be hangers going up to the body where the bumper bracket mounts are. Some sort of engine support at the very rear (to keep it from twisting against the trans mounts) would help as well, but most of our cars don't have any frame or metalwork with the strength give support that far back.

 

 

EJ22 is about 270 lbs dressed-out. VW Type-1 is about 240.

 

Here is one source on that. There are several others.

 

Figure the KEP adapter and flywheel adds another 25-30 lbs over the VW weight. So 60 lbs more with the Suby, roughly.

Thanks for the input, Lads. Ray...there is no engine mount period and that may be the root of the problem.

 

To answer Al's questions above....

 

1. Swing axle

2. good bend in Bowden tube and no movement in cable tube

3. Stock tranny mounts on stock tranny and no idea of age. 50,000 miles minimum

4. engine is level

5. Ed's got the numbers.

 

I think you're on the right track, Al about the larger HP twisting on the older mounts. The thing is, when I did the conversion, I had no idea of how to go about it, info was scarce and we sort of had to figure things out on the fly.

 

I'm going to put a buddy in the car tomorrow and with the hand brake on, get him to start the engine, put it in first gear and let the clutch out a bit and I'll observe the twist of the engine. I'm expecting lots.

 

There are engine mount systems available out there for putting Soob engines into VW vans and I can buy parts of a kit which would provide the brackets to bolt to the engine. I also have good frame material on the car left and right to which I could fasten a self built crossbar which would bolt to the brackets....that becoming what you refer to as an engine support bar. I'll just have to dodge some exhaust parts in doing that.

 

I understand the Berg mid mount thing and maybe an engine support bar would cover that issue as well as take up some of the weight overall. If new tranny mounts and a support bar gets me back in good shape, I'll be content with that. If not...I'll get into more structural reinforcement.

 

The engine and cooling system continues to do well so I'm happy with that. I may spring for a new tranny over the winter and I'm not sure if I'd go with the taller gears or not.

Is there anything wrong with the transaxle that's in it? What gears do you have in it now? Rear tire size? Approx engine hp? (I'm guessing 140-ish?) What do you like about the way it drives now? What would you change?

 

What the Berg mid-mount does is stop the trans from twisting against the mounts (and ultimately bending the frame horns). This is yet again a classic example of the original engineering being adequate for the power and driving style the car was intended for, but as soon as we start playing, the equipment's shortcomings become apparent. The engineers at Wolfsburg just never envisioned what we do to this platform.

It would be interesting to see your setup, I would think that researching sites that have installed Subie engines you might get a look at what types of cradles/bars they made to attach their engines in there vans/cars etc.  I wonder if you should look at how a subie engine is usually held .. ie: the motor mounts they use etc. my 2 shekels. 

EJ22 seems to have 135-142 hp depending on the model you have.  I had a 3:44 final drive in my 2110cc /145hp aircooled and it did a real nice 65-70 mph at around 3000 rpm. Not sure why you would change the tranny yet, if your issue is really a mounting and vibraion issue. Ray 

David, I'm just curious as I want to learn about the differences in the cars I know and these cars. If I had a car in my shop with the symptoms you are describing, we always checked to make sure there was no broken/weak mounts like you are doing. Next we checked to make sure the pressure plate and flywheel weren't warped or heat checked.  The chatter was almost always caused by a pressure plate or flywheel problem. It's easy to check the mount because that is easiest. I guess I'm just wondering about the condition of your clutch. My car has a tiny bit of chatter but only occasionally, all my drivetrain components are new and I have a kafer bar and the flop stopper. Even with this stuff it still has a chatter.

 

I'll be looking at the transmission mounts today and spent a good deal of time last night researching how others have installed engine mounts to the frames, mostly into VW vans.

 

My engine is a 1998 2.2l which was rated at 137 hp stock. I yanked out the fuel injection system and installed a 32/36 Weber in the center. Not ideal likely but it works well. So, no one knows how much power really.

 

The transmission is a 1967 stock VW. No one knows how many miles on it. I've added 50,000 to it. Sometimes it's hard to get into third gear from second. The shifter is adjusted as best it can be so possible syncro stuff going bad inside ? Again, I don't know.

 

Re: the chatter, it is virtually impossible to ride the clutch any amount, say when you are taking off on a hill. It will chatter incessantly. I have to give it a bit, get off the clutch, give it a poke of gas to low rpm's only and drop the clutch to get going successfully. That just isn't right. I wish I had a clutch system like my old Volvo.

 

Fpcopo...is your name Frank ?...could you please describe your clutch disc and what pressure plate do you have installed ?

 

Kennedy originally sent me an unsprung clutch disc with my kit. Not knowing any better, I installed it and it was impossible to drive. Completely impossible because of the chatter. I reinstalled my old VW disc and it was smooth as butter but after several thousand miles the surfaces wore out. I had a local clutch guy build me a custom clutch sprung disc and he checked the flywheel and pressure plate then. It was fine. At first there was no chatter, but over time the problem has worsened. Gradual degradation of the tranny mounts due to not having good engine mounting ?

David - Sorry.....Been away doing "Grampa" things with the kids.

 

I had several issues that I had lived with for a while and wanted to get over them.  Those issues were: 

 

1. A significant clutch chatter, particularly on very hot days, but might come and go when cold.  I have a Kennedy Stage 1 (1700#) which came with a sprung disk from Kennedy.  It's chattered since day one and, after 16 years of living with it, adjusting the Bowden tube and generally screwing around to make it better, I had had enough.  I replaced the Kennedy sprung disk with a HD VW unsprung disk from Sachs Germany.  Chatter cured.  I'm not worried about future wear - I tend to be pretty easy on clutches and get lots of miles out of them.  All that said, I believe that the original clutch disk was slightly warped and got worse with heat.

 

2.  An obvious de-lam of the front transmission mount (it was an original 1969 from the donor car, as were the rear tranny mounts).  Here, you have your choice of stock Asian , Stock German , or HD German - I think Berg is the best source for these  or the Gorilla Urethane Mounts that Carey recommended.  As always, the Urethane mounts are probably the strongest, but also transmit a bit more engine/transaxle noise to the cockpit.  

 

While going to the effort of replacing all of the mounts, I figured that installing the transaxle mid-mount under a 150hp engine was a good thing, eliminating the front mount de-lam forever (it prevents the transaxle nose from moving upward on radical acceleration).  I used to get a good bit of side-to-side engine wobble at idle, indicating weaker rubber mounts - that has been eliminated with the Gorilla Mounts.

 

At the same time, I thought the Kafer brace was a good idea, but for the next reason:

 

3.  A shudder in the car at 68-71mph that would come and go if the speed was held constant.  This, too, was there since day one and I have been trying to find out what the cause was for 15 years.  Had the wheels checked for trueness (to .003" or less in all dimensions at the rim) had everything balanced a bunch of times, finally trashed my Continentals and went to Michelins and saw much improvement (and far fewer wheel weights needed), but still not perfect.  I've braced the horse-shoe frame member surrounding the engine to minimize, as best one can, up and down movement and thought that adding a Kafer Brace would generally stiffen everything up.  Someday, if it looks like it might make sense, I might install horizontal corner braces at the rear (taillight end) of the horse-shoe frame to eliminate any side-to-side movement of the frame/body, but right now it has improved enough that I'm ignoring it.

 

One other thing I did, when Rancho was rebuilding the transaxle, was ask to go to a 3:88 rear end AND replace the Super-Diff with a new one, even though it had less than 30K miles on it, thinking that it might be the cause of the shudder (because the shudder wasn't constant - it would come and go at the same speed).  A long shot, but they had it apart anyway and the price was right.

 

4.  I had excessive counter-shaft front bearing noise (inside of the tranny nosecone), especially when cruising in third gear and decelerating.  This is the #1 cause of noise in a VW transaxle because of stress and relative oiling capability within the case, plus the bearings available are generally not as good as back in the 1960's and '70's.  I got a "German" bearing (actually, made in Sweden) from a local Bearing supplier and sent that along to Rancho with the tranny and that's what got put in.  Night and day difference.  I've seen pics of the same bearing at Air-cooled.net, too.

 

So after all that, the car is far tighter and stiffer, but transmits a bit more engine/transaxle noise to the cockpit (as usual, hard to tell the difference over the engine exhaust noise).  The vibration in the shift lever is gone and I noticed that the Kafer Bracing seems to make it even flatter going through the "Esses" at Lime Rock Raceway - the car was super-flat, but the tires were way too soft - just wait til next time when I have them pumped up!

 

So that's it.  What was always a fun car on twisty back roads at 50-60mph or so is now also far more comfortable at 72-80 mph on a freeway.  Unfortunately, I did so many changes that I can not pinpoint what did the most good.

 

At this point in your car's life, and as a good winter project, I would at least go with the beefier transaxle mounts (at least the HD Rubber jobbies) and a cross-member/cradle for the engine to hold it up, or something like the rear mount in a VW Bus or in the Type 3 and 4 cars.  That stuff just makes sense for a Suby installation.

 

Good luck with this.

 

gn

Gordon looking at your avatar I was wondering why you had not tried using balloons to get you up up and away...Ray

your noise, a tapping sort of noise/vibration is coming from your transmission most likely.  Inside the trans your swing axles spade end fits inside the super diff with two fulcrum plates on each side of the spade. What is happening at speed the spade and fulcrum plates have loss its lubrication. most likely the ring gear side. At speed the oil is being forced out of the diff faster than it can scoop up the oil to lubricate the fulcrums.  When this occurs if you pulled off the road and sat for five minutes and starter down the road most likely the noise would be gone.. Sometimes you can just slow down to 50 and in a few minutes it goes away.

we do not recommend superdiffs to any customer unless they request it.

this issue is only with swing axle transmissions. I modified several super diff so over the years and improved the oiling but the problem never went away. 

Pas for the berg mounts.   They actually the heavy duty bus mounts. we get about 48.00 for the whole set.

I don't know who your comment is directed at, Anthony. I have a clutch chatter issue. Don't know who has a tapping noise / vibration.

Sorry about that David, the clutch is either the front mount or the disc/pressure plate

  

 

Thanks for that, Anthony. I haven't had a chance to check the front mount yet but did manage to stick a video camera from the back to see if I can detect any twisting motion. Didn't see much.

 

In the video you will see the whole car drop a bit as I get into it. Then, with the parking brake on, in first gear I give it a bit of gas and ease out the clutch twice. You can see the car sort of squat down but not much twisting going on. I thought I'd see lots.

 

Any comments or ideas.? ..check the front mount next I guess.

Thanks for that, Anthony - sounds similar to what I had, but my car is IRS.  Still, your hypothesis certainly makes sense.  I honestly can't say that the super-diff was the culprit - in non-engineer style I made way too many changes at the same time and shot-gunned the hell out of the problem, having been fed up with it for so long.  Allthose changes seem to have eliminated that old problem.

 

What I now have feels like a slight and classic wheel-weight issue that will probably go away with a road force wheel balance, but it's easy to ignore it by staying above 71. The old shudder came and went about every 15 seconds within the same speed range and seemed to change (go away a bit) as you took sweeping turns and, yes, sometimes if I made a fast stop and go things might change a bit.  The latest vibration comes on at the same rpm and stays steady until I exit the target speed range - just like classic wheel imbalance.

 

Thanks for the insight .....Made a lot of sense!

 

OK, now back to Dave's clutch thread.

I can't get that video above to open but on my home computer it works and there is virtually no twist in the engine on what mounts it is attached to.

 

I just got out from under the car and did a visual inspection of the front tranny mount and it is an OEM part and looks like new. I'll put a jack under it tomorrow and see if there is any vertical movement. Might try a side view of the front mount with the camera too.

 

I'm starting to wonder why the Lad that built my clutch disc did it the way he did. Full organic on one side and segmented Kevlar on the other. Why not just clone what Subaru did but with a VW spline adapter in the center ?

 

My Bowden tube still has a nice arch to it and the Bowden tube front restraint is still in position.

David, the clutch is a new Kennedy pressure plate and sprung disc. It is the level one but the damn thing is still quite a hard push. It chatters just a little form a stop. If it was much worse I'd start looking at things but I'm thinking it might have more to do with  the friction material.  Anyhow the way it is now it is acceptable.  Frank

Thanks for that, Frank. The hard push can be eased up nicely with a longer clutch release arm from a bus ( or equivalent ). It's been a while but this was a nice idea handed down to us by Jack Crosby.

 

You could lengthen your existing arm by welding in a part or just change it out for a longer one. Check the Samba for the piece. Be very careful about the size of the splines though. There are different ones out there for different applications. The spline fit needs to be correct.

 

I'm not sure at what to look at next, but I'm starting to wonder why my disc is not just like the stock Subaru but with a VW center spline.

I thought that longer throw-out-arm trick was more widely known.  It's an old Dune Buggy trick that I've used on my car since day one and it works great.

 

Another trick I've seen is to use a stock-length VW clutch cable, wrapped around a pulley which was attached to the existing, stock throw-out arm.  The stud end of the cable was attached to a bracket which attached to a side-cover stud (I think) and retained the adjustability of the cable there.  The pulley diameter gave the throw-out-arm about 1-1/2" to 2" more length, making it super-easy to push.  Someone had this set-up at Carlisle, one year.  The pedal pressure was really light, even though it was a 1,700 lb clutch plate.

Now that's a very slick idea....and no need to find a shortened cable or making a cable shorter either. Come to think of it, going back to the advantages of a pulley system, theoretically the foot pedal force required would then be less than 1/2 of the original given that the pulley increases the radius of the arm too. Have I got that right ?

Bruce is the guy on the Samba with the longer throw-out arms. He's easy to deal with.

Dave:  You're right.

 

I haven't seen one of those kits for a while, but I'll poke around to see if I can find one with pictures.  Stay tuned.

 

 Wow....Easier than I thought:

 

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/for...wtopic.php?p=6091409

 

BTW:  You 914 owners, help me here:  Didn't the 914 have a clutch-cable pulley setup on the cable to reverse direction because of the turned-around transaxle??  I seem to remember something like that, too.

Dave---I may have reported the idea of using a bus clutch release arm but the idea actually came from Jake Raby who set my tranny up that way.  

 

I wish I were that smart!

 

Jack, maybe he knows enough of the regular stuff now and seen enough breakdowns to start thinking out of the box those are the guys that you appreciate in all fields. Ray

Amen, Ray.  So true.

Yes Gordon you are correct sir.
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/i...e=post&id=408385

WOW!  

 

I have absolutely no idea how I knew that.  All I've ever done on a 914 is a tune up and plugs.  "da stuff ya get from da 'Interweb'...."

 

Must be a disturbance in the Force.......

 

"May da Force be Wit'chu" (Translated to Rhode Island-ese)

Does that wheel cause a mechanical advantage to remove the pressure on the pedal and allow easier clutch movement.

I has to, Ray. Go back to your grade 8 ( or so ) physics class and refresh your memory about pulley systems. If you have a fixed rope hanging from a tree, one pulley at the bottom with a weight tied to it and a guy up in the tree pulling on the rope, he'll be able to pull it up with half the effort of the weight of the object. Twice as much rope to pull to do it though.

 

As I alluded to earlier above, if the pulley is larger in diameter than the end of the lever it is attached to, ( and it will be / it has to be one radius more ) then the effort to push the clutch pedal is cut in half and then lessened again by a ratio of the radius of the pulley / the length of the original release lever.

 

In theory and please someone correct me if I'm wrong, it goes like this.

 

Scenario one: Increase the length of the release lever from two inches to three inches. Eg., effort to pull the short lever was 15lbs and now it will be 10 lbs.

 

Scenario two: Keep the lever at two inches long, install a two inch pulley ( radius of one inch ) and the effort to pull the lever was 15 lbs and now it will be 10lbs and then divide  by two because of the single pulley effect. Ergo....5 lbs.

 

You'd lose a little bit by friction etc.

 

I think I've got it right....yes  / no ?

 

NOW...come to think of it, in sailboat rigging and especially in aircraft control cable rigging there they have different categories of purpose / flexibility.  In the aircraft genre, 1x19 cable is non flex, 7x7 is flexible and 7x19 is extra flexible. I don't know the profile of the standard VW clutch cable. It might not like a sharp, 180 degree turn. Anyone....? anyone....? Bueler  ?

914's required release arm be pulled to rear of car so the pulley was needed to reverse direction (since trans was behind engine).  When same basic trans was in 912/911 it was pulled forward just like T1.

 

David, Yes of course, I must of been distracted for a moment  and the size of the wheel makes a smaller or bigger arc which would either increase or decrease the advantage of the leverage. like a normal pulley system would as well. Ray

 

Oh yeah a 911 clutch cable I know is more substantial but I do not know if it could handle the bend. 

Just remember that the advantage of using a pulley ( or any lever for that matter) to lessen the load increases the travel required.  Half as much force, twice the amount of rope (or pedal motion) needed. Keep adding pulleys (e.g., a block and tackle) and the rope needed to make the load go keeps getting longer and longer.  No free lunches, fellas.

Ray, with respect, I don't think you have come to grips with what really happens. The SIZE of the wheel ( pulley ) can only make one thing happen and that is, it literally extends the length of the original lever by one half the diameter of the pulley. One could argue that the further away the center of the pulley is from the end of the lever itself would degrade my theory but only minimally.  

 

Then, secondly,  by virtue of it acting as a single pulley system, it halves again the effort to push on the clutch pedal.

David, I might not be explaining myself correctly, let me try to rephrase it, English is my second language  El Frazoo talks about lengthening the arm for leverage, but we are talking about increasing the size of the pulley which is in effect, doing the same thing... did I get the concept ?  The wheel, by itself provides a multiplying effect reducing the pedal pressure. Ray

P.S. El, the cable gets longer for sure.

Correct me if I'm wrong but a fixed pulley only offers a mechanical advantage of 1 so a 10b weight moved through a fixed pulley requires 10lb. of force to move it. So if the clutch cable is only going through one fixed pulley there should be no mechanical advantage. The fixed pulley only acts as a change of direction. In order to gain mechanical advantage the pulley has to move.

 

Effort = Load

P=W

Dividing both sides by P

P/P =W/P

W/P = 1

Since W/P = M.A

M.A = 1

 

The only way you get an advantage with a pulley is if the pulley itself moves, like David's example in the tree. In this case, the pulley is fixed and does not move. It is simply a direction change with no mechanical advantage. In fact, you have a tiny bit of friction introduced at the pivot point as compared to a cable being pulled in a straight line. As El Frazoo pointed out, the way you measure mechanical advantage is by comparing input travel to movement travel. In this case with the 914 set up, when you move the pedal two inches the clutch lever moves two inches. Just a direction change with no mechanical advantage.

 

The size of the pulley does not change the mechanical advantage, unless you make it an eccentric pulley (an off-set pulley). -- Syl

 

OOPS, just saw Robert's reply. He is right on the money.

Well this discussion is certainly causing me to review my basic physics lol so I did my home work then I double checked
I talked to my son and the civil engineer says to me ... One pulley only gives direction change , for mechanical advantage you need two but most likely three because you will need some direction change halfing the strength needed but then needing extra cable length and then more pedal travel.  Sometimes you need a review
http://science.howstuffworks.c...equipment/pulley.htm