Itinerant Air-Cooled

Ok, so, yep, wrong pressure plate for a 1971 bug transaxle with the throw out bearing guide tube/cone. It was suggested I could remove the ring on the pressure plate that currently caps in the center all of the forks or tines of the pressure plate. Could I also just leave the guide tube/cone off of the transaxle?


neal

I would not screw around with that and get another pressure plate. That is an important part to mess with.
The guide tube is part of the design, leave it!

Sigh. Just spent four hours trying to remove the seal at the input shaft in the transaxle to no %(*$&$* avail.


Hopefully it's just the ides of march.



neal

Must have been. Got hold of an implement that finally allowed me to pop that sucker out.






Next to the new one. It isn't pretty, but I did manage not to mung up the seating surfaces in the transaxle case. Yeehaw!!

Now, because I've had the pressure plate balanced to the pulley, crankshaft, connecting rods, pistons and flywheel, I'd prefer to simply leave off the guide tube/cone rather than muck with the pressure plate or replace the pressure plate. It looks doable.




The older dead transaxle.




And the newer without the tube/cone.





neal

ruckman101 wrote: And the newer without the tube/cone.

Tip the transaxle backwards after cleaning that area up good. See if the input shaft seal holds the transaxle oil. You will have to tilt it enough to get the oil up to the input shaft.

Run the clutch plate up and down the splines in a few different place spots to make sure that it does not hang up.
Colin

So what the hell is the guide tube for if you can leave it off? A cheaper pressure plate design? Or is this like a retrofit?

hambone wrote:So what the hell is the guide tube for if you can leave it off? A cheaper pressure plate design? Or is this like a retrofit?

Don't you sass me boy. The switch from the three arm pressure plate with big ring to the diaphragm finger design necessitated a "piloted" release bearing, boy. Likewise, if you retrofit a finger style pressure plate, you need to put a big ring on it to work with the floating style of release bearing.
Colinpops

Listen, Pops, Just trying to figure out why the design was changed. Which design is better? Is it OK to switch back and forth like this? (apparently)

hambone wrote:Listen, Pops, Just trying to figure out why the design was changed. Which design is better? Is it OK to switch back and forth like this? (apparently)

The guided release bearing was the better design. Really. So were the "new" diaphragm finger pressure plates.
But now, see, the new crap oput there is so damn indifferent, that sometimes the old three arm + ring pressure plates are actually capable of giving you better service over the long haul. Right now, I am getting mighty ticked off boy, at the lousy balance with this new stuff.
Colin

It's that balance bit that has me wanting to leave the guide tube/cone off. Looks like things would be happy without it.


neal

they won't be happy, and neither will you, when you have to pull it apart again to replace the carnage. which will be a lot worse than the nanogram imbalance caused by the removal of the spring thingy that is also near the center of the rotating mass.

ruckman101 wrote:It's that balance bit that has me wanting to leave the guide tube/cone off. Looks like things would be happy without it.
neal

Whoa wait a minute. What balance thing are you talking about? I said, and Jake Raby and others will confirm, that many new pressure plates are pretty much un-balanceable. It is not because they have the little ring stuck in the fingers. It is because the cast pressure plate iron is poorly cast/machined.

If you have a crap balanced pressure plate, it has nothing to do with the release bearing guide tube that MUST be there for release bearings that contact fingers directly . . . whoof.

Like the famous vdubyah73 once said, "carnage" as in "replace the . . ."

Dan Hall's balanced the drive train as a unit. Pressure plate, driveshaft, flywheel, connecting rods, pistons, pulley balanced to each other. If I throw a different pressure plate on there, it throws the balance of everything else off.


neal

ruckman101 wrote:Dan Hall's balanced the drive train as a unit. Pressure plate, driveshaft, flywheel, connecting rods, pistons, pulley balanced to each other. If I throw a different pressure plate on there, it throws the balance of everything else off.
neal

Sure. Keep what is balanced. Just want to make sure that we don't have erroneous cause and effect interpretations floating about.

Early style floating release bearings must have contact ring on pressure plate, whatever style pressure plate.

Later guided tube release bearings contact fingers directly on what must be finger style pressure plate.

Yes, current pressure plate has the ring, and guide cone does not fit into it.



And the transaxle with guide cone removed.




neal