Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2010 11:23 pm
The pilot bearing is the most overlooked clutch component IMHO. And it can cause all the inconsistencies with your clutch you have described. A shattered pilot bearing might allow a trans to shift just fine one minute then nothing the next and every little glitch a clutch can go through in between. I had a 79 campmobile that did this very thing on a cross country trip once.
The clutch started acting up on me. Working fine then not, grinding, stiff shifting, the whole bit. Then the clutch stopped working all together. It turned out that once the pilot bearing had completely shattered it had essentially welded the crank to the input shaft rendering the clutch itself useless.
I pulled the engine and trans as a unit and had to use pry bars to separate them on the ground. The bad pilot bearing bound things up that bad! The rest of the clutch parts were just fine but since I had it apart I did a full clutch job anyway.
VW did give a spec for the amount of grease used to lube the pilot bearing. It’s one gram of grease.
The clutch started acting up on me. Working fine then not, grinding, stiff shifting, the whole bit. Then the clutch stopped working all together. It turned out that once the pilot bearing had completely shattered it had essentially welded the crank to the input shaft rendering the clutch itself useless.
I pulled the engine and trans as a unit and had to use pry bars to separate them on the ground. The bad pilot bearing bound things up that bad! The rest of the clutch parts were just fine but since I had it apart I did a full clutch job anyway.
VW did give a spec for the amount of grease used to lube the pilot bearing. It’s one gram of grease.