Time for a little maintenance and repair. The bus has about 1000 miles on the motor and trans so I wanted to do a health inspection on the tranny by pulling all 4 of the magnetic drain plugs out. They all looked like this.
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I addressed a few other minor issues. The brakes pull to the right when cold for a few stops and squeak loud on a panic stop when hot so off with the drums for inspection. All looks perfect, the front cyl pistons are nice and free, pulling on the pedal (while underneath) I can operate the whl cyls and hold each piston in/out to verify it's partner is working freely on the fronts where you have two cyls per side. They are. I sanded the shoes and drums to remove any glazing and put it back together, I was glad to see no leaks of any type and all is well. Pulling drum brakes is not an uncommon complaint on a classic car.
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I "cheated" when I did the resto- the front end checked out as tight, so I cleaned it, painted it and figured I'd address any problems later. Well, later is here, and 3k miles proved the center pin to have a slight bit of slop in it along with one slightly sloppy tie rod end. Well, it's time to do the center pin. The Samba gang has a huge thread on this so I'll just post the details.
Undo the bolt lock, wrench the pinch bolt from the swing arm, remove it, and slide the arm off the top. Push it out of the way, tie rods and all, taking everything off of it is not needed. The shift tube is right overhead and looks like it will be in the way but it doesn't.
Slide that nasty ass pin out the bottom, mine came apart like greased whaleshit.
Pull the seal, washer, and wave washer from the top.
Definitely had moisture in there which rotted the surface of the pin where it rides in the lower bushing
Probably original with the VW logo, the bushings and everything looked like OEM and it had less than 30 thou wear. This adds to the thought that this is the original mileage on this bus and the odo hasn't been around once. The front end was tight and the brake drums had never been cut until I cut them, I really think it's original 89K. And, besides, the title says 89K so it must be original, right?
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Pull the grease fitting out because it blocks the bushings, and knock the bushings out using my trusty HF bushing driver kit and HF brass hammer.
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Get the WW kit that I ordered a while back when I saw the slop.
Knock the new upper bushing in, making sure to get the lube groove's pointing the right way. Get the proper protrusion on the upper bushing, .050".
I have a set of adjustable reamers that go from about 3/8" to 1 1/16" inch. Luckily, 24mm is just under an inch.
I set an old bushing in place in the lower part of the tube to keep the reamer centered and gently/carefully reamed out the upper bushing until the new pin would just sneak through. Turning the upper and lower collars on the reamer moves the blades up and down angled ramps which makes the reamer larger or smaller in diameter.
Knock the lower bushing into place with the grooves pointing up and forward. Ream it gently to the right size, which went really fast. Even being careful with the adjustment I didn't have 10 minutes in fitting/reaming.
The pin slides in with finger pressure and doesn't fall out. It turns with very minimal force but has zero side play in any direction. Success!
Heat the upper seal with a heat gun to soften it and
Stretch it over the tube.
Put the lower thrust washer on the pin and slide it into the bushings. Put the wave washer, o-ring, and steering lever into place. To align the groove on the pin to the steering arm I used a tapered punch. This works great not only to align the holes but also to compress the wave washer, which preloads the pin to prevent end play.
Now for the bolt- the Samba gang doesn't like the new bolt because the shank is shorter and I agree. I used the old bolt.
But if you pull the tapered punch out the arm pops up and closes the hole. No problem, a beat up C-clamp holds the wave washer compressed while I thread the bolt into place. Put the lock tab on the bolt and install it, mine threaded in the whole way by hand.
Torque to 50.
Put the fitting back in, grease it and the rest of the zerks. Yes, I did wipe them off.
Napa got the short tie rod ends quickly for $50, you know the drill here- glow the tube,
Clean the hole with a wire brush,
Clean the spindle holes,
Assemble to the length I had marked by using pencil marks on the bench, and install. I couldn't find a torque spec in the Bentley so I hand tightened them to about 20ish.
I didn't get to drive it today because it was raining.
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Maybe tomorrow.
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