[Vwdiesel] More To Learn

[Gavrik Peterson]

Started driving my Rabbit several days ago.

Judging by how things feel and act, it appears that the rear brake job
worked just fine.  I used a hybrid of the Hagar system, using dry film
lubricant (graphite) on the six pads on the back plate and small
amounts of synthetic grease elsewhere.  I never figured out what the
problem was with the last brake job where the adjusting wedge quickly
reached its limit of adjustment and the hand brake worked very weakly.

Driving it I notice several things:

(1)  Even though is warm enough here, initially the engine did not
start without glow-plug assist.  Now that I have run it around 150
miles it starts with just the advance but not as quickly as my old
engine did when it was young.  This is the fist engine I have broken
in.  I take it that the compression improves as the rings seat.

(2)  When operating the clutch, a quiet growling noise can be heard
and vibration can be felt through the pedal.  This starts at the point
where the free-play is taken up and ends when the clutch disengages.
The other thing I notice is that the pedal has to go closer to the
floor then I expected before the clutch is fully disengaged.  I think
these are two separate clutch issues.  It is possible that when I had
the flywheel resurfaced, the machine shop incorrectly dimensioned the
distance between the friction surface that engages the driven plate
and the surfaces the pressure plate mounts on.  Because it is easy, I
plan to look at the release lever and the release bearing.

(3)  In 2nd gear, it accelerate smoothly until reaching 25 mph.  As
you pass through this speed the acceleration briefly increases and
then decreases.  Above this speed it acts like it is not very happy.
This makes me think that the centrifugal advance is not working
correctly.  Perhaps because the pump sat around for nine months
something is gummed up.  Does this symptom mean that I need to check
the pump or is there some other explanation?

I thought I was done learning about this machine.  Looks like I was
wrong.

  --  Gavrik