1st Gear Problems

So, I may have made a mistake by trying to teach my wife to drive stick in my car. After the first day, didn't feel that bad. Now, the engine hesitates and is very difficult to hold rpms, almost like it hesitates. She stalled pretty badly several times but I didn't think it could do such serious damage.

I just had the full clutch job done with VR6 clutch, single mas flywheel, and dogbone mount. This was 2500 miles ago.

From what I'm reading, this is throw out bearing or pressure plate. Dog bone mount still feels solid.

For anyone else with this problem - SMF, and brand new clutch. I'm going to try the free dogbone mount stiffener, and then use brake cleaner in the transmission.

icanreachit said:

For anyone else with this problem - SMF, and brand new clutch. I'm going to try the free dogbone mount stiffener, and then use brake cleaner in the transmission.

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WHAT, and WHAT? your putting break cleaner in the trans" THE HECK DID I JUST READ YOU GOING TO DO?

Also your saying that the SMF and the clutch was destroyed from a few stalls?
sounds like who ever did the job, SERIOUSLY f'ed it up.
Ive stalled out HARD CORE like more than 20 times while learning how to autocross, once it was so hard, my fog light flew off the front of the car with a force of a baseball pitcher and hit a guy in the shin. Thats why i tape them down now for autocross.
Yea, i have a 11lb SMF and stage 3 clucth endurance race clutch from SBC, never had any issues and defiantly would not need to add brake cleaner into the trans.

SERIOUSLY can you please explain whats going on because your confusing the SH*** outa me with this nonsense.

Also its ridiculously hard to stall out a TDI from a start unless you dump it with the breaks on. Best car to learn how to stick, for real!

That doesn't sound like a clutch or transmission problem at all to me. More like a fuel or timing issue.

Yea, if you had a old timing belt or a improperly tensioned one, a heavy stall could possibly have the belt skip a tooth.
Check physical timing, cam, flywheel, IP, Crank.
If its off, well, looks like your changing the timing belt and checking for bent valves.
Leak down test will do short work of that!
Just please dont put break cleaner in your transmission!

It’s not your transmission. A few stalls on a new clutch are not going to break it.

A skipped tooth maybe. Are you blowing black smoke? Did you check all your turbo hose connections. Maybe a hard stall pulled a connection loose.

Because you haven’t filled out your profile vehicle (s) we have no idea what year Golf we’re talking about. 1960 maybe?? More info required.

Does anyone have solid proof that the TB, properly tensioned, etc., can jump a tooth? If so, what was the reason for it to jump time, definitively. I find it very hard to believe that the TB will jump time without any evidence that something identifiable caused it.

Case in point.... The TB below, 50k miles, was subjected to a locked Water Pump. Happened to the ALH in my Vanagon going at least 55 mph. It did not jump time!



Yes, OP, I agree with the others, a few stalls isn't going to damage the clutch, throw-out bearing, pressure plate, etc. Your engine obviously has something else going on. Have you had it scanned for codes?

I'd say the engine wouldn't start good at all if the TB has jumped one tooth......... it would be slow in time, assuming it jumped at the most likely place, the crankshaft cog.

Alright. Signature updated. Got under there and found that yes, the mechanic will not be receiving any more business from me. Two bolts holding the trans to the engine were finger tight. One of the bolts holding the dog bone to the sub frame as well. Also, the shifter nut was ready to fall off.

Tightened everything up, added two shims inside the dogbone mount, and things are back to perfect.

The brake cleaner will not be going in the trans. I'd read that this was a way to solve contamination, and was getting desperate.

Wow. That's crazy. Glad to hear it, and nice save man!
Soooooo hard to trust any mechanics anymore...please tell us he wasn't on the Trusted Mechanics list.

Glad to hear you’ve got it, and it was simple. Fairly simple, but disappointing that the mechanic didn’t check his work.

From reading about your car, you have a nice little setup. My 2000 with its 01m died in 2015 and wasn’t worth swapping the transmission because of severe rust. However I have quite a pile of parts from it. The engine just went in my daughters “new” 03 Jetta.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=493010

The turbo is in my other daughters beetle, and the egr, injection pump and one injector is in my cousins beetle down in Maryland. I still have some body parts in case I hit a deer.

Finish teaching your wife to drive stick. Two of my girls have 5 spds and the third has a 6 speed Hyundai. I get a kick out of young boys that have no idea how to drive a stick and get intimidated watching those girls.

Sounds like the wife just accelerated the break-in process. Glad you found those loose fasteners.
For future reference, learning stick on a diesel is super easy. Find a big parking lot, you can shift these things 1 2 3 with no throttle. Gives you the feel right away.

So after a day of driving around town, the issue came back. I have to rev it up and ride the clutch a lot just to get it moving. The driver's side motor mount has some play but that was replaced 15k ago. My wife is eyeing a replacement vehicle so my budget is $0, but I am tempted to get VCDS finally just to check the timing.

Any other small things to check? I've run around the engine checking every bolt he would have touched but cannot open the transmission in our parking garage.

I should mention that the car has a Single Mass Flywheel but has all of the symptoms of Slow Down Shutter, which I've heard can be alleviated (not always 100% resolved) with raising one's IQ level. It used to do it occasionally, but is now doing it almost every time. Would this affect my take-off? The other option of course is that one of the bolts on my SMF was not fully torqued, but it stops shaking excessively when I come to a stop.

The last ditch effort is the Evry Mod, to see if that can be used to raise the idle a bit.

VCDS is worth it if you're keeping this car (or have other VWs you're keeping). But like Mongler said in post 5:
Check physical timing, cam, flywheel, IP, Crank.
After that vcds come into play

Yes, the point was if a really hard jerk could have caused sheared teeth or tension failure, you can check for that visually. I believe I've done about everything bad you can do stick shifting, never had an event. Years ago had a new '81 Ford F-150, clutch fell apart sitting at a traffic light with 9,000 miles on it. And we drove that thing like it was new. Shortly after the gear box failed while out of town. '81 Ford pickup real POS.

Alright. Visual check if timing belt was clear. New symptom: it's fine when first starting up. Car never really gets up to temperature, but once I have enough heat to feel it coming out of the vents, the issue starts. I'm at a local reputable diesel mechanic now so I'll post an update soon.

icanreachit said:

Alright. Visual check if timing belt was clear. New symptom: it's fine when first starting up. Car never really gets up to temperature, but once I have enough heat to feel it coming out of the vents, the issue starts. I'm at a local reputable diesel mechanic now so I'll post an update soon.

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im not sure, but that kinda sounds like the tensioner for the timing belt is not right or that the belt is off by a tooth or something like that. If the car warms up, the tensioner adjusts right? just my though. What else could cause this issue at a warm up vs cold?
yea check your timeing, if its not right, you will know when its aligned.

Good news! I was working on something seemingly unrelated and it fixed it. The lower bushing on my shifter disintegrated and the car wouldn't return from reverse. I pulled everything and drilled some holes to swap the shifter, and was able to clean the gunk out and restore the shifter. After everything was all done, I used the 5mm pin from DG and adjusted the cables (pulled slack towards firewall). No more shaking! My guess is that the gears/clutch weren't fully engaging?