Engine swap now clutch slipping out of gear now..

Engine swap now clutch slipping out of gear..

I recently had my engine swapped, after the original failed, by a mechanic that lives 300 miles away. I was traveling when the engine failed... When he swapped the engine he used the oem flywheel that was attached and switched the clutch to oem when the clutch didn't match up with it. After I test drove it and told him the clutch didn't feel right he told me what he did. I told him the car had a stage 2 south bend clutch SBK70316F-HD-O with about 30k miles on it so he switched all back to the southbend clutch assembly... I think....
Anyways, I drove it 700 miles and yesterday and transmission started acting up. I'm thinking the clutch started to slip.
I was driving on the freeway, maintaining 75, and the engine just started to rev higher while making a reving sound that was different from engine noise. It didn't sound like grinding but it could be. The car just coasted while I took the stick out of gear and put it back into gear. It happened 2 more times that day while I drove around town.
I called the mechanic and he said he would swap the clutch assembly for the oem assembly he got with the used engine. I don't think I want to risk driving it until I know what is wrong with it. I have a guy coming Wednesday to take a look. Any ideas?

There are a few possibilities, none of which I can diagnose with certainty from remote...but in general I would be tempted to write off the work done by the 300-mile-away guy. There is not so much to screw up. The 'didn't match up' thing is a wildcard of pretty large proportions. If I had to bet, the flywheel attached to your failed engine was a single mass one...and it was happy with your SB clutch, as was the trans it was feeding power to. I have infinitely more questions than answers.
cheers,
Douglas

My South Bend clutch disk actually broke and parts where the small springs are held in place broke off and got stuck in the pressure plate arms preventing the clutch from working. Towed it home and replaced the entire kit with another SB Kit after discovering the problem.

It is pretty tough to know for sure without taking the transmission out and checking things over.

Here's an update. I spoke again with the shop that swapped the engine. The shop said that they could have forgotten one of the C-clips that connects one of the axles to the cv joint.

Could a missing clip allow the engine to intermittently disconnect from the axles but reconnect after putting the car in neutral and then back in gear?

Unless he rebuilt the axle.... Theres no reason to access said c clip. And even then, there's no way the CV would travel that far off the axle splines to "slip"

Sounds like you should see another mechanic.

Check and make sure the 6 little bolts that hold the inner cv axle to the out put flange are all fully seated and still there. He may have forgotten to tighten one side or the other or not torqued them properly. If so the inner cv axle can come apart, sometimes it will give you a warning by popping out of 5th gear before it does so.

Nero Morg said:

Unless he rebuilt the axle.... Theres no reason to access said c clip. And even then, there's no way the CV would travel that far off the axle splines to "slip"

Sounds like you should see another mechanic.

Click to expand...

Could this be what the mechanic was talking about?

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=475613

It's possible, but again, did the mechanic actually disassemble the CV joints from the axle? Because that's the only way to access that clip, and it's a pain in the butt to take off and put on. It missing still doesnt make sense of the issue you're having.

I found out that both of the CV axles needed to be replaced. One of them, the boot was ripped. The other looked as though it was on its way out. The splines were damaged and slipping.

After having the CV axels replaced because the splines were bad I'm wondering if there could be further damage to the CV axel? The mechanic that worked on the car said he didn't see any other damage but the car seems to have an issue when the rpms get to about 2k. The car seems to lack in acceleration for a moment. Just wondering if the splines were bad on the CV axels, something else could be wrong? thanks

where in california are you?

Yeah... Sounds like you need to see another mechanic. Probably one more familiar with TDI's.

Nero Morg said:

Yeah... Sounds like you need to see another mechanic. Probably one more familiar with TDI's.

Click to expand...

I doubt this new mechanic didn't know how to remove and replace 2 cv axels. If there were any errors it was with the guy who rebuild and reinstalled the engine.

Louie710 said:

where in california are you?

Click to expand...

Ill DM you

An axle problem won't be intermittent - you just stop moving forward for good. They are bolted to the trans with a flange and a large splined shaft at the wheel hub that really had no chance of going bad.

Something else is wrong.