# Noisy Bug



## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

So my Bug's been making increasingly loud noises lately. I can accelerate from 0-45 in 2nd smoothly and relatively quietly, but if I reapply any throttle when already above 35 there is a loud humming/vibration noise coming from what I think is the tranny. (No clutch, D&D ES-31B, 120V)

Any ideas what would cause this?


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## EVEngineeer (Apr 11, 2012)

Did you check to see if anything is loose? Are there any parts rubbing against each other?


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Jacked it up and ran it w/ wheels up. I couldn't reproduce the noise exactly (no idea what speed I'm running at, afraid to push it) but there is notable noise coming I think from the left CV joint. Will have to pull it and see if there's anything I can do or if I just need to replace 'em.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Any particular brand to look for or avoid?


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Kinda hard not to go over 40 HP...


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

swing axle: bearings at wheel end, bent axle (rare)

IRS:sometimes the cages on the CV joints go and crack with resultant flex and noise mostly on accel. eventually the CV joint self-destructs and you abruptly stop.

there are hardened and whatever, I used german only, bought them hardened and used the vendors grease. I liked Transform in Long beach CA for all my driveline stuff either version.

always get new boots and bolts at the same time, cheaper in the long run


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> So my Bug's been making increasingly loud noises lately. I can accelerate from 0-45 in 2nd smoothly and relatively quietly, but if I reapply any throttle when already above 35 there is a loud humming/vibration noise coming from what I think is the tranny. (No clutch, D&D ES-31B, 120V)
> 
> Any ideas what would cause this?



my guess would be your clutchless coupler is blowing up. clutched designs do a good job of absorbing shock loads and or small misalignment. 

hard couplers will eventually fatigue and break.... so, unless you have a pretty high quality, super centered, spring-loaded, professionally welded coupler; I'd look there first.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

zsnemeth said:


> Fully assembled drive shaft is 60$ on ebay, the easiest, cheapest and fastest to get a pair and change it on both side at the same time. Only 12bolts/side.


If only...

Started out pulling the left side axle to see if I could regrease it and put it back. Tranny side was more watery/oily than greasy. Wife was sick so didn't have much time to recondition it so I ordered a new one.

Tried to fit the new one in and bearings started falling out. I tried to work them back in, but not knowing what I was doing, no dice. Apparently the new one has much looser fittings and wasn't packed well enough so on one side the bearing cage had worked itself above the inner part so everything was just ready to fall out.

I decided to take apart the old one to figure out how things were supposed to fit together. Learned enough about the basic workings but didn't manage to actually get it all back in. Will clean it up and try more someday...

Got the new one reassembled, was probably good it fell apart since there wasn't much grease in there to begin with. Got it installed and the sound with the wheels up was different but not gone.

Being an EV with an old body eliminating one noise just reveals another, so no more noise from the tranny side CV, but the wheel bearing sounds bad.

Actually driving the sound doesn't seem nearly as bad as before, but not sure if that's from replacing the axle or just from being in an ICE too long or because I pulled the spare so the weight is somewhat lighter (the last time I had driven it I was loaded down with groceries and it made the noises extra terrible).

So I'll pull the wheel bearing this weekend and see if it just wants grease or needs replacing also.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

With VW's one thing always leads to another. Before you know it your bug will transform into one of these.


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## ev-converter (May 24, 2012)

dtbaker said:


> my guess would be your clutchless coupler is blowing up. clutched designs do a good job of absorbing shock loads and or small misalignment.
> 
> hard couplers will eventually fatigue and break.... so, unless you have a pretty high quality, super centered, spring-loaded, professionally welded coupler; I'd look there first.


BAD guess, not TRUE


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

next question: how tight was/ is the axle nut? they should be only 253 ft lbs, but sometimes I have had to dance on the end of a 10 ft cheater bar {estimated 1500 ft lbs} to get a new to me bug's axle loose. If someone has gone way overboard, the inner bearings (I Think which are ball bearings) tend to try to climb the race and self destroy the bearing. I have even had the axle spacer become distorted by 1/8 inch. The inner supports the weight of the car, the outer is for torsional and cornering loads. You can check both with the axle shaft pulled. You need to disconnect the joint to properly check with the axle shaft in, otherwise there is too much load involved.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

I've had em off before, but they seem to self tighten. The first time I had to cut em off, this time it came off with just 800 ft lbs by my calcs


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Ziggythewiz said:


> I've had em off before, but they seem to self tighten. The first time I had to cut em off, this time it came off with just 800 ft lbs by my calcs



Oh my! That is way too tight. This is what you need if you own an old air cooled VW. By far the most perfect tool you can have. Don't over torque your rear axle nuts. Don't under torque them either. This will save your butt and you never need a ball buster breaker bar to do the work ever again. Good for the axle nut and flywheel gland nut. I had a socket welded so I could do the VW bus large axle nuts. Works perfect. Well worth the tiny investment. Had mine for a very long time and use it all the time. You will wonder how you ever got along with out it.


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## ricklearned (Mar 3, 2012)

I got one of those and it works great. It is supposed to work on my flywheel too. I will find out about that next week. Got mine at aircooled.net


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

They work great on the flywheel too. Their is no better tool for removing those items.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

onegreenev said:


> Oh my! That is way too tight. This is what you need if you own an old air cooled VW. By far the most perfect tool you can have. Don't over torque your rear axle nuts. Don't under torque them either. This will save your butt and you never need a ball buster breaker bar to do the work ever again. Good for the axle nut and flywheel gland nut. I had a socket welded so I could do the VW bus large axle nuts. Works perfect. Well worth the tiny investment. Had mine for a very long time and use it all the time. You will wonder how you ever got along with out it.


That's a neat device

Make sure and use a torque wrench 
(and know the multiplication factor) 
When doing them back up


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Duncan said:


> That's a neat device
> 
> Make sure and use a torque wrench
> (and know the multiplication factor)
> When doing them back up



Yes, Do as we say not as I've shown. I have actually just used the little wrench to do it back up but yes, please use the torque wrench. Multiplication factor you can use is 9. The proper torque for the gland nut and axle nut are actually cast right onto mine. 

**When tightening please use a proper torque wrench as this tool WILL over tighten bolts and breakage CAN and WILL occur** 
25 ft lbs = 230 at the nut/bolt. 30ft lbs= 270 at the nut /bolt.

Multiplication Factor: 9

It is a VW mechanics indispensable tool. A must have in any VW mechanics tool box. Well, for the old air cooled VW's anyway.


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

those were really nice when they came out, but mine was posted at 10:1. It was simpler to use a socket and a shortened to 12"cheater bar because at the time I weighed 260. BUT those will get a nut off the wheel when the wheel assembly slips traction on the floor. Mine wouldn't work well on the flywheel, broke a couple of cases.

Back to the thread: at 800 ftlbs I fear you have shortened the internal spacer or it was shortened before you got the car. That condition will eat roller bearings within a couple of hundred miles. You really need to verify the spacer is currently the correct length. Hopefully you have a good VW parts supplier close by. New spacers used to be about 5 bucks. 

I can't for the life of me see how the nut is creeping tighter without shearing the cotter pin which you should notice right away.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

> I can't for the life of me see how the nut is creeping tighter without shearing the cotter pin which you should notice right away.


It won't creep tighter. If a cheater bar was used it was just over tightened. Easy to do. No visual and I know of no one that can clearly know the proper torque via feel. Just ain't so. So it was just over tightened. Common with breaker bars. Watch out.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

The tool is 9:1 and I have the original brand that all are copied from.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

I don't think it's creeped anywhere, but 250 ft lbs + rust or somethin made it take 800 to come off. The last time I had it off was probably 4-6 mo ago and I ballparked it to 250 using a breaker bar, but no cheater. 

No suppliers around here, I have to get everything online. It's lots of fun when I take something apart and then have to wait a week to put it back together.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Ziggythewiz said:


> I don't think it's creeped anywhere, but 250 ft lbs + rust or somethin made it take 800 to come off. The last time I had it off was probably 4-6 mo ago and I ballparked it to 250 using a breaker bar, but no cheater.
> 
> No suppliers around here, I have to get everything online. It's lots of fun when I take something apart and then have to wait a week to put it back together.


Bet you would not get 800 to remove after only 4 to 6 months even in real bad conditions. Well you can over do even with a breaker bar. That is what they are for and ball parking usually results in either way under torqued or way over. Like I said I know of no one that can ball park torque and get even close reliably. Guesstimating is a real bad thing when it comes to gland nuts and axle nuts. Do it right. Get the tool.


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

If the spacer got mushroomed, it might not be parallel on the sides or square to the ends, or be a really close fit to the shaft. It might even wobble inside the housing. The other side would be different, so a comparison might be in order. Know anybody with a VW that you can check their spacer for length? Of course if you are this far along, you can just clean and inspect the bearings. The circlip on the inside is a joy to remove.

actually, now that i remember, pull the cv joint, just torque the nut to spec and see if the axle shaft has any in and out play, spin the wheel and see if it makes your noise.

I cant believe there aren't parts people out your way, unless VW's are a coast phenomena.

Focus Pete: we are trying to fix his noise problem, not re-engineer his toolbox


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Update: I don't think any of the sounds I was hearing with the wheels up were the underlying noise I described 1st post, however they were all contributing sources for the overall noise. It happened around 35 mph and with no tach I probably wasn't getting that high with wheels up.

I was going to pull the motor over the weekend to test spin balance. Reading somewhere that the trans could be tilted just by removing two bolts, I removed those and loosened the motor bolts a little and found the shifter linkage would also have to come off, and by the time I got all the lead out to get to that I didn't want to spend the time to do all that, so I ended up giving the lead a nice bath, the interior a nice cleaning, and hooked everything back up.

No noise this morning, so I'm tentatively hypothesizing that reseating the motor took care of the issue. I need to add some weight to the front to be sure as that seemed to amplify the issue. Each thing I've done (replaced 1 axle, regreased same wheel bearing, reseated motor) has decreased running noise noticeably, and incrementally decreased wh/mile as well. The last run before I started working on things was around 295, and was 274 this morning.

When I have time I'll rebuild the axle I pulled or buy another and replace the right and regrease the wheel bearing.


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