Hi All,

My local VW specialist advised me today that my 40hp 1200cc engine has some bad endplay ( no measurements provided).Having just had the car three months, I have cleaned out the bank account to purchase the car and will need to run the existing motor as long as possible until funds are available to replace/upgrade. Was told a likely new engine would be required in the future and to take care with revs and engine load going forward. Hoping that I could some feedback to any experience were as how long anyones engine ran with the same problem?

Understand the engine wont last forever.

The car is club/weekend toy doing approximately 200 miles a month.

Daniel

My end float has been bad since i recieved the engine quite a few miles ago. Still gets me about (currently daily driver as rice rocket out of action).

Hasn't been an issue yet. But i believe it gets to a point where it gets worse faster as the movment causes pounding of the case thrust surface and you get excessive oil leaks.

vw-resource website rekons you get slipping clutch (maybe from oil) but shouldn't necessarily be from the play moving the flywheel/clutch assembly, as that would just move in and out on the input shaft.

you need to say what is "bad endplay"

If you have 40 thou then I would suggest the case is shagged and unfixable - so may as well keep on driving it

If you have, say 10 thou, and the case has never been thrust cut before, then you should be real gentle with it as it would be quite fixable

You could try re-shimming in the 2nd case.
It could help limit the pounding of the crank on the case

Pull back and forth on the crank pulley. If you have less than 1mm of movement then it'll be ok for a bit longer but take it easy.

Depending on the condition of the case then 1mm can still be reconned as thrust bearings go upto 2mm.

Re-shimming may help but it depends how bad the play is and what shims are in there at present but could get you going longer.

As fora garage having your car for 3 months and then telling you this sounds like money making too me so firstly you need to check yourself on the condition of the endfloat by doing the above test and letting us know.

Hi psimitar

Thanks for the feedback, I checked the movement and appears that it is less than 1mm. I will attempt to call the previous owner as he had completed a re-build of the engine 5 years ago to see if he could remember the condition of the case.

Daniel

Whilst it's not good for it, if you baby it it will keep going for years like that.
I've seen plenty out there going with 1-2mm play.

Just keep revs sensible and keep a very close eye on the oil level as it may pump a bit out the #1 mains.
Maybe get an oil pressure gauge too.

I had a bug years ago I picked up cheap, the girl who owned it's boyfreind used to flog 7 shades of shit out of the poor thing.

When I got it there was 5.5mm of end play yet it still used to run ok with no oil light and make the 18km trip into town but it did go from the full mark to the add mark on the dipstick without burning any of it

Where does the oil go? In front of the pulley?

Quote:

Originally posted by Joel Whilst it's not good for it, if you baby it it will keep going for years like that. I've seen plenty out there going with 1-2mm play. Just keep revs sensible and keep a very close eye on the oil level as it may pump a bit out the #1 mains. Maybe get an oil pressure gauge too. I had a bug years ago I picked up cheap, the girl who owned it's boyfreind used to flog 7 shades of shit out of the poor thing. When I got it there was 5.5mm of end play yet it still used to run ok with no oil light and make the 18km trip into town but it did go from the full mark to the add mark on the dipstick without burning any of it