Auto Stick Failure after Engine Rebuild

[mouser98]

I have a friend on the Samba who lives in Chile, and who is experienced with standard bugs but not auto sticks.  He has got himself and auto stick and has rebuilt the engine.  Through his thread and through PM's I helped him put his auto stick back together.  Truly, I did not expect him to have any problems as I did not have any with mine when I rebuilt my engine, and I was a newb to auto sticks as well.

Well, he got 50 miles on his car before he had a failure.  He explained to me that the car lost power and then in the last 15 meters of travel, dumped some ATF on the ground.  He has the engine pulled and the seal is still seated (although I do not think he peened it, I don't think he understood what I meant by peening, as well I did not until Lee explained it in detail).  But it seems the inner part of the seal, that supported by that circular spring, may have let go.

In any case, we don't know what to do from here.  I suggested maybe putting in a new seal (and peening it this time) and then put it back together and give it another try.  But is it possible we are missing something?

He is pretty sure he doesn't have it hooked up backwards.  He is pretty sure that the pump is working properly, he replaced the seals and refurbished it as best as can be done. 

He feels that the ATF was overheating.  I thought that a possible cause for ATF to overheat would be a failure of the pump or of the circuit, but we have gone over that and don't think that the pump is bad or the circuit is hooked up wrong.  Lee mentioned a problem where his ATF was overheating and he thought it may be because the oil on the other side of the pump was overheating and passing heat onto the ATF.

or could it be a mechanical failure of the torque converter of some kind?

anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

[mouser98]

I sent my text to my friend, and he wanted me to change some of the details of my (his) narrative.  I don't feel entirely confident translating for him, so here is what he said in his own words:

"Everything is fine, when you told me I had to peen the seal understood it well. But I don't found the place of metal tighten the axle on the new label as it was a bit shorter than the old, old red stamp reached the bottom of the shaft, and the new seal around 2mm before the background ...... The old red stamp had the trailing edge of metal bent inward. When reinstalling the new seal edges peen try ..... But anyway was not the problem, the new seal was centered well, perfectly sealed and tight, only slipped out the spring lip being very loose and bounced oil but only at the end (15 mts.) ...... The transmission slowly began to lose steam in the last two miles, only to end and when it was notorious stopped moving even with more rpms engine and turn off the engine immediately .. ...

The truth is that more than hot (not touched tank with my hand ) hot air pressure out strongly from the tank and atf below the car...... Today I found three liters approx . of atf inside the tank, but the converter was empty when you remove it, the lines are clear..... why seal lip spring out after 50 miles and not before.....why?? "

[68autobug]

Hi
Well Your friend also contacted Me about His problem with His autostick failure. after a lot of searching He found that the ATF pump pressure was TOO HIGH . the ATF pump pressure relief valve wasn;t working correctly and this is why the Torque converter seal was blown up by excessive ATF pressure.
He also thought that the ATF was too hot as the temperature at the time was HOT....   He was also trying to find an alternate Automatic Transmission Fluid similar to DEXRON  ATF... which should be used, but with more viscosity...
He is now driving His autostick Beetle...

cheers from Australia

Lee    68autobug
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