Hello, I'm glad I found you

[bigpapa]

I just bought my first VW last week, a 68 Beetle with auto stick. I wasn't expecting a reliable daily driver, and it hasn't disappointed me. On the way home the belt broke and after replacing it, the engine won't turn over, athough the starter will. I'm trying to get the engine out to figure out what's wrong. My Bentley manual is on order so I'm just trying to figure out how to remove it without breaking anything in the process. Other sites and forums seem to know the autos exist, but don't have much to say on the subject. I'm sure that I'll have a lot of fun getting the Beetle going again and will probably have plenty of questions for the members.

Cheers!

[bookwus]

Hiya Big,

Lessee if I've got this right...................

You were driving it; it threw a belt; now the starter engages, but the engine doesn't turn?

If I'm understanding this correctly, this is close to impossible.  If your starter engages it should turn the engine over.  Is this more a case of the engine won't start, but does turn over?  Just as puzzling is the fact that the engine did run and now does not.

And for what it might be worth, I'd check out the starter, test to see if the engine really does turn over (wrench on the main pulley nut a bit), and check my electrical connections (like the nuetral safety switch) before I'd consider pulling the engine.

[bigpapa]

Hey Book,

I was with your thinking, pulled the starter, thinking the solenoid wasn't kicking the drive gear out, but everything seemed OK. I finished getting the engine out tonight, more than the hour or less that my reading suggested but not too bad, and found all 4 bolts missing from the torque converter. I was thinking about a layout like an American car, flex plate with starter gear bolted to the crank and torque converter bolted to the flex plate. Instead, I'm guessing,  the starter drives the clutch plate, or whatever it's called, that turns the torque converter and then the crank.

The question now is, why don't I have any of the nuts that used to be attached to the torque converter, left. None of the bolts seem to have loosened and fell out. All of the ears are just elongated holes, except for one that has part of the threads left.  Is this just the result of bad assembly or maintenance, or could this be caused by a mechanical problem.