The seized viscous coupling from the Borg-Warner transfer case on my old soft-dash Rangie has been sitting on my bench for about 4 years, the mood finally struck me today to chuck it in the lathe and cut it open. I thought others on here, particularly those who have spent hundreds of dollars replacing one of these, might be interested to peek inside.
The photos below show cutting the case open; the goo inside the VC which apparently used to be liquid but is now like half-cured sikaflex; the series of plates which are alternately splined to the inner hub and the outer casing, exactly like a motorcycle wet clutch (except that these plates obviously have no friction material).
These photos show: the inner hub; the guts of the VC with the inner hub and some plates removed, and the pile of plates with the silicon goo. I only pulled about half of the plates out, the rest is all the same. The silicon stuff smells burnt, can be squeezed together into a lump, a horrible sticky mess. The wire rings appear to maintain spacing between the plates.
Got that out of my system, now into the scrap bin it goes.
Apparently they are rebuildable if you are keen enough.
Ashcroft used to do it, but AFAIK some had a build up of pressure inside and used to be a hazard.
VW ones apparently have a facility to easily rebuild.
You would have to be a really good welder to reseal it.
You can apparently get the silicone fluid in Europe.
Regards Philip A http://www.van-cafe.com/home/van/pag...-coupling.html
Last edited by PhilipA; 25th March 2015 at 07:28 PM.
Reason: more info
You would also need to know exactly where to cut when opening it up, my parting tool damaged the splines so I don't think there would be any hope for this one. Not that that was my intention.
Interesting that they can be welded without cooking the fluid, I'm given to understand it's heat that causes it to turn to goo.
Edit- just realised that the fluid is put in after welding, there is a small orifice that has been sealed.
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