Quick Update on Sponge Bob Square Trike

A couple of weekends ago, Sponge Bob started to experience some odd clutch-centric symptoms. During the course of the day, the clutch became less and less responsive to the pedal. Go ahead, push the pedal… the gears are going to grind anyway. At one stop, it the starter even ground a few times before it kicked off. It was beginning to look like something major was wrong. I rode the rest of the way home shifting without the clutch, shutting of the engine at each stop and starting up in gear on the green light… it was not particularly fun.

So, since I doubt the Dragon trike will be ready to take to the IMS tomorrow, I tore into Sponge Bob last night to see what the matter was.

The plan was to pull the engine out and see what was going on with the throwout bearing, my first suspect. I figured while I had it apart, I would also change out the old leaky airshocks with the nifty coilovers I ordered long enough ago for the box to be dusty. Also, when we went to look at a particular trike for sale recently, it was at the owner’s mechanic’s house. He runs a VW repair and restoration shop out of his house. Cool guy and I envy his situation. Anyway, he had some chrome pipes of the same style that are on Sponge Bob except that they still have chrome on them and Gabby bought them for $50. I’d put those on, too.

I had the bumper off and the jack under the engine when I started removing the four nuts that hold the engine and transaxle together.

Hello, there is a missing nut on the bolt that also holds the top of the starter. And the other top nut was backed almost off it’s stud. There was a 1/4″ gap between the engine and transaxle.

Well, that would certainly explain it. This would let the engine and transaxle intersect at an angle and explains all the symptoms.. The input shaft of the transaxle runs inside a roller bearing in the end of the crankshaft. This misalignment would put that in a bind, so it would seem that the clutch is not disengaging. The starter was not only farther from the flywheel than expected, it would also be flexing away from it on the bottom bolt.

I found a replacement for the missing nut and tightened everything up and verified that the clutch would disengage. I then went ahead with the shocks (which required a run to two parts stores to find bolts to fit the lowers) and the pipes. There are no baffles in them, so they are significantly louder than the old ones. Gabby is pleased.

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