Former VWDieselParts.com Forum

1980 Caddy, newly installed 5-sp conversion from 4-sp, one year (8k miles) on new clutch: Driving in first gear down a city street, over a speed hump: a feeling of popping out of gear and no power to the wheels. Coast to a stop on the side of the road. No super loud strange noise, clutch pedal feels normal. Stickshift feels normal. Truck just doesn't move when the clutch is let out. I thought that maybe driveshafts fell off? Shift linkage works, goes into gear. Engine running normal.

Shifting into gears and letting out the clutch: 1st is pretty quiet, 2nd is a bit rumbley, 3, 4, 5th louder. Could something have broken in the transmission? Like a drive gear shearing from a shaft?

But now as I'm writing this, I'm wondering if a cv broke: The boots have been broken for a year and I've just be stuffing more grease in them. If one side completely failed, all the power would go to that shaft and the other wouldn't move? I should check if a shaft is spinning while in gear with the engine running?

This just happened tonight, it was dark and my ice cream was melting. I called my sweetie and she picked me up. She is getting used to it by now. Got the truck pushed into a legal spot, 20 ft. uphill no problem!

Yes to your CV joint thought. One side spinning is the sign. Hope for that, it's cheap and easy.

I had the same symptoms on my Caddy... I forgot to tighten the inner CV bolts.

Checked it out this morning; passenger side driveshaft just spinning merrily away. I figure that means that the outer joint failed.

Yup, broken inboard cv. Easy fix but now after replacing the driveshaft it's really really hard to turn the steering wheel while driving. Feels very strange, no self-centering. I'll get it back up on jackstands in a couple days but any thoughts about what would cause this?

Very rare... I have never seen firsthand an inner cv fail. I have a box full of good ones taken from axles where the outers failed.

Steering thing is also weird. I'd be checking motor mounts to ensure the whole drivetrain is not jacked.