He said "gasket", so I suspect he's not talking about the "flywheel seal" (which is fit to all air-cooled VWs and rides on the outside of the crank), or the "flywheel o-ring" (fitted to the latest) between the crank and flywheel, but the thin steel and or paper gasket that fits between earlier cranks and flywheels. Those are out of my area of expertise, but at least I know what you're talking about. All of my engines were new enough to use the o-ring instead of the gasket, so I usually just pitch 'em. Maybe you need them both, but I'm just guessing.
One manual I have says "replace with the same (paper or steel) gasket type as you removed", so that certainly obfusicates things. I think you need professional help. Have you called Steve Bennett as GPASC yet? I just found an article at http://www.blueglue.com/archives/vintagvw/mhonarc/2002/08/msg00433.html that says "don't forget to use the Permatex trick if you're using a paper gasket", so I'd say there's your answer. I'd use the same stuff you join the case halves with on both sides and put it together promptly before it cures. There are other threads there you could follow too. I used Google Advanced with "paper gasket" in the exact field, and "crankshaft, flywheel, VW" in the "any words" field to find it. Maybe this'll help... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama N56ML "at" hiwaay.net see KR2S project at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
