Whoops! I may have jumped the gun on thinking the leak was coming from the newly-replaced seal. I saw the puddle underneath it last night and assumed that was still the problem.
I cleaned it all up this morning and looked at it again. The seal looks fine. But there is an opening in the clutch cover (?) where fluid is leaking. It's dark and doesn't smell like gear oil (I had just filled the tranny with Mobil 1). It only leaks when the engine is running, and it's almost a steady stream. Once I shut it down, it pretty much stops. I took a picture of the mess - it looks to me like some sort of cover is missing, as there's a "nut" in the clutch cover. Probably irrelevant, since there shouldn't be any fluid in there anyways. http://ken.no-ip.com/links/tranny_leak.jpg There's also a slow drip from the bottom of the clutch cover (the vertical plate that sits betwwen the oil pan and the tranny). It's coming out the transmission side of the cover. This continues after the engine stops running. Kinda smells like gear oil, but I can't tell for sure. The clutch did have a bit of a shudder when I pulled it into the garage this morning. So it looks like I may have a leaking rear main seal and/or a leaking transmission input shaft seal? Thanks for any help -Ken ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darner" <[email protected]> To: "Ken Mental" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 11:30 AM Subject: Re: [a2-16v-list] Transmission drive flange seal problems > If there's any in-out play in the flange itself, the retaining clip may have > failed. I've learned - the hard way! - that it is not worth the cost to use > one twice. A friend's 8-v cost us several hours of search for two very > cheap parts, and about 65 miles of driving. He has about 5 retaining rings > as spares, now, brand new, for anytime one of a group of us needs to > remove/replace a flange. We were "lucky" enough to have the failure show > prior to finishing the installation, but my '87 was parked for a year+ > before I bought it because of the same failure. > If the ring is good, the sad possibility is that the bearing may be > allowing the stub shaft-and-flange assembly to wobble eccentrically, opening > a gap on one side of the sealing surface. Can you move the flange up/down > or forward/backward? If you lift it, does lube ooze out at the bottom? > This would seem to be evidence... I've seen some free motion in this area > on several transaxles that didn't seem to leak, so there apparently IS some > allowance for play. HTH > Ron > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ken Mental" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 7:14 AM > Subject: [a2-16v-list] Transmission drive flange seal problems > > > Hey everyone, > > My 89 GTI 16v with 155K was leaking at the passenger side drive flange seal. > The drive flange itself had alot of play, so I ordered a new one along with > a seal kit. > > I tore it apart and reinstalled everything and the thing was leaking after a > 5 mile drive! I thought I did everything right - I packed the backside of > the seal with grease to help retain the spring per the Bentley manual, and > used a pusher made from a round piece of metal, a bolt, and a nut to push > the seal in until it was seated. I also used a pusher like the VW tool to > press the flange onto the shaft. > > It looks like the gear oil is leaking between the flange and the seal. My > guess is that maybe the spring popped out of the seal when the flange was > being pressed on? Or maybe the seal isn't completely seated? I did munge the > green sleeve a bit when removing the seal, but only at the outside edge, and > it doesn't look like anything is leaking there. > > Any ideas what I could have done wrong? > > Thanks > -Ken > sick '89 GTI 16v > _______________________________________________ > a2-16v-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list > For list archives, see listinfo link above. > > >
