Re: Gear lube leak

[Jason Brunberg <stoopid@idirect.com>]

*******Warning, this may take more than a minute-and-a-half to read.


Paul Hanley wrote:
> 
> Hello All:
> 
> It appears that I have a gear lube leak from my trans. When I park the car,
> I can see a drip or more of fluid at the bottom of the bell housing. It
> appears that it is leaking through the seal at the driver side drive shaft.
> 
> Is this something that can be repaired without removing the trans? I can't
> believe this, it happens right after I changed to MT-90.

	WTF?  I looked at Jan's page - 

http://alicudi.usc.edu/~jan/vw/Transmission/tranny.lube

	I even downloaded the damn thing months ago cuz I thought "Hey, maybe I
should be safe and change my tranny fluid".  Anyways, you get both sides
of the story, that Redline fluids are top-notch, and other people saying
that for VWs, they are simply shite.  Anyways, my tranny blew the fuck
apart two weeks ago.  There is a good chance that it is the result of
Redline MTL.  Here's the scoop.  


	I buy the lube after much searching around the Toronto area.  That same
day I put it in (June 13).  Two days before Waterfest (July 3), I hear
this strange noise like something metallic is being rattled around
inside of my engine or tranny.  I don't want to take the chance of
blowing my car to shreds in NY state, so I hitch a ride with 3 guys I've
never met that live about 2 hours away from me (actually I'm glad I met
these guys, but that's not the point).  I take it to my mechanic, and he
doesn't find the problem...took a look at the flywheel to see if there's
any scoring, not a thing.  Changes the tranny oil for me, puts in
Castrol Synthetic instead.  No problem, I says.  

	The sound goes away with the creation of a hole in my header.  Hmmm,
the sounds must be somehow related.  This thought is confirmed when my
cuz and I welded the header back together (August 9), the sound
returned.  The sound is annoying, but I feel absolutely nothing when
sound occurs (and it occurs in no distinguishable pattern).  Saturday,
August 23.  I'm at the races,  but far from racing.  A bunch of us leave
one meet-up point for the night's events to check out a better place
(about 5 or 6 Club H2O boys showed up, but fucked off on our trip to the
"better place").  Anyways, shifting from first gear to second, take my
foot off the clutch and the second gear just spins and spins.  "Great!" 
I tell the guys that were with me.  Hey I still have the rest of my
gears, I might as well keep going.  In hindsight, I wonder why I didn't
think where all of those second gear teeth went, or why the other car
junkies didn't think of it either.  Because, about 40 minutes later, on
a highway, accelerating, my whole transmission locked up on me.  Very
scary.  I thankfully wasn't moving very fast, so I didn't spin out and
kill myself (or my car ;)).

	Mechanic tells me that it will cost $6000 (yes, thousand) dollars to
rebuild the tranny that I _completely_ annihilated.  EVERY SINGLE gear,
tooth, rod, everything was shredded or scored.  I am now the proud owner
of a Jetta GLi transmission and a brand spanking new Sachs clutch...for
a mere $1000 dollars (Canadian figures here, folks).  Thanks to my dad
for the funding, of course.

	I suppose my point is that I have no reason to say that Redline helped
me kill my tranny, but it does seem rather too coincidental for my
liking that shortly after I switched to Redline, my Tranny started to
eat shite.
> 
> Also, where are the bolts on the engine side of the firewall, that hold the
> dashboard in?

	Hmmm, I don't recall there being any holes in the firewall that hold
the dash in place.  All bolts can be accessed thru the passenger
compartment.  I can say this for a fact cuz I have done this job
myself.  Woo-hoo!


	Forget about ¢2,  that story is worth about ¢100,000(or $1000).

jason
87 16V, with 88 16V engine, and 83 GLi tranny
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