I flubbed my shift alignment and had to remove the gearbox pan to figure out how to fix it. Now, I'm wrestling with the gasket. It's taking multiple passes of Permatex gasket remover and scraping to whittle it off the pan. Any tricks for removing residue on the sump side where you have to work around the studs? Seems easy to cause damage to the surface and I'd rather not. Thanks, Seamus
Seamus, I just finished this job myself. It's time consuming and careful work from my propective. The gasket was sealed on the block side with silicone. Fortunately, most of it came right off because of long term exposure to oil. The stuff that didn't come off readily, was carefully scraped off using a very sharp gasket scraper, light pressure, and careful angle. I don't know of a good silcone gasket sealer remover, maybe someone else does. After all the heavy stuff was scrapped off, I wipped the surface several times using paper towels wetted with acetone and firm finger pressure. It the end, it was very clean. I also went up into the sump, about an inch or two, to ensure sump oil did not drip down onto the gasket surface prior to offering up the cover to the sump with the new gasket and sealer pre applied. I used about a 1/8-inch bead of high temp silicone centralized on the gasket and surrounding the stud holes. Bill Bill
I suppose I'm a glutton for punishment but I'm going to clean as best I can and plan to install without sealant (gasket only). The searches I have done found mixed results -- some claiming you must seal and some claiming that just a new gasket did the trick. Anyone heard of something called "nylon wool"? Is it okay to use 0000 steel wool? Seamus
I've had good luck with MEK. You can get it at the paint counter in your local Ace Hardware store. Wet a rag with it and wipe it on the old stuff, let it sit for a few minutes and then scrape it off. You can get most of the old gasket material off with a razor knife. Be very careful. The knife can get away from you and then you may have some carved marks in your soft aluminum block and then there's your hands that may have carved marks in them as well. The main thing is to not get into a hurry. If you don't hurry, you'll get it done sooner. At least it seems that way to me. Anyway, MEK seems to losen up everything. Almost like diesel fuel does. Bob Wassam
Everyone I knew who ever put a VW case back together always had some leaks along the crankcase line. Always wondered how VW kept them from leaking. Its a metal to metal contact surface with high volume oil beingslug at it off the crank. But look at an airplane engine, with almost the exact same technology in the crankcase they never leak. So I would watch the "Boss" putting airplane motors together. He used some type of red liquid cement and would lay a fine fabric thread into the liquid to "make" the seal. Done! On gaskets, he would take the slightest dab of high temp silicone and work it into the gasket. And that was all. No big lines of silicone gobbed on all over and squishing out both sides. Just that tiny little dab worked into the gasket material. I been trying to copy him, and in most cases the gaskets will come right off and leave nothing stuck on to either surface when you take it apart. I also think that red liquid cement and the fine thread would work excellent on the engine block to gearbox surface.
