Flipped box oil seal woes.

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davegsm82
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Flipped box oil seal woes.

Post by davegsm82 »

After a recent long trip my TDi started to slip it's clutch on hard acceleration, it just so happened I'd popped in an extra half litre of oil to replace all the little drips that the bus has been leaving around the place.

This was a BAD idea.

Turns out that the gearbox hadn't lost that much but the extra half litre had caused excessive pressure to build up in the box, as such it had decided to vent the oil by the weakest point, which happened to be the input shaft oil seal. :cry:

Because the box is flipped, the 'clutch guide tube' which is also the holder for the oil seal is upside down. There is a little hole in this tube such that any oil leaking out of the seal drops out of the bottom of the bellhousing, when it's upside down, the oil collects in the tube until it pours pretty much directly into the centre of the friction plate. There was also evidence of very slight leakage from the gear selector shaft, but changing that seal will mean stripping the nose off the gearbox and I didn't have time or parts.

So today I had the box out, new friction plate installed, flywheel and pressure plate cleaned with solvent, new oil seal and hole drilled in whatever unobtainium the tube is made of that managed to blunt 2x HSS drill bits (even with cutting fluid), box back in (what a struggle on your own!) and just been for a test drive. Running sweet but I have to do something with the expansion tank for the gearbox, it's obviously not up to the task.

Has anyone come up with any particularly inventive ways of keeping the oil in the box where it belongs?

Dave.
'87 Devon TDi 'Lily'
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