Club 80-90 Forums

Evening all
my gearbox has started leaking alot of oil from where the driveshaft joins onto it and was wondering if anyone has any ideas of how hard a job it is to fix and if i can buy a seal kit,it`s a 1990 1.7 diesel with the four speed box and it`s leaking on the offside,any advice greatly received.

I'ts dead easy, so easy even I can do it!!

Getting the seal seems to be the hard bit, oh yea and removing the flipping old seal is a bit of a bugger too.

BTW, if you want a talk through let me know but it seriously isn't hard, I'm no mechanic and with minimum instruction I changed one on Jen's syncro.

cheers Horza, looks like i`ll give it a go in the week but if i get stuck hope you dont mind me giving you a shout,
cheers

Gah, the reason I didn't want to post a whole list of stuff is because I don't want to pretend to be an expert when other folk on the forum showed me how it's done and I did it once but given that it's an output shaft flange seal thats gone then this is what I did.

Remove the box end of the shaft and tie it back out of the way.

Remove the grease cap from the centre of the flange. This was confusing as the cap looks smaller than it is and it's made of rubbery stuff and stuck with magic VW glue so dont wreck it.

Inside you will find a circlip holding the flange in place, remove it. You are supposed to replace it with a new one I'm told.

The flange can then be pulled out. I was given an M8 bolt (there is a threaded hole in the centre where the circlip was) and a hub puller to do this but didn't need to use it.

The seal can then be seen. Remove. This was an utter pig even with the right tool, the seal itself is made of rubber coated alli'. I used pointy mole grips and strong language in the end after bursting half the seal with the tool.

Assembly is not quite the reverse.

I used the flange to start the new seal into place and then tamped down with a bit of wood and a toffee hammer. I've been told it cand be a bit poppy outy. The seal should be just about flush.

A tight flange may need a bit of threaded rod and some nuts, washers and a socket to wind it in (again using the hole where the nut was for the hub puller), I didn't have to do this.

Don't forget the circlip; a socket, circlip pliers, screwdrivers and more cursing helped here.

The rubber grease cap needs to be stuck down.

New grease in the drive shaft end before putting it back together.

Look up the torque settings for the drive shaft bolts, I've forgotton.


Luck.

I hope I haven't missed anything, feel free to correct me

I used pointy mole grips and strong language

nice one Euan .. i've offen used the same tool

and strong language

Oh yes, I witnessed said event, Euan used this tool lots.

And it's not leaked a bit.........

started today but did`nt get very far, eventually i removed the six allen headed bolts and slid the gaiter back to reveal the CV, BUT car`nt see how to remove the CV to get to the seal that is behind it, i`ve given it a few taps with a rubber hammer and it does`nt want to move, when wifey gets home i`ll get her to post the pictures i took,
As usual any help will be much appreciated.
Cheers
Sean

it sounds like you are misunderstanding Euans description , when you take the six bolts out, you pull the drive shaft away from the gearbox, you shouldnt need to move the gator nor see the UJ inside it.

The 6 sosket cap heads are torqued up to variously 28 ~33 ft-lbs (which I use these days, they can and do come undone). Different manuals quote slightly different figures. If they're the later 12-point spline drives then def. use 33 ft-lbs

it will not pull away, its tighter than a tight thing, should i hit it with a large hammer or will it cause damage to the cv.

hit it harder! - the CV is a big tough bit of steel and it's just got a bit stuck onto the drive flange

Cheers, i`ll give it a good beating in the morning.

No beating - just one or two well placed blows with a club hammer...
It needs knocking sideways a bit to split the rust, the end of the joint is in a steel cup with a flange around the edge, don't hit that for goodness sake, hit the outboard edge of the steel CVJ, to rock it out. Then turn it 90 degrees and hit it again..
You are using a 2lb club hammer I presume not some silly claw hammer?

two good hits and off it came, removed old seal cleaned everything up, but VW has sent the wrong seal so i`ve got to wait till tomorrow, But while under there i`ve noticed that a CV has gone on either side so i prasume i`m better off replacing all four while i`m at it and if i`ve got to strip the back end down i`ll replace the brakes at the same time, So any advice on CV boot replacing will be VERY welcomed.
Cheers for all the advice
Sean