Oil Leak Fix - Attempt Number 4-6 (Somewhere in there), Suggestions on fixing an oil leak issue by the flywheel Options

[netbanshee]

Hey everyone,

Been reading the forums for some years, but haven't had much to say up until now. So Hi, Hey and Hello. Nice to meet you.

I'm looking for some feedback and/or recommendations on an issue my '70 914 1.7l is having. After replacing the flywheel seal a few times to no avail, my father and I are starting to look at a few other options and suggestions.

Here's the car (upon delivery and there on):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/netbanshee/27...in/set-1076179/

Regardless of what's been done so far, the car still manages to leak oil at about a drip every 1-2 seconds out of the bottom of the engine near the flywheel. The oil leak persisted after the car blew an oil galley plug behind the flywheel. Before the car decided to dump most of her oil out in the driveway, I was able to shut the car off and keep things from getting much worse.

We proceeded to pull the engine and tranny, pull all of the galley plugs and threaded in some new ones. We also hit them up with JB Weld for added assurance.

At this point we went ahead and gave the drivetrain and a good once over. We hadn't really pulled apart the car since I purchased it 3 years ago, so no better time then. The car was generally pretty solid up to that point since the owner kept the car in good shape and only put a few thousand miles on the car over the years after an extensive restoration.

We checked the pressure release valves, replaced various gaskets, the fuel lines, relocated the fuel pump under the gas tank, fixed up the hell hole before it got away from us, etc., etc. We then went about replacing the flywheel seal and flywheel o-ring. The 3 shims were in good shape so got them cleaned and lubricated before putting them back in the way they were. We permatexed the outside of the flywheel seal, seated it, bolted everything back up and got the drivetrain back in the car.

After starting the car, we started to get the oil leak I described. Since then, we have tried different flywheel seals (Elring Klinger at first, then Victor Reinz since) to no avail. We made sure that the end play on the crank was between .003 - .004mm and that we seated the seal flush with the case and in slightly different depths so it didn't ride in the previous spot. Also of note, the leak is definitely between the flywheel and the case. There isn't any foul smelling gear oil from the tranny to note.

There isn't any indication that the galley plugs are anything but solid, so our thought was that there was an issue with the flywheel seal. Now that we've replaced it a few times, we're looking at other options.

We were thinking that it might be time to replace the flywheel and bolts. The paperwork I have on the restoration suggests that the original flywheel was machined and polished (dual surface) and we did notice that the flywheel seal we initially removed (don't have it anymore) was white and nothing we had seen before. Possible the seal was a different type?

So, what does everyone think? Any other ideas or suggestions beyond a new flywheel?

Thanks,
Sean (netbanshee)

[netbanshee]

Hey everyone... been quite a bit. There are definitely some developments that I'd like to share.

After replacing the piston in the main oil pressure relief valve, we still had an oil leak at the same spot (at the rear seal side of the flywheel). Looks like she wasn't being caught in the bore.

From here we decided to split the case to look around and clean up, did a bit more research on the heads and picked up another used longblock and some extras that we found nearby for a good price. I also purchased a used flywheel, clutch and pressure plate on the cheap from eBay to test out and see if we can produce any noticeable differences.

The original case in the car was was in pretty good shape as was the crank. The heads look to be 1.8 bus heads and the pistons were dished. The longblock that we picked up also had 1.8 bus heads, an earlier case (70-71 914 case) and domed pistons.

After cleaning up the original setup and honing the cylinders, we reassembled it, and still had the original issue. We then proceeded to use the extra case we picked up with the original cases' internals to see if the original case was the issue. The same leak persisted. After that, we placed the "new" crank in the extra case and proceeded to see a smaller leak at the rear seal, but we also had a leak at the main seal as well.

Oh well. If anything, I now have a pretty good handle on the engine top to bottom and with jack stands and a lift set up, I can drop a motor and have it down to a shortblock in 45mins. Pit crew here I come. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving-girl.gif)

In the meantime, we decided to bite the bullet and get things checked out. We contacted Dennis at Valley VW and arranged for an original case check, crank check, head check and delivered other internals to get a look. We're possibly looking at getting the case line bored, replacing the cam and lifters, all new gaskets and seals all the way around.

Depending on the results we et back by early next week, I might look at replacing the pistons, wrist pins and jugs, though the verdict is still out.

I'm hoping that by next week, I'll have some new and recut and conditioned parts in my hands to put the whole setup back together.

Wish me luck, but if anything occurs to any of you about the situation, I'm more than happy to take a look. It's easy in a long post and an incomplete set of notes that I glossed over some details.

Cheers,
Sean