Do I need the "special tools" to clean and reseal my transaxle?, Trying to clean off at least a quarter century of grime Options

[messick]

Hello all,

After like 5 years, I'm back to trying to resurrect my 914-6 conversion.

First in the process is resealing my transaxle. It's hard to tell if it was "leaking" leaking when the car was parked, or if it's just a number of years of normal air-cooled VW/Porsche grime built up over the years. Either way, I'd like to reseal everything and then tank or media blast the case to make it look nice.

Trans it out and on my bench, and I've pulled the gear cluster out of it. I bought the Dr Evil videos, so I am good on how to take things apart and then put them back to together.

But, as the trans itself was known to work well when the car was running, and a visual inspection of the cluster shows (to my novice eye anyway) zero wear, I don't need to take anything apart unless absolutely necessary.

For the old members, this was mikez's (Joe Bob) old car, so it had a bunch of work done to it over the years, including a LSD diff. So unsurprising it's not worn out.

So, if I just want to clean and reseal, can I just leave the cluster as-is and put it back together? That would mean the intermediate plate would stay dirty on the outside.

Or, since I took the cluster out, do I need to adjust the forks anyway? Or if it's apart is it a good idea to inspect the bearings in the intermediate plate? If that's the case, I might as well acquire the "special tools" so I can send the intermediate plate to the cleaners with everything else.

I know if I didn't want a project I picked the wrong car, but at the same time I'm trying to not invent extra work I don't need to.