Various 914 maintenance and repair questions Options

[914bub]

I have a few questions about the repair and maintaining of my 914. I got my car about three weeks ago and have it stored now about 2 hours from where I am. It took almost a year and a half to seal the deal so finally "having" it but not really having it here is driving me nuts! Here's my couple of questions, I know I'll have more, especially once I actually "have" the car.

Question #1. What's the logic behind replacing the flywheel when doing a clutch? I did auto repair for 20 years as a profession,(mostly Volvo, but some others as well), and all we ever did was resurface flywheels when we did clutch jobs. Unless of course the ring gear was toast. I read the Clymer manual, (Yeah I know Clymer and Haynes manuals are best used as toilet paper but the manual came with the car so I was perusing it one night), and the Clymer manual suggests inspecting and resurfacing the flywheel as needed. (I would always consider it "needed" when doing a clutch BTW).

Question #2 What's your prefered product for preserving an un-cracked dash pad? Long ago I heard armor all would eventually dry out dash pads. I usually use vynil-x on that sort of thing but was curious what you guys prefer. Back in the 80's I heard vasaline worked well and I did use it on my Mom's vw cabriolet way back then. It seemed to work well but made everything kinda sticky and "gummy". If you guys don't have a good suggestion I'll probably stick with Vynil-x.

Thanks in advance, Bub