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Mon Jul 27, 2015 8:07 am

Traveling from Idaho to southern Florida, I started dropping oil around St. Louis. Oil was spewing out of the 'flywheel observation window'. This 73 transporter lost about a quart of oil every 20 miles. I drove the remaining 1100 miles by repeatedly adding 5w20 before the dipstick read a quart low.

Just before the trip a friend dropped the engine and put in two gallery plugs because it was doing the same thing. He also inserted and jb-welded a brass plug over the crank shaft plug just to be sure. No, he is not a VW guy and I am pretty new to this. Now that I have moved I want to do it right. I am willing and probably should crack the case and go for a complete rebuild given the history.

I pulled the engine and didn't find obvious signs where the oil could be leaking. The lower left plug appears to have a slight crack along the seam but I may just be looking too hard. It will be pulled and plugged anyway. The main seal looked great. The brass plug that my buddy put in was resting on the shelf to the left where I placed it in the picture. I am suspecting it popped out and the flywheel flung it around until it found a resting place.

What do I need to do to ensure this doesn't happen again? Is the crank shaft positioned correctly? Other pics I have seen show it flush with the case.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 9:58 am

Your buddy just forced a thin plug over top of the original cam plug? This isn't going to do any good at all.

My guess is that your rear main seal is leaking and/or the o-ring that fits up inside the flywheel. The o-ring is hard to see and often missed. Buy yourself a Sabo brand rear main seal from GoWesty.

If that is a fuel injection block, you should at least peen around the plug on the left side of the case in the picture.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:11 am

You do have a crank oil seal don't you? I don't see it in the picture.
Also, is that the end of your cam where that brass plug was jb welded in or is that the plug?

Mon Jul 27, 2015 11:05 am

Here is the plug on the end of the crank and a closer look at the left plug that should be replaced.

The seal will need to be replaced but I'm not convinced that this was the main culprit.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 11:35 am

losing that much oil, look for the cleanest spot(s) and follow them back to their source. There should be a clean drip line. Also look at the back of the flywheel to see if oil is radiating out across the back.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:35 pm

Thank you all for the replies. There are no drip lines. The flywheel threw the oil everywhere, sloshing it into the engine compartment through the 'flywheel observation window' or whatever that breather hole is at the top of the bell housing. This spread out the oil inside of the bell housing, cleaning out any loose material quite nicely.

Other than the one plug to replace, what else needs to be done here?

Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:57 pm

There are some pretty good gouges on the lip where the flywheel seal sits.
You need to smooth those out and smear just a little sealer with your finger on that lip before you install the seal.

There should be some #22 flywheel shims to adjust the flywheel end play.
It is very important you set the end play.
thanks to mayor ratwell.
http://www.ratwell.com/technical/Microfiche/t200400.gif

I would set the end play put a new seal in it. Put it back together and run it on the ground. If it don't leak your golden. If it does, you can remove the flywheel and be able to see where it is coming from.

This is for a Type I engine, but it will give you the idea.

Time to get a repair manual if you do not have one.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=478522&highlight=

Good Luck
Tcash

Mon Jul 27, 2015 1:04 pm

In the center of your photo where you show the case, is the flywheel. Around it is the main bearing with thrust. At the top of the crankshaft there is a line that follows the contour of the crank. It comes closest to the bolt hole at the top. If you look at the crank in the photo - it is very shiny above that line and matte below it. If is possible that the flywheel has some defect or assembly issue that allowed it to wallow on the crankshaft? Normally shiny metal with a line like that means something has been moving against something else but trying to diagnose with flash cameras is next to impossible.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 1:38 pm

Thank you for the additional help. I will carefully replace the one plug and then reassemble with new seals. Hopefully this can be done by the end of next week, we'll see how fast parts can get here. I will update as I go along.
I understand the issue with possible grinding of the flywheel within the housing but I think that wear pattern is indeed from the lighting.
I have a service manual but I tend to rely on Muir's book the most.

At this point there doesn't seem to be a need to open the case, correct? I drove it a long way with this problem but it didn't run dry.
I am very open to further input.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 1:59 pm

what is all the silver goop that slung out everywhere? Look at how much it coated the peripheral of the seal area. You can see chunks falling off all the way around. Trying to figure why so much was used or why it formed. A very good friend who drag raced accidentally got a slight overspray on a crank nose one time. It just tore the heck out of the oil seal that contacted in - about 3 or 4 seconds idling just destroyed the seal. If that stuff you have on there acted as an abrasive it may have just destroyed your main seal. I think the gouges people are seeing are bits of it which have fallen onto the lip where the seal goes.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:04 pm

It looks like someone put sealer on the flywheel mounting surface. This will not allow the flywheel to be torqued down properly.

The crankshaft end is hard to see. Push the cooling fan toward the flywheel and take another pic.

Tcash

Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:23 pm

Tcash wrote: It looks like someone put sealer on the flywheel mounting surface. This will not allow the flywheel to be torqued down properly.

The crankshaft end is hard to see. Push the cooling fan toward the flywheel and take another pic.

Tcash

just a guess but about 11:50 - 12:00 it looks like oil has been going under the O-ring and out the bolt hole. Maybe it is just an illusion in the photo.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 3:10 pm

Thats silicone...RTV on the flywheel o-ring. Thats a recipe for heavy leakage.

The flywheel o-ring is a bit of a spurious seal in itself. Its graphite coated...and designed to go in dry.

Adding RTV to it...props it off of the surface. The tension between the o-ring and the relatively polished crank end is light...and the graphite insures that the RTV doesn't really adhere to the o-ring.

Also....is that a water cooled type freeze plug in the end of the cam hole? If so...are you sure it does not contact the cam? If it does...it could screw up the thrust bearings from the back side. Ray

Mon Jul 27, 2015 4:19 pm

Good eye.

Mon Jul 27, 2015 4:21 pm

Tcash wrote: Good eye.

Yep...good eye SGKent....and the RTV alone can cause that. I found out the hard way about that. Ray

Mon Jul 27, 2015 11:50 pm

SGKent wrote: what is all the silver goop that slung out everywhere? Look at how much it coated the peripheral of the seal area. You can see chunks falling off all the way around. Trying to figure why so much was used or why it formed. A very good friend who drag raced accidentally got a slight overspray on a crank nose one time. It just tore the heck out of the oil seal that contacted in - about 3 or 4 seconds idling just destroyed the seal. If that stuff you have on there acted as an abrasive it may have just destroyed your main seal. I think the gouges people are seeing are bits of it which have fallen onto the lip where the seal goes.

Looks a heck of a lot like JB-Weld. Once that sealing surface is clean, clean, clean and your ready to re-assemble everything the only thing I ever do to the seal is apply a very small dab of grease to the lip of the seal prior to seating it. Nothing else.

Doink the lip of that seal and you'll be tearing it all apart again.

Tue Jul 28, 2015 2:00 am

willarddaniels wrote:
The seal will need to be replaced but I'm not convinced that this was the main culprit.

It looks to me like the silicone he put on the mounting surface may have been allowed to set before he assembled the flywheel to the crankshaft and thus wasn't mostly squished out. That would be a double no no, as not only would the silicone act as a lubricant between two pieces that are not supposed to move relative to each other, but it would have also acted as a shim throwing the crank end play off. I also wouldn't be too surprised to find that silicone ended up blocking the drain back port in the block as well causing somewhat pressurized oil to flood the seal area.

FWIW, not many people choose to run an oil as thin as 5w20 in an aircooled motor in a Transporter.

Tue Jul 28, 2015 8:55 am

udidwht wrote: SGKent wrote: what is all the silver goop that slung out everywhere? Look at how much it coated the peripheral of the seal area. You can see chunks falling off all the way around. Trying to figure why so much was used or why it formed. A very good friend who drag raced accidentally got a slight overspray on a crank nose one time. It just tore the heck out of the oil seal that contacted in - about 3 or 4 seconds idling just destroyed the seal. If that stuff you have on there acted as an abrasive it may have just destroyed your main seal. I think the gouges people are seeing are bits of it which have fallen onto the lip where the seal goes.

Looks a heck of a lot like JB-Weld. Once that sealing surface is clean, clean, clean and your ready to re-assemble everything the only thing I ever do to the seal is apply a very small dab of grease to the lip of the seal prior to seating it. Nothing else.

Doink the lip of that seal and you'll be tearing it all apart again.

BUT...DO NOT put grease on the o-ring. Its graphite coated because its designed to go in dry. Its a stationary shaft seal...not a rotating seal.
Ray