Good news no doubt, but I don't understand why you needed to remove the 1/8"
of the transmission input shaft
when the same transmission worked ok with the old engine!  Am I right, you
just swapped the engine over - From the solution, there must be a difference
between the 1.6L vanagon diesel engine and the 1.6L Rabbit/Golf diesel
engine - but I'd always assumed they were the same engine in which case the
old transmission should of mated up fine - which, I guess, is where you
started.

is there a difference in the two engines that requires 1/8" of the
transmission input shaft?

Steve

----- Original Message -----
From: Mladen, Zoran <zmladen@NOVAZEN.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 7:38 PM
Subject: Resolved!!!!: Problem putting Golf diesel into Vanagon

> Hello again!
>
> Many, many thanx to everyone on the list that responded, especially to
TomC
> who responded within four minutes of the posting!
>
> As you all expected, the problem was that the input shaft was too long.
We
> dropped the tranny, shaved off about 1/8 inch of it, and reinstalled.  No
> more binding!!
>
> Again, many thanx to everyone.  No doubt we would have spent a significant
> amount of time trying to find this out!
>
> Z
>
> "Mladen, Zoran" wrote:
>
> > Hi All!
> >
> > Strange problem taking place here.  We have a customer that brought us
his
> > diesel Vanagon (with a bad ebgine) and a diesel engine from a
Rabbit/Golf.
> > We took out his old engine, removed all of the Vanagon specific parts
> > (including oil pump), broke down the Rabbit/Golf engine (checking rings,
> all
> > bearings, etc).  We put everything back together, and the engine turns
> fine.
> > Put the engine in the Vanagon.  While the engine is hanging in the
Vanagon
> > but not tightened, engine turns fine.  Once we tighten the engine to the
> > transmission, engine turns VERY hard, almost to the point of not
turning.
> >
> > As part of the engine swap, we replaced the clutch plate, disc, T.O.  We
> > checked the transmission, and it turns fine without the engine in.
> >
> > What have we done wrong????
> >
> > HELP!!!
> >
> > Z