You dropped or spun the thrust bearing and smashed the tab into the case.
The thrust washer-bearing is held in place with a tang. I usually use a
dab of grease to keep it in place. The thrust piece will have to be
replaced and hopefully you did not damage the case too bad.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Thomas Wilsher
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 8:48 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Crankshaft stuck?

I'm in the process of changing the clutch on my '87 Syncro, and since
the front crankshaft seal appeared to be original one I went ahead and
changed that while I have the tranny droppped. However, when I
proceeded to put the flywheel back on I was surprised to see that I
didn't have to block the flywheel in any way when tightening the bolts
back on, the way I had to do when I took the same flywheel off. I am
completely unable to turn the flywheel with my hands, it seems frozen
solid. Could this be due to anything I did when changing the
crankshaft seal or taking the flywheel off? The shims behind the seal
itself are all in place and in the same order as when I took the seal
out , though they did seem to move around a bit when I put the new
seal back on. The new seal is perfectly flush with the surrounding
bellhousing, I installed it by pushing on the outer edge only.
Any ideas? Am I just being paranoid? Certainly would hate to put the
transmission back on and then find that the engine still won't turn...

As an aside, I did try searching the archives, but it seems the search
engine just times out these days. Any help is greatly appreciated.

--Thomas