Waaay back, when I was in high school, I did a flathead V-8 Ford cylinder
head this way....except I used the sidewalk as my grindstone.  I found a
nice smooth spot where some cement finisher did an especially good job and
wet that down, then 'smoothed' the warped head of my 1951 Ford Woodie surf
wagon's motor by pushing it around on that till it was flat again.  These
Jetta/Rabbit/whatever water cooled inline VW motors are probably simpler
than that old motor, and at least as robust..

   I wonder why they stopped making transmissions like that old Woodie had?
 It was a stick-shift (on the column) with a centrifugal overdrive..you
would lift off the accelerator in any gear and when the tranny "wound-down"
it would 'clunk" into it's Overdrive mode.  If you stomped on it, there was
an automatic back-shift, and when the overdrive lever (on the dash, a pull
handle) was engaged, the vehicle had 'free-wheeling'...when you let off the
gas it was like you'd shifted into neutral..no engine braking in Overdrive
mode.  I had the same type tranny in a 1955 Chevy business coupe I owned,
also in highschool..  That old Ford Woodie, it used to take us from Seal
Beach, California right down Pacific Coast Highway to the Trestle (a surf
spot near San Clemente) for under a dollar in gas and we could go after
school for an hour of surfing...well, at least when  we sometimes actually
went to school.

  Don Hanson

On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 5:13 AM, Mike <mbucchino@charter.net> wrote:

> You'll still have to remove the PP to unbolt the flywheel from the engine,
> which requires removal and reinstallation of the clutch.
>
> You can try your lapping arrangement, but I'm not sure if you'll see
> 'shiny' spots enough to make a decision to go to a machine shop or not.  You
> should use a scraper or blade to remove all of the remaining traces of
> gasket.  If there's a lot of gasket, I suspect it make a messy slurry doing
> it your way.
>
> Too each, his own......
>
> Mike B.
>
> -