Dear list,

My housemate rebuilt his 1600 dual port, which he has put
about 500 careful miles on. It was rebuilt with alot of care
and purrrrssss as it goes, but (the big but) yesterday
a load of oil appeared to be working its way out of the bell
housing. 

This could be from the oil seal behind the flywheel,
but the engine oil is still a pristine green (on the dipstick) and 
the stuff being dropped is black. Could this be clean engine oil 
picking up clutch dust on the way out (would surely lead to clutch
slip?) or is it more likely to be from the gearbox?

Assuming it is the engine oil seal, we've checked the oil 
breather is ok to make sure that the crankcase pressure isn't 
forcing the oil out past the seal, and apart from that we are pretty
lost as to what may have caused the seal to fail at such a low
mileage. The local vw garage guy said he had had a similar problem
on an engine he had rebuilt and the oil leak had cured itself!

This isn't really something I can count on, so any ideas anyone????

cheers
Marcus
'70 bus
 
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Marcus Grant
mty016@uk.ac.cov