Well, sometimes things take a while to sink in...
Last night, back from work, I was looking at the engine compartment of
the '82 diesel in the garage, wondering why there was oil everywhere
but not where the flange that connects the vacuum pump to the brake
booster hose broke apart...

Then it hit me:

	It's a vacuum pump!!!
	when there is a clear path for the air to be sucked in, the
        pump sucks air big time, and discharges it into the
        crankcase!!!  I was getting oil pushed out the oil fill
        tube and everything else -- just like a bad case of piston
        blow-by.. 

O.K., with the mystery solved, I first tried to see if I could fit
some kind of regular flange in there.  I finally gave up, since the
shape is real weird, and I would lose the check-valve functionality of
the original flange.  I was in the garage scratching my head, trying
to convince myself that I could really glue this thing and it would
hold...

Then it hit me again:

	It's a vacuum hose+flange set!!!
	which meant, if I built a strong neck on the _outside_,
	from some decent material, the vacuum inside would actually
        help seal all the small air paths that may form in the
	material while it dries...
	A quick run down to WalMart, bought a marine epoxy stick
	(putty-like to the touch, when you mix the inner core with the
	outer material by kneading it, takes about 5-10 minutes to
	become reasonably firm, another hour, it is completely set).
	got the lid of the vacuum pump out, went upstairs and washed
	it in the kitchen sink (to my wife's horror :-) built a
	conical neck around the flange with the lid as the base, let
	it dry while watching tv, then went downstairs, first replaced
        two of the glow plugs that I had been procastinating on, then
	put the lid on the vacuum pump with my contraption on top of
	it.  Topped off the oil, started her up...  No problems...
	My commute (short one) this morning was uneventful....

Oh Well, had to tell about it to someone :-)

BTW, the vacuum pump +flange design is one of the worst flops I've
seen done by VW engineers.  I bet they were not thinking that this was
a vacuum seal rather than a pressure one when they designed it -- it
is definitely made to fail the wrong way, and looks like it was
designed to keep the pressurised air inside, not vacuum. 

In any case, anyone happen to know the part# for this flange????

One side question:
To get at the two other glow plugs, looks like I'll have to remove
the Diesel injector pump.  any hints, insight there???

Thanks,
Cetin

Cetin Seren
Outbound Technology Group		phone:  412-635-3479
FORE Systems, Inc.			web:	www.fore.com
5800 Corporate Drive			fax:    412-635-3350
Pittsburgh, PA  15237                   e-mail: cseren@fore.com