Newsgroups: rec.autos.vw
Subject: Re: Gearbox removal, GTI 16V
From: jan@camhpp12.mdcbbs.com (Jan Vandenbrande)
Date: 9 Oct 92 14:30:20 PDT
Organization: M&E (Division of EDS), Cypress CA

Sorry to hear about your clutch Mark.

In article <1992Oct8.182936.23426@ee.rochester.edu> Mark Sirota <msirota@socrates.ee.rochester.edu> writes:
>(inside the bell housing) has failed.  The lever on the front of the gearbox
>which normally actuates the pressure plate moves freely, but the clutch
>remains engaged.  The car is an '87 GTI 16V.

>
>Questions: What parts are likely to have failed here?  Since the pressure
>plate seems to still be exerting pressure, I suspect it hasn't blown up, so
>it's probably something in the linkage.  Anyone have any guesses?
>
If you are lucky, it may only be the actuator or what ever you call it.
The clutch cable attaches to a lever, which attaches to a shaft,
which in turn attaches to another lever. I suspect that the
connection between the shaft and the lever may have broken.
Now I don't exactly remember how your car is set up but it's
a fairly easy procedure to get at that lever. I think you
have to either unbolt the far end of your xmission or remove
that green disk with an "owl" and you can get at it.
You may or may not have to drain your xmission to do this.
I'd look into that first if you strongly suspect that.

>Is anyone willing to give me a step-by-step procedure for removing the
>gearbox?  How much time do I need to allocate?  How much of a bitch is it to
>drop the halfshafts?  Any other gotchas?  I've never done this in a
>front-driver before...  In fact, the only car I've ever pulled the gearbox
>out of was a BMW 2002.
>
I've never done it, but looked into it.
It's a bit of a hairy job that'll take you
a day. You start with supporting the engine with a 4x4 & chain,
remove all the linkages to the xmission, dropping the 1/2 shafts 
(easy), removing the xmission mount, and than unbolting the
xmission from the engine.
The problem is that unless you have a lift, it's really cumbresome
to maneuver the xmission in such a tight spot.
You may also have to remove other things that may be in your way
which may take longer than anything else especially with
corrosion (Rochester!).

After you finally got that removed, the next big problem will
be to loosen all the bolts. To remove the clutch or pressure
plate you need to somehow block movement and there is a tool
that looks like a bolt with a bicycle chain to do that.
I once tried removing a pp & clutch in a junk yard and my
1/2" Craftsman drive was by no means sufficient!

>Besides a new clutch, pressure plate, and throwout bearing, what other parts
>am I likely to need?  And, of course, maybe resurfacing the flywheel, but I
>hope not...

You have to regrease the throwout shaft which goes through the hollow
transmission axle.
Stay with stock Sachs clutch components (~ 100$).
The remaining 300US$ = labour!
Unless you are willing to spend some prime time with your GTI,
I'd have it done by someone.
Is Graig Autometrix still around (near Eastman Sch). They used
to be good and reasonable.

-- 
Jan

jan@camhpp12.mdcbbs.com		(work)
jan@lipari.usc.edu		(school, usually works, forwards)