help! gearbox woes (long)

[ewanhopkins@hotmail.com (Ewan Hopkins)]

Put a replacement gearbox in my scirocco on Saturday, which was a big enough 
pain - everything that could go wrong went wrong: chewed inner cv bolts, 
worn inner CV, wrong size flanges, no studs for lower mount plate, shagged 
clutch cable, etc, etc - what should have been a few hours turned into an 
all day saga. Anyway, finally got it in and working, went home on Saturday, 
did a few miles on Sunday. Was just getting used to the new gearing ( audi 
2L + 3.67/.75 5th make for great motorway cruising (just short of 100mph 
@4000rpm)!) on the way to work Monday when 5th started to get a bit whiney & 
3rd was not sounding too healthy. Drove the last few miles in 4th, get to 
work & underside of gearbox & car is plastered in oil and presumably the 
gearbox is pretty much empty. Put in 2 litres at lunchtime and drive home - 
sounds & feels OK now but nice puddle under car this morning. Wipe off the 
oil from the bottom of the box and there's a little triangular shaped dent 
near the drain plug which is dripping. Fuck!  Had to patch it in the car 
park of my local auto parts store with some bondo-style metal patch stuff. 
Still weeps a little but much better than before.
Question is, could it be TIG welded or patched without removing the box and 
splitting the case. I'm thinking, drain the box and blow out the hole with 
an air line until nothing more comes out and then flush repeatedly with 
degreaser & solvent to get everything clean. Alternatively, would this 
approach work with some epoxy adhesive as a relatively short term solution ( 
a few weeks ) - the crack is only about 1/2 cm but there is enough of a dent 
in the metal for something to get a purchase on. My main worry is how good a 
bond it'll get with the alloy case. Any opinions would be greatly 
appreciated!

TIA

Ewan Hopkins

'85 Storm 2.0
'86 GT 1.8
'87 GT 1.6

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.