Grab a coffee, and read my tale of woe...

[nightmare16v1988 at hotmail.com (Krazy Horse)]

I think is is about that time for all of us right now. Everyone that has 
recently put a wrench into the engine bay of a VW has come out with a few 
less fingers, broken bolts, frozen nuts, and best of all, the job not done. 
Everytime I look outside I want to get the "For Sale/Se Vende" sign. Then I 
remember, who in their right mind would buy this POS, oh wait, I did.

What the hell have we gotten into? VW's, thats what...

-Craig
'83 California Edition (RIP)
"Nightmare" '88 16v (PG-T Proj.)
"Calypso" '91 Golf GL (Daily Driver)




>From: "Mark" <mardak@cogeco.ca>
>To: <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
>Subject: Grab a coffee, and read my tale of woe...
>Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 00:10:52 -0400
>
>I'm sooooooooo f'in pissed!!!!!!!!!!!  After a completely hellish day
>wrenching on the beater/tow bastard swapping the suspension from the 75
>(too many snags and PITA things to mention), I decided to swap out the
>fifth gear for the .71 I removed from my (now) junk older FF.
>
>The PITA saga actually began last night, when I attempted to remove the
>said .71 gear from my (now) junk tranny.  NONE of the procedures I read
>on the swap mentioned that the tube thingy that you're supposed to
>remove with a "special tool" is supposed to be threaded DOWN 
through the
>"fork" instead of up.  Someone also replied to my post the 
other day
>that I didn't need to make the "special tool", and to just use 
a pair of
>circlip pliers.  I proceeded to butcher the threads up a bit while
>threading the tube up, but I thought "ah what the hell, it's a junk
>tranny and I don't need that part anyways, where's my 
vicegrips...".  So
>after the tube refuses to go any higher and the threads are now
>COMPLETELY messed up I realize that I'm going the opposite direction I'm
>supposed to.  Ok, now what...  Out comes the trusty grinder.  I figure
>I'll just grind off the threads and then use a hammer and punch to
>slowly turn the tube down through the fork.  Well after about a half
>hour of cursing that would make a drunken sailor uncomfortable I finally
>got that damn tube free of the fork.  /Stuey voice/  "Victory is 
mine!"
>I should have just "went to town" on the whole fork with the 
grinder,
>but hey, I'm a glutton for punishment...  :)
>
>It gets (much worse) though...  That was just a precursor to the
>problems I would encounter today...
>
>So today I set to work on swapping the freshly liberated .71 gear into
>the 4K installed in the beater/tow bastard.  I dropped the driver side
>of the engine/tranny by removing the front mount bolts, rear tranny
>mount nuts, and the passenger side engine mount bolt.  After going as
>low as it'll go I realize that the driver's side mount is in the way and
>has to be removed in order to remove the 5th gear cover.  Here's where I
>remembered that those two bolts holding the mount bracket to the tranny
>were completely seized when I installed the tranny last summer.  I tried
>for a while before saying "chuck it", and just snapped the 
bolt.  Only
>one end came out, and the other wasn't going anywhere, cause there was
>just no room to get anything in there to pound or lever it out.  So I
>figure I'll just remove the other bolt and pivot the mount on the
>trapped/seized bolt to get enough clearance.  To my surprise I was able
>to remove the nut, but there wasn't enough room between the mount and
>the inner fender well to actually remove the bolt.
>
>At this point I'm ready to snap (especially after the maddening time I
>had with the suspension) so I resorted to using my favorite destructive
>tool - my 4 1/2" angle grinder, to hack a small chunk out of the 
inner
>fender-well to get the bolt out.  Cool, it works.  Hmmmm, even with
>pivoting the mount there's still not enough room.  Ok, well since I
>already cut into the fender-well, what the hell, I'll just grind out a
>piece big enough to allow the 5th gear cover with the mount attached to
>clear everything.  (BTW, this car is a total POS (which you'll be able
>to see for yourself at Cincy), so I had no problems justifying taking a
>grinder to it...
>
>Now with enough room for the cover to slide out, it should just slide
>off, right?  WRONG.  Pry, pry, bang, bang, WTF!!!  It comes out about an
>inch, and that's it.  I check all around it, and nothing appears to be
>hanging it up, so out come the big prybars.  A couple back and forth
>pries and it pops out!  "Victory is mine!" I actually said out 
loud as I
>hastily pulled the freed cover from the tranny.  Well guess what also
>came with the cover.  Yup, you guessed it, the rod that ABSOLUTELY,
>POSITIVELY CANNOT come out, or a complete tranny disassembly is required
>to put it back in.
>FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!  So after
>wheeling all the tools, wheels, and anything else within reach as far as
>I could throw them, and entering a blind rage that I'm sure was quite
>entertaining to anyone watching, I came to the realization that I'd have
>to cancel my (already paid for) vacation long-weekend to Quebec I was
>supposed to be leaving for in the morning.  If I waited until after the
>weekend to swap a  tranny from my 80 S into the car I wouldn't have
>enough time before heading out for my trip to Missouri next week to pick
>up the 77.  So now I have a weekend of multiple tranny removals and
>installs to look forward to, while paying for a vacation I'm not on...
>
>I suck...
>
>Mark.
>75
>77
>80 S
>81
>81 S  2.0 ABA/JH/f'ed up 4K
>
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