Strange things followed me home form work the other day. Unfortunately it was a trail of oil! Luckily I don’t live far from work and managed to get home before the trail stopped. Split the oil seal between the block and oil cooler. It was hard as a rock. Fortunately the local VW dealer was able to get me two in over night. But not an easy job to do on a Syncro with AC in the driveway. Bars and pipes everywhere, but better than at the side of the road. If you get the chance and are doing a oil filter change on a hoist I would look at replacing this too if it have not been done recently. part number 038117070A new part much better than original o-ring in design.
I did a gearbox oil change yesterday and had to remove the following to do it:
Sump protector (4 bolts)
Syncro skid plate (6 bolts)
Exhaust (6 nuts)
Selector coupling (2 bolts/nuts)
What should be a 5 minute job took an hour!
Painful…
Good advice Michael.
Scott, only 1 hour? - it would take me all day.
Cheers, Theo
I had help Theo. 
Certainly a good one to check Michael, I did mine a couple of years ago now.
Why the exhaust Scott? I assume the Subie exhaust is in the way? I can change the oil with only removing the fill and drain plug, but yes it’s a pain! I have yet ot finish setting it up, but have a small oil pump I can use to pump oil into the GB to avoid removing anything from the fill plug (I have a small tube bent up to feed in). The plan is I can drop the oil regularly and run it through a filter to keep the oil clean.
One day…
Richard
Hi Richard,
My Smallcar exhaust runs between the engine and gearbox and tucks up really well for clearance reasons.
Whilst you can get to the sump bolt you cant actually get it all the way out and hence the exhaust needs to be dropped a bit and to do that I also needed to drop the syncro skid frame a bit to allow for it.
Always good to check things out while its up on a hoist…
Thought that would be the case. At least the Subie exhaust bolts are easier to get to than the original!!
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Yes true and as they are new they come undone very easily.
Taking off a 30 year old exhaust that’s been driven through salty environments is not fun.
Brass nuts and never seize!!!
Definitely not what they used on all my past T3s that I have removed exhausts from. Some serious work was required to get them off.
Another reason why its hard to get mechanics to work on these old things as many bolts do not come off without snapping studs or other issues…Much easier to just do services (oil changes) on new cars and charge an arm and a leg for it.
I have a couple of leaks and am dreading the work to replace pipes. So many bad stories about bolts snapping off. I would no be game to try it. Will use a good German mechanic that works for Hart and me sometimes.
Cheers, Peter
Lots of WD40 soakage for a while before attempting any rusty bolt removal.
Many exhaust bolts are just for the grinder as they have rusted themselves together.
Definitely helps having a hoist though.