Picture this: Ten years ago, a young guy, in his early twenties, standing in a barn next to his old and very rusty 1973 1300 beetle. He and his two brothers are the proud owners of this car. He just finished replacing the gearbox and is trying to remount the engine. There is still half a centimeter left between gearbox and engine, and the damn thing won't go any further. It's 5:30 in the afternoon, the barn is from his brother's the father in law who was allready cranky because of this old beetle occupying his barn for 3 weeks now. Than his brother comes along, trying to help him out, but the two of them can't get the engine totally in, no matter what they do. Then his brother suggests putting the engine bolts in and tighten those, sure the engine will go in then. The guy remembered vaguely something from the manual, saying that you must NEVER do that... But, he's desperate at this point, willing to try everything. So, they get the bolts in, and tighten them up, and voila the engine is in... Well, soon they discovered that the clutch doesn't de-clutch anymore, even towing the car in second gear doesn't free-up the clutch... So the thing has to come out again, to see what's wrong with the clutch. But a whole afternoon trying to remove the engine resulted in nothing, only one centimeter space between gearbox and engine, he tried everything, even crowbars, the damn thing won't come out. As the finals are coming up (the guy is still a student) te brothers decide to put the beetle in storage, and look at it again when there's more time..
Now, fast forward ten years, to the present. A guy, in his early thirties (job in programming, father of 2 daughters), standing in HIS (very leaky) barn, is standing next to his (even more rusty) 1973 1300 beetle. For 3 hours now he tried to remove the damn stuck engine.. He cut away the rear side for easy access (it looks like a baja now..). But that wouldn't help, that engine is really stuck. The clutch plate is stuck on the drive-shaft, he knows that because he can get the engine to move
1 or 2 centimers backwards but then the engine moves back again. This is caused by the springs of the pressure plate. It's 5:30 in the afternoon, and he gives up, he decides to remove the tranny and engine all together, which is going to be a challenge, because it's a swingaxle bug (euro spec).Needles to say, that guy was me, and I want to get the gearbox and engine apart, and be done with this.. I figure, I got 2 options:
- remove the transaxle, and cut (or dissassemble??) the drive shaft in the transaxle housing
- cut a little "window" in the gearbox, so I can undo the bolts of the preasure plate. But is the "window" fixable afterwards?
Or are there any other suggestions?
There must be other guys that have made this mistake too? (or maybe "a friend" did it once... ;-) )
Greetings, Gerrelt.