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On 23 Nov 98, at 9:31, Erkson, Toby wrote: > Looking down on the engine at the top, rear-most #4 > head stud where it enters the case is where the crack starts and it travels > up and rearward (towards the generator). I had one just like this once. It was broken here because the nuts on the main bearing studs (see other side of the case) had come loose and the crank had pushed the case halves apart, bending them and breaking the left side there. If this is the story for you, I'm afraid that you're SOL. I managed to tighten up the main bearing stud nuts and then do a temporary repair on the leak as follows: Find another case of the same vintage that is bare so you can look at it inside and out. Drill a small hole through the crack, in and angled downward, through the case into the interior. The hole must be between the oil galley and the head stud. Grind a groove in the surface of the case where the crack is, from the rear end down and forward past the hole you just drilled. Get some aluminum loaded epoxy (Devcon F or J-B Weld) and fill the groove and the face of the hole. Do NOT fill the hole. The crack will continue to leak oil, but now it will leak into the hole you drilled and flow back into the sump. The surface epoxy will keep the leak from getting outside. You COULD omit the hole, but the crack will eventually make its way to the head stud, and there will be no way to keep it from leaking out around the stud. The hole relieves the pressure so even when the crack gets to the stud, there will be no pressure to drive oil there. I recommend that you NOT try to weld this. The heat might well do something to the oil in the oil galley and cause worse problems. My repair was on a car I bought for $75. It leaked 1.5 quarts of oil out in the 5 mile trip home. The repair lasted a few months until I could build a good engine for it, but when I finally took that engine apart, it was almost completely junk inside. I believe that engine had been previously rebuilt. I found most of the main bearing stud nuts to be loose or missing. The main and rod bearings were in the worst condition of any I have ever seen. The main bearing webs had been spread apart so very little oil had any chance of getting anywhere useful. In my opinion this was the result of poor assembly practices. Sorry, I realize this is not the good news you had hoped for, but it is probably better if you go into this with your eyes open. Jim - ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------- List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list or mailto:help@vwtype3.org