Opinion on oil leak.

Doing a clutch on this 05. Once I got the airbox, battery plastic stuff removed I can see quite a bit of oil leaking from what I assume is the valve cover gasket on the drivers side of the engine.
Anyhow, when I got the trans/clutch/flywheel of the car the rear main seal is covered in oil too, but the backside of the flywheel is bone dry. With that in mind, I'm not convinced that the rear main is leaking. I think it's all coming from up top near the valve cover. Opinions on replacing the rear main seal? I don't have the tool and the car only has 98k on it. Thoughts?

//http://i974.photobucket.com/albums/ae227/kfgreenwald/oil%20leak.png

If your car has the BEW engine you don’t need a special tool. If you have the BRM I think you do need one. When Ive got the bell housing off I change the rear main. Keep in mind the new seals are Teflon and you must clean the contact surface with alcohol and not move the crankshaft for 4 hours or so. About the amount of time it takes to reinstall the transmission anyway.

greenyone said:

Doing a clutch on this 05. Once I got the airbox, battery plastic stuff removed I can see quite a bit of oil leaking from what I assume is the valve cover gasket on the drivers side of the engine.
Anyhow, when I got the trans/clutch/flywheel of the car the rear main seal is covered in oil too, but the backside of the flywheel is bone dry. With that in mind, I'm not convinced that the rear main is leaking. I think it's all coming from up top near the valve cover. Opinions on replacing the rear main seal? I don't have the tool and the car only has 98k on it. Thoughts?

//http://i974.photobucket.com/albums/ae227/kfgreenwald/oil%20leak.png

Click to expand...

This sounds to me to simply be a case where you need to tighten all 13 #30 Torx valve cover bolts, particularly the 4 on the back side of the head. I struggled with this problem once and that is all that it turned out to have been.

Tdijarhead said:

If your car has the BEW engine you don’t need a special tool. If you have the BRM I think you do need one. When Ive got the bell housing off I change the rear main. Keep in mind the new seals are Teflon and you must clean the contact surface with alcohol and not move the crankshaft for 4 hours or so. About the amount of time it takes to reinstall the transmission anyway.

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I'm a TDI noob. Please explain to me what BEW engine is.

Here is a photo of the rear main seal

Does this provide enough to determine BRM vs BEW engine. The car was manufactured April of 05.

http://pics.tdiclub.com/showphoto.php?photo=127946&title=05-rear-main-seal&cat=500

If your car was built in April of 04, I would say 04 or at most an early 05. With the Jetta vw made a change in 2005.5, just to keep things interesting.

However your rear main seal does not look like my rear main. I have an 05 Golf. So my guess is you have the BRM engine in your car, not the BEW. To further keep things interesting vw used the BEW in the golf and beetle into 2006. But not the Jetta.

For the BRM engine there is a special tool that is used to replace the rear seal. If you don’t have the tool and your seal is not leaking I would leave it. The valve covers are a known problem area for leaking all over the back, front and sides of the engine.

Changing a $45 rear seal that is pop off and pop on is a whole different story than charging a seal that requires a $2-300 special tool.

Edit: I thought I read April of 04 not 05. If your car was built in April of 05 you definitely have the BRM engine.

It's not leaking. I'll leave well enough alone.

sptsailing said:

This sounds to me to simply be a case where you need to tighten all 13 #30 Torx valve cover bolts, particularly the 4 on the back side of the head. I struggled with this problem once and that is all that it turned out to have been.

Click to expand...

This.^^^^^^^
Common problem on the BRM valve covers. Feel/look for oil on the back side of the head just below the valve cover. I have snugged mine down a few times.
Get the correct size torx screw driver. Don't use a torx bit. It could get knocked loose from the adapter and disappear on the back side of the engine. Don't over tighten the screws they are pretty small and could snap.