Leaking Rear Crank Seal (was: 89 200tq 10v noisy clutch bearing?)

[Eric_R_Kissell at whirlpool.com]

For the 1989 200q Avant, I waited on mine until it needed a clutch, then I
did it while I had it apart.

Having done the clutch job myself, I would not want to pull it apart just
for the rear crank seal.

However, if your clutch has enough miles on it, you might be able to
consider it preventive maintenance.  My clutch went for 180k miles before
beginning to slip, and the only reason it died "prematurely" was that my
wife has a driving style that accelerates clutch wear and she was the
primary driver of this car until we, sadly, purchased a minivan for her.

The car ran fine with the leaking seal and I was not able to find any
significant difference in the way the car ran before and after the rear
crank seal was replaced.  Not only did the car run the same, but I was not
able to tune it to a better state of running after fixing the leaking rear
crank seal. I had expected some sort of difference and that I would be able
to retune to achieve better performance.  Not that it had any performance
problems, but I had been thinking if it ran so well with the leaking seal,
how much better might it be once the seal was replaced...

HTH,
Eric Kissell
1991 200q 20v Avant
1989 200q 10v Avant, 1.8 bar - FOR SALE
1986 5000cstq 10v Sedan, 1.8 bar