Over the past week my car has been sitting in the shop on jackstands. What was supposed to be a simple clutch kit replacement turned into a nightmare. As the bell housing was being removed, we noticed everything inside was black, pressure plate and all. The bell housing had about 1/8" layer of grease on the inside and a thinner layer on the outside. We found out the gasket inside the camshaft cover was leaking oil...and not just a little bit. It had been leaking for a long time, didn't know because it didn't leak on the ground, if it had we would have fixed it right away. So we tried AutoZone and Napa, neither had the gasket. Well, technically they did, but I didn't want to spend $100 on a full gasket set for just one gasket. So we had to wait until Monday to order the part from the dealer. Well the part arrived later in the day on Wednesday, no time to work on the car, I had to get my fiance from work. Today I finally got to work on the car, and my dad and I only had 1 hour 30 minutes to get everything in before he had to go to work. The transmission alone was tough (we decided to just lift it in there and not bother with a jack, we're both around 225 lb so it can't be that heavy, haha!) I won't be able to finish completly until Friday. We spilled a lot of gear lube trying to get the transmission in. I finished everything once my dad left, except for the driveshaft and torque arm. So, Friday will be the day the car starts back up and takes a nice drive around town! After this, my car will be ready for the performance mods!

I hope you didn't actually use gear lube or engine oil or anything like that in the T5... It won't last too long if you did. It's designed for ATF lubricant.

You wasted all of that money on a dealer cam gasket when you could have just went and resealed the cover with RTV silicone like the ends of the intake manifold (3 years running now and still no leaks!). Shame on you. Should've replaced the rear main while you were under there as well. Heck, between the RTV for the cam cover and the RMS, you probably would have spent less than you did on that dealer gasket.

:edit: I also hope you cleaned the crap out of the bellhousing AND replaced the clutch pack... I'm sure that the clutch surfaces are no good any more due to that nice oil leak you had.

The rear main seal was still good. The dealer gasket was only $9 (rear main seal is $22). And we used silicone and a gasket, creates a better seal than just the silicone alone. My dad has been a mechanic for 35 years (500+ rebuilt engines), so I think we know what we're doing. And yes, I did clean the bell housing, looks practically new now, amazing what kerosene will do, huh? No, we didn't put gear lube (my dad calls it that, why? I don't know) or engine oil in there, I know the tranny uses automatic transmission fluid (Dexron). If you had actually read the beginning, you would have noticed I said it was a "clutch kit replacement," so I definately replaced the clutch pack. That was the whole point of taking everything out in the first place.

good for you. gonna get yours back on the road. I'll be taking mine out for a drive once I get the new I-pipe installed.

Well I finally did it, I finally got my camaro back on the road. The car runs and the tranmission shifts smoothly. Feel a tiny bit more power transferred to the wheels. Took a 10 mile drive and nothing went wrong. Now to just sell my Volkswagen and start buying performance parts.