The Cal-look Lounge

After pulling my 1776 out of my '70 Bug, I noticed a strange sight inside the bellhousing of the IRS transaxle... there appears to be a hole in the bottom left corner (looking at it from the top) that by all appearances seems to be something "as manufactured."  I can only assume there should be some sort of seal or one-way breather vent to fill this hole. Any ideas?

It may have been drilled by a mechanic in the past. I recall having seen them before. I think it's so that a spray nozzle could be inserted to lubricate a noisy throwout bearing with spray grease. Just a theory, never confirmed..

I've seen it on tons on transaxles.

Hmm, that would make sense.  I guess I'll just have to hunt down a rubber plug that will fit.  This car has service records dating back to late '80s, early '90s from the dipshits at Halsey Automotive (I have my reasons for disliking them, mainly Walter Schmuck, I mean Schmidt).  Given the half-ass patch job they did on the floor pan in the battery tray, I wouldn't be surprised to see a hole drilled in the transaxle.  Lol.

You can just leave it open.

Bruce, I've heard the same from several factory trained mechanics.  The theory was that one could quiet the T.O. bearing without pulling the engine.  The squeaky bearing gets the grease.............

You could tap it and thread in a male AN fitting and run a hose from there to either a breather box, or maybe a heat exchanger.  A little expensive, but boy would you confuse people.

It's in the factory manual.  The early carbon face bearing might make noise, so a bit of lube squirted through that hole would fix it without pulling the engine.

I just ran accross a plug that might work. It's a punched out piece of 10mm thick hard black foam rubber about 10mm in dia. left over from something, don't recall what. It's shapped like a disc or tablet. You could duplicate one if you can find a similar material. It feels like wetsuit rubber if you can visualise that. Punch one out a little oversize with an empty shell casing, ink pen housing or similar. Then you can work it into the hole to prevent water ingress and such.

Yeah, my concern is with dirt and crap getting in there... there appears to be a bit of grime on the bottom of the bell housing area that I can only figure has come in through that hole, though the throwout bearing looks just fine, and the input shaft seal doesn't appear to be leaking.  Perhaps I don't have anything to worry about, I don't know.  Just seemed odd.

The grime is probably from clutch disc dust.
Just leave it open, you've got other real things to figure out with your buildup.

Thanks for putting my mind at ease!  One less thing to worry about, lol.

Bruce is write. Just leave it open, and try to look on other parts to figure out with your buildup.

I remember Shawn Geers had a 40-horse distributor on his super street engine back around '98 on the orange and yellow flamed car.  When people asked about it, he said it was a dummy vacuum can put there just to get people talking... lol.