Oil leak - sump gasket?

Hi, I’m chasing an oil leak.
Spent about 3 hours cleaning old oil off the bottom of the engine to get a better view. Then drove 15 minutes and had a look.
Dripping off the lowest point (see picture) and from one of the black steels where it runs along and then accumulates.
Area around the sump gasket looks wet and I can’t see any oil running from higher up. Does it look to you guys like the sump gasket might be the culprit?

Thanks,
Ben

Crankshaft rear oil seal ??

Took that little plate off that hides two of the sump gasket bolts to see if there was oil visible in there anywhere (would you see it there if it was the crankshaft seal?!) and it just looks like the sump gasket is messy that end too but relatively clean otherwise…

Does it smell like engine oil or horrible like gearbox oil, there are 2 seals gearbox side in the bellhousing, or the rear crankshaft seal, these are a gearbox out job, and possibly a new clutch if it's the pushrod one
Sump gasket will be the easiest to replace

Smells and looks like engine oil to me but I'm certainly no expert - certainly doesn't smell horrible. I'm having to top up engine oil quite frequently so I'd be surprised if it were any other type of fluid. If it were the crankshaft that would not be dripping engine oil, right?

I've ordered a sump gasket and a new oil filter as might as well. Hopefully that's something I can do myself for a few quid, instead of having to pay a few hundred and starting with a gearbox removal… 

There are 4 screws that you have to be careful with, they are the two that are at the front and the rear of the engine Crank Case/Pulleys, and between the Engine / Transmission.

Those 4 bolts bolt to the Crank case seal.  The ones at the rear are at an angle, and you want to use a 1/4 drive 10mm Short 6 sided socket.  You will also need a short wobble extension, and a good Screw Driver 1/4 drive tool.

Do not over tighten these or do any thing but start them by hand, and once they are fully tight, don't over torque or you will strip them.

The standard VW  steel bolt into aluminum is 87 in/lbs of torque or 9.82968 Nm.

They are very easy to Cross thread, so be warned and take care.
 

Thanks Briano, fortunately I have relatively slim hands so I was able to tighten these with two fingers until they were about 80% of the way in and I felt confident they weren’t cross-threaded. It’s only two that are hard to get to at that angle.

What is this black rubber seal on the gearbox side? It looked ok, if a little frail around some of the edges. Struck me as a weird thing to have a gasket covering some sort of a seal.

I can’t tell if I’ve been successful in the task yet as I’m missing an extension socket for my torque wrench, which I’ll pick up tomorrow, but for a first time operation it seemed to go about as well as one might expect.

Tomorrow I’ll torque it all up, put in the new oil filter and oil and see how it goes

Finished the job yesterday.
Checked in idle and all looked fine.
Went for a 10 min drive. Got back and leaking again. Same sort of spot. I get around 10-20 drips after turning the engine off.

It also looks like it’s still leaking around the new sump gasket - front side of engine seems fine but along the back it still seems to be building up around the lip of it. I torqued the sump bolts to 8nm then after the drive I increased to 8.5/9nm and drive again. Same result. Should I nip them up a bit more?

I looks like the majority of the oil dripping comes from around this bolt which would appear to be connecting engine and gearbox.
It seems to leak around there and then run down to the low point which is the tip of that metal plate in the bottom right corner of the picture. I can’t seem to trace it up any higher although I do think the rocker gasket must have a slight leak as I can see a little bit of oil around the bolts towards the back.

Is the clutch  area all greasy and oily/dirty?

you mean behind that little cover plate on the gearbox side? If so then no it's pretty clean. Quite a bit of old caked in oil on the inside of the cover plate itself but no surprise there, considering it seems to be running down the inside of that housing and to the tip of the plate as the lowest point. Doing the sump gasket again tomorrow so hoping to at least eliminate that as the culprit. I just can't see any leaks / oil running above the area where it accumulates which is just weird. 

Sump cover now dry after changing the gasket but leak remains. Local garage thinks it’s a gearbox seal and that it’s transmission fluid but it doesn’t look red or green to me My (new) engine oil seems to be about the same colour and smells a bit more like petrol than the stuff that’s leaking which has more of a faint maybe slightly burnt smell.

Anyone have any experience with Liqui Moly gearbox leak stop? Seems to get good reviews so wondering if it’s worth a shot before moving on to significantly costlier options.

Automatic, or Manual, you may want to drop the Transmission and take a look at the crank shaft rear main seal, Might as well do the clutch at the same time.
On the transmission side there is the pushrod Bushing and seal that can leak, but on manuals that are leaking
Gear Oil 90W, I would worry about Self Machining Syndrome where the differential Rivets loosen back out and rub a hole in the tranny case.
The CV differential seals can leak or the cap over the splined shaft can leak.  6 8mm triple square bolts and you can drop the Cv to inspect the seals and cups.

Gear box oil smells different than engine oil, and ATF is different.

An Auto can have the Gear box to Differential seal fail and then you get a mix of ATF and 90Wt spewing out the ports at the top.

I have had the pump bypass clog on my Auto that allowed over pressure and the Torque convertor seal failed causing ATF leaks out of the bell housing.

2 weeks after selling my parts car to the breakers I was back there paying 50 bucks for the Tranny out of my old parts car.

From my take on the photos, it may be a CV joint Seal leak, as they either spin out with the shaft in a Spiral pattern or dribble on the side and looks like a pan seal issue. 

Manual. 1.8 GTi cab.
I’ve seen threads where people say they use engine oil in the transmission and have been recommended doing so by a gearbox mechanic, so no idea what the PO might have put in there before. I’ll go and see the gearbox specialist today and I might just poke my finger into the gearbox filler hole to compare the liquid to what’s dripping.

Removed the gearbox oil filler bolt earlier and had a sniff at what was in there… I know what you mean about gearbox oil smelling nasty now. Definitely confirmed that the leak isn’t gearbox oil. I think probably rear main seal and also oil filter housing.
Got a quote to do the rear main seal and the clutch at the same time for around £450 and waiting for some other quotes to come back.

Make sure they replace the small seal in the first motion shaft when they do the clutch

Thanks. What does that seal do? I couldn’t find any reference to it in the Haynes manual section on clutch replacement…
Do you maybe have a part number or diagram I can refer to when I speak to the garage?
Cheers

It is for the clutch pushrod

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221130993814?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=oVHWpHOgT3q&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=kaq77ObVTcu&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Thanks, I've passed that info on to my garage.