One step at a time

Well, the starter was in.  I picked it up late in the morning, and got back around noon.  Trembling with anticipation, I lifted it out of the box, and to my delight, found this:

And they mean IN THE BELL HOUSING, in a hole which is open on both ends when the transmission is off, but deep inside a blind hole when it's attached.  Of course, you can extract and replace the bushing while the transmission is attached to the engine, using special tools VW9999xx and VW6666bs, etc.  I, of course, don't have these tools, and couldn't purchase them to use just one time.  Do I really need to replace this bushing?  The message is pretty grim, of course - what do they care how hard it is to replace?  The existing bushing looked, as far as I could see, okay.  I thought about it awhile, then decided that I'd gone this far, no good reason to jeopardize the new starter I'd paid so much for.  So, the alternative is to remove the transmission, again, and drift out the old bushing from the back of the bell housing towards the inside.  Here's the old bushing after I pulled the trans (the shiny thing in the center is the bushing):

Doesn't look in bad shape . . .  But I pushed it out with a drift, and put the new bushing in, using an almost equal-diameter bolt as a driver.  No problem, nice and neat:

And, best of all, the old bushing really WAS in bad shape:

There are stress cracks, too, that don't show up in this low-res pic.  Plus, it was a very loose fit on the new starter drive shaft.  So, I felt better about deciding to pull the trans.  I felt great when I was able to re-fit the transmission, all by myself, in almost half the time it took the last round.  While this was satisfying, I really don't want to have a third opportunity to improve my skills with this. 

Tomorrow:  the whole thing goes under the van.