Back on with this a little. After viewing this thread after some crafty Googling
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/vie...r=asc&start=38 I've seen that the old seal used to be much thinner than the new 13mm one. This gives an extra couple of millimetres that can be shaved from the mounting face. That
might be enough to slip in an adapter plate and retain the proper clutch actuation distance as measured on the beetle box.
The replacement seal that I've been eyeing is 22x40x8 with a twin lip
http://www.bearing-king.co.uk/bearin...0-x-7-r23/8798 and at only 7mm thick means that there is potentially nearly half of the boss area that can be milled away. This seal appears to be from a Yamaha bike front wheel. But so long as it does the job I'm happy.
A seal and exploration of a scrap gearbox case will have to wait, but it does look promising
That is of course unless someone is feeling
very flush
http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Butee-embraya...item461a6e906b... €450 is a little too much for me