> Any suggestions on how to get it off now will be greatly
>appreciated. I am going to wait an hour or so before I attack the project
>again, in hopes that the freezing rain will stop and the sun will come out.
>I am thinking that perhaps the band wrench will hold, if I wrap the filter
>in a clean rag before putting the wrench on it ...

Woody -
I have never attempted to change my own oil in the Vanagon, either.  However,
I used to change it on my old (non-VW) van, and one time, for some reason, I
could not for the life of me get the filter off with the band wrench.

Now, this might be a bad thing to do.  I don't know if there is a risk of
damaging something if you do this, but I was determined to get that sucker
off, and this was the only thing I could think of:

I took a screwdriver and jammed it into the side of the filter, and used the
screwdriver to turn the filter just enough that I could get it off the rest
of the way by hand.  Yes, it was messy, but...it worked.

-Lauren