Yes, an extremely good point.
On a related note, I'm going to be grinding down the little "safety
bevel" on the business end of my 17mm allen wrench soon, in order to
remove the fill plug- my last effort actually broke off part of the
plug!
Has anyone else recently bought a new fill plug from VW? It's no longer
a 17mm Allen, it's more like a large triple-square with a round peg in
the center. Weird.

And yes, I went ahead and drained the tranny anyway, and it's good I
did, since it was at least half water in there! The worst part was
using my little manual fluid pump to pump new oil in the drain hole...
-Simon

On Friday, August 30, 2002, at 09:46  PM, Ben McCafferty wrote:

> Great point.
> bmc  :)
> "Faith will move mountains, but you'd better bring a shovel...."
>
>
>> From: David Brodbeck <gull@CYBERSPACE.ORG>
>> Reply-To: David Brodbeck <gull@CYBERSPACE.ORG>
>> Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 23:31:02 -0400
>> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>> Subject: Re: manual tranny fluid change
>>
>> On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Ben McCafferty wrote:
>>
>>> As to replacement, yes, you just drain it, replace the plug, and
>>> then fill
>>> it.
>>
>> It's a good idea to remove the fill plug *before* removing the drain
>> plug...just so you know you'll be able to put fresh oil in, before
>> you let
>> all the old stuff out. ;)
>>