You got the shaft positions swapped. The Pinion shaft is the lower shaft
that is used to splash the oil. I have seen the rear amin shaft needle
bearing destroyed by excessive engine idling/operation with out the van
moving and the oil level is low.

I have towed my Syncro Westy many times behind my motor home without
incident.

Wit the engine out, it is extremely important to have it level and
secured if the center drive shaft is in. Personally, for a 12 mile tow,
have it flat bedded. If you own a Vanagon, you should have towing
insurance anyway. Best $70 to $80 bucks a year you can spend, (less than
4 tanks of gas).

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf
Of SStones
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 11:00 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Towing a syncro.

At 10:37 PM 7/12/03 -0500, you wrote:
>I have trouble seeing why "flat" towing is very much different than
regular
>driving under power.

When driving, the engine is running. The flywheel spins the clutch which
spins the transaxle input shaft. That's the lower shaft, down in the
oil,
splashing it around onto the upper shaft and bearings.  When the van's
rolling without the clutch disengaged, the differential is turning the
upper unlubricated shaft. I doubt 12 miles would make a difference, but
that's one of the reasons to not tow a vehicle on its drive wheels
without
the engine running.

Now on to the fact that it's engineless...  Why not tow it in 4th?  Keep
the tranny nice and lubed, so long as the tranny is VERY well chained
and
supported in there...  That'll be a lot like regular driving.
Just my $0.02, and I really don't think 12 miles would do it any damage
even if the tranny has had a month to drip all of it's oil down from the
upper shaft, but someone will disagree.