> Anyway, my tranny was INCREDIBLY dirty. I started to clean it all off
> so that I could find the bolts. I'm not exaggerating when I say that
> the greasy dirt was 1/2"  thick on the top. The problem I was having
> with the starter removal was that it was crudded in and I couldn't
> get it to separate. Anyway, on to the questions.

Mine was the same way. Easily half an inch of dirt + ATF in some
areas. The seal between the final drive and transmission unit had
leaked for years and the PO decided the best course of action was to
keep a gallon of ATF under the rear seat.

>
> While handling it, I allowed the torque converter to come out a
> couple of inches (I did a bad job of wiring it in). I stuck it back
> in, but is there anything that will go wrong with it if it comes
> slightly loose but is stuck back in?

If everything is still seated OK, then there shouldn't be any trouble.
There are two shafts that connect to the torque converter: the outer
turbine shaft and the inner pump shaft. The only danger is that the
pump shaft could conceivably be not fully aligned and seated in the
ATF pump at the far end, and the compression of bolting the whole
shebang together breaks the ATF pump. The ATF pump is all the way at
the farthest reaches of the transmission unit, up by the heat
exchanger, and it's non-trivial and expensive to replace (cheaper to
just buy a rebuilt tranny). Usually the pump shaft seating issue only
arises when reassembling the transmission and final drive sections,
but if I was you, I would pull the torque converter and just double
check that the pump shaft and turbine shaft are nice and kosher as
illustrated in  Fig 2, page 38.3 of the Bentley. I'm 99.9% sure you're
fine, but it's no big deal to check and an expensive prize if you
don't and it's your turn to win the anti-lottery.

>
> The inside of the ?bell housing? is extremely greasy/dirty as well.
> Should I just leave it alone or should I scrape/blast/??? it out. I'm
> afraid that dislodging dirt might be worse than leaving it alone.
>

I'd clean it off. The theory that dislodging dirt creates leaks has
some roundabout, backwards truth to it, but it only "creates leaks"
where seals have already gone bad and the leakage is being absorbed by
the caked-on crud. Better to catch the bad seal when its leak is minor
than be surprised when if blows out completely.

> As long as I'm mentioning dirt, what do you all use to clean it off
> well. I used a large and small wire brush, some solvent, and elbow
> grease. It's good, but not perfect. Is there a miracle product beside
> liberal amounts of elbow gerase?

I used the exact same thing on mine. Wire brush, plastic putty knife,
and a flat blade screwdriver for the tight crevices. I scraped most of
it off "dry", and on what remained I used an assortment of engine
degreasing products that had accumulated in the garage over the years.

--
John Bange
'90 Vanagon - "Geldsauger"