Flo,

You should be able to use the same homemade tool to open the fill plug
of your transmission to see if you need to add some oil.  Stick your
finger in.  If you can touch the top of the oil, you should be OK.

Geordie.

On 9/16/06, John Rodgers <inua@charter.net> wrote:
> Flo,
>
> Get a short bolt whose head is the size to fit into the drain plug -- I
> think it's 17 MM but I can't remember for certain. Get two nuts that fit
> the bolt to go along with it. Put the two nuts on the bolt and jam them
> together - that is tighten them against each other. Now insert the bolt
> head into the drain plug and use a box end wrench to turn the bolt to
> tighten the plug.
>
> This works really well. Because the bolt is so short, I keep mine in the
> ash tray.
>
> Sorry, I can't help with the coolant issue.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL Driver
>
> Florian Speier wrote:
> > so, the vanagon greeted me with two leaks today. tranny oil  (manual) and
> > coolant.
> >
> > the tranny oil ssems to come from the manual tranny drain plug, and it is
> > not a lot. is there any tool that can tighten the plug without
> > removing the
> > transmission? and is it very bad for the transmission to have lost a
> > little
> > oil? I doubt it was more than an ounce at max....
> >
> > the other leak..... well, coolant, left side. I still have my hopes
> > its not
> > the head. it seems to be coming from these hoses and sensors behind the
> > left, at least there are marks of dried coolant, but there is also
> > some on
> > the oil filter. So is just driving on and refilling a very dangerous
> > tactic?
> > I am gearing up for a subie conversion, so it should just be a few
> > months....
> >
> > flo
> >
> >
>