I hate those flaps filler things that look like a giant steel
hypodermic syringe with a flexible plastic "needle," but they do work
and they're cheap. The method in Gerald's post is good, too. Yes, you
can do this easily in a parking space--it goes without saying that
you will want a heavy duty jack stand under each rear wheel. If you
don't have a creeper, cardboard or a poly foam backpacker's sleeping
mat it nice for a job like this. Cardboard will be good to catch any
spill disasters so you don't have to clean up the parking lot. Take
some white grease under there with you and lube the shifter in its
sliders.

If you really want to help yourself while you've got the car in the
air, get some real CV joint grease in a small grease gun and get one
of those snap-on needles when you're at the flaps. Give each CV joint
rubber an injection of about 12 shots of grease and you'll replace/
rebuild them less often. You inject the grease through the rubber
boot. If the boots are torn or cracked, make note of that too and
replace them as soon as you can.

Jim

On Jan 29, 2007, at 7:22 PM, Gerald Masar wrote:

> Yes.
> Now the qualifiers. Get the special 17mm socket from online vendors
> or your local
> flaps.
> Draining is easy, but FIRST make sure you can get the fill plug
> out. It's kind of hard
> to get to, up on the right hand side. Clean around it first as well.
> Everyone seems to have their favorite method to fill. I use a small
> vinyl hose, long
> enough to insert one end into the fill hole and thread the other
> out through the wheel
> well, insert a small funnel and tape it to the side of the van and
> fill from there.
> Despite what VW later said about filling to just below the fill
> hole, fill until it
> just comes out.
> Think about using synthetic Redline MT90.
> Good luck,
> Jerry
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Stainbrook" <mike90260@PEOPLEPC.COM>
> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 4:29 PM
> Subject: simple stuff
>
>
>> Hi All-my question is about changing the transmission oil on my
>> 85,4 speed
>> manual..is this something I can do in the parking lot without special
>> tools,pump,etc? I looked in the Bently but found nothing helpfull-too
>> simple perhaps? anyway thanks for having patience with a non-
>> wrench. Mike
>>
>