Hi -

The question of how to put a subaru transmission into a vanagon has been
around for a while.  I can think of three approaches.  One is to flop the
ring gear over to the other side of the transmission.  Here is a link to a
photograph of a Subaru manual transmission.

http://www.turbomagazine.com/features/0305tur_subaru_wrx_gear_set/photo_07.html

Note that the internal ribbing around the differential bearings does not
look symetrical from side to side of the case.  The side that has the ring
gear has more ribbing than the other side.  That tells me that flopping the
ring gear mioght not be as simple as it would be for the old VW tunnel type
transmissions.  Remember the days when people were putting corvair engines
in busses.

A second approach would be to put a set of gears on each side of the
transmission similar to the old transporter axles.  I have seen a photograph
of such a custom made gear set, but I cant find it now.  Unless the gearset
is 1:1, matching the front and rear gear ratios could require another set of
gears.

A third method would be to make the motor run backward.  I believe that
certain Chevrolet V8 engines could be made to run backwards by using a gear
drive cam rather than a chain drive.  I dont know how this would work with
te Subaru oil pump.

I am not saying any of these are good ideas, just thoughts as to how one
might approach the problem.

Ron