I had a chance today to crawl under the van to check on my transmission whine ('85 Westfalia with stock 1.9 and manual transmission, 172,000 on both as far as I know.) On my last trip, I noticed a whine when going into first or second gears. The noise seemed like it came right up through the shifter lever. Near the end of the trip, it also had a hard time getting out of fourth gear at a stop light. 
 
I saw a drip of gear oil at the driver's side inner cv joint. It was quite a pain adding oil, and I think I got more on my and my tarp than in the trans. I got about six or seven ounces in before I gave up and decided to find a better way to add it tomorrow. (I had some clear plastic tubing coming off of the bottle, but it kept slipping off.)
 
Anyway, this little bit of oil didn't change the noise. So I hope to add more later. But I'm wondering if my noise is due to a lack of lubricant, could I have done any damage? And if not, and I can add more oil and fix the leak, how labor-intensive might it be to fix? 
 
Thanks,
Ed in CT
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