Well guys, we believe it was infact the vents!
We found that the two vents were covered in crap. Scraping off the crap and
spraying them with PB blaster, followed by a little wiggle with some vice
grips got good breathing action. One vent however is missing the cap. We
poked through the vent hole to make sure it was clean with a bicycle spoke.
Is there a way to add a cap?

The transmission no longer appears to be spewing fluid (or at least, it's
just a small leak now).

-Craig

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 12:13 AM, <phishman068@gmail.com> wrote:

> What do these vents look like?
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Dec 19, 2011, at 10:30 PM, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > ATF needs to be checked with the engine running, everything warm, and the
> > van level. Driven the fluid in the torque converter will expand. There
> are
> > two vents on top of the transmission assembly. One is for the ATF
> section,
> > the other for the final drive. If the vents are blocked or plugged when
> the
> > transmission warm up the air and fluid expansion will combine to push the
> > oil  back out through the dipstick tube.
> >
> > Dennis
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
> Of
> > Craig Cowan
> > Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 12:58 PM
> > To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> > Subject: Spewing ATF from dipstick
> >
> > My 90 project bus is apparently leaking ATF from the transmission
> dipstick.
> > The car has sat for years and it's possible that the previous owners had
> > overfilled it. It's up to the bend in the dipstick, quite high. Should I
> > assume this or bleed it down? Is there anyway that coolant or gear oil is
> > getting in there causing this rising fluid level?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > - Craig.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
>