Is the whine proportional to road speed or the gear you are in?  Road speed whine is the ring and pinion or pinion bearing (likely). If it's the bearing and it gets too worn, it can destroy the R&P, and those are expensive.

It takes a lot of expertise and special tools to rebuild a transaxle, I don't recommend it for the novice.  Send it to AA or German Transaxle.

Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Don Hanson
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 6:46 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: How hard is it to rebuild a transmission?

   ...I know, a subjective question, but is it possible for a home mechanic to rebuild a manual Vanagon transmission with only the normal
tools in the average home shop?...       Is there anything in the rebuild
process that takes huge expensive machines or VW Special tools that one couldn't 'make' at home?

     My poor old 84 with it's inline Jetta motor and 5speed trans, it's in need of some rather pricey maintenance on things that are being 'used-up'....While there are no operational problems,  it is whining a little louder as the years pass and the miles accumulate...it's coming on time that I can no longer defer taking action, but I simply do not have a
few grand to spare to send this work out right now.   I'm trying to get an
idea if I can do some study and then tackle the job on my own...