Well, before you tackle this look at the Bentley before you decide. Your transmission is full of cross contaminated fluids, including in the torque converter, which needs to be flushed out. At a minimum you'll need a very clean bench, clean solvent, and a universal parts tray for all the bits in the valve body. You'll need to completely clean the tranny before you take it apart, and you'll need a dial gauge to set up the diff. It's not a job for the quick and dirty backyard mechanic.  You cannot allow any lint or dirt into the assembly.

If you need to go cheap, find a good used one. They are out there for around $500.

Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of John Rodgers
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2016 11:10 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Sad and depressed

Some of the fellas I've known who overhauled manual trannies have told me that jigs are necessary. The jigs they used, they made from scavenged parts from other trannies. Haven't done this myself, just read about it, but supposedly with reasonable mechanical skills and a good set of tools you can do an auto tranny in your home garage.

John
On Apr 1, 2016 12:41, "Neil N" <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, this Neil lives way far away from (New Hampshire?), knows 
> nothing of shops nearby and little to nothing of automatic 
> transmissions except if I was every going to *attempt* a transmission 
> overhaul, it would be on an automatic.
>
> Neil.
>
> On 4/1/16, Michael <mikewelldon@icloud.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Anyway, Neil are you following this at all? Know anyone in NH area 
> > that could do a rebuild?
>
>
>
> --
> Neil n
>
> Blog: Vanagons, Westfalia, general <http://tubaneil.blogspot.ca>
>
> 1988 Westy Images <https://picasaweb.google.com/musomuso/New1988Westy>
>
> 1981 Westfalia "Jaco" Images, technical 
> <http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/>
>
> Vanagon-Bus VAG Gas Engine Swap Group <http://tinyurl.com/khalbay>
>