>I have been giving much thought to the Audi transmission deal again.  We had
>a tread months ago regarding using an Audi 5 speed trans in the vanagon with
>diff flipped.  I was supposed to investigate the possibility of such a mod.
>Well, time has past and I still haven't got to it yet.  I am proficient at
>tearing down transaxles and the possibility stills exists, but I too was
>thinking of just making a rabbit motor run backwards.  The only problem that
>has not been considered is making the oil pump feed the motor instead of
>blowing air down the pickup tube.

The main problem with running a transmission in reverse is that it may not
last very long, and the synchronizers may not work correctly. It is quite
possible, and even likely that in a transaxle, the bearings that take
reverse thrust may not be strong enough. Far simpler to run it forward, but
flip the diff, or, if that's impossible, flip the whole tranny. KEP has
some info on this in their catalog.

Joshua Van Tol -- jjvantol@lear.csp.ee.memphis.edu