>At 18:58 23/11/98 -0600, Joshua Van Tol wrote:
>>>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.
>
>The gears would be running forward as both the wasserboxer and Audi engines
>spin in a clockwise motion.  Only the differential would spin backwards.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I actually meant that reversing the engine would
cause this problem. Didn't read the post quite carefully enough though.

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