Justin,
I believe that TransX is one of the truly sacred fluids on the planet. In my
younger, much more impoverished days, I had a 1972 AMC Hornet station wagon
that developed the same transmission misbehavior as your van at 55,000 miles.
I took it to several transmission shops with each saying "rebuild, $250" (boy
that dates this story). But one very kindly elderly fellow, who turned out the
be Mike, the owner of Mike's Transmission Shop in Durham, said, "Try changing
your filter and fluid and add a can of TransX, it can't hurt and they will
give you your money back if it doesn' t work."
I did, and I did it every 30,000 miles there after, and sold the car in 1985
with 186,000 miles on the same transmission.

I have been told that the solvent content in TransX cleans deposits of the
valves that regulate the shift mechanism and cause the seals to swell
slightly, thus increasing the fluid pressure. Otherwise it is magic, but it
works.

So change your fluid and filter every 30,000 miles and add a can of TransX.

Best of Luck

Jim Henry
Durham, NC
84 Westy

Justin Gordon wrote:

> I was ready to give up on my '84 vanagon when the beast would not go into
> any forward gears after starting. It would go into reverse just fine, but
> any drive gear sometimes took several minutes of high speed idling before
> the gears would engage with a violent thunk. After putting  TransX in the
> transmission fluid, it hasn't given me a problem since.
>
> Can anybody explain this behavior?
>
> How likely is it that my problem will reoccur soon. The vanagon has driven
> fine for two months with the transX.
>
> Justin