Most people use the 80-83 aircooled trannys and put the diesel bell housing on the aircooled transmission. I believe this would have the slowest RPM's of any of the vanagon 4 speeds. Should be the cheapest alternative. See Tom Carrington's page http://volksweb.relitech.com/vanagon.htm about 1/2 way down the page- it shows the diesel tranny to aircooled transformation. Some may argue that this ratio may be too tall. Of course you could get custom ratios through a builder such as Daryll at http://aatransaxle.com/index.html or another competent builder. Joel Hembel

At 06:58 PM 12/10/2000 EDT, Sylvain B wrote:
>I am thinking about changing the 4 spd tranny of my 1982 westy that was
previously converted from a 48 hp 1.5l na Diesel to a 68 hp 1.6l TD.
>With the original tranny, i find that the engine really revs too fast on top
>gear. I guess it must be running at about 4000-4500 rpm at 60 mph.
>Maybe with the 48 hp engine it was ok but with the 68 hp that i have now, i
>feel that a lower top gear would be much more "comfortable" for me and the
>engine.
>What new transmission should i look for?
>One from a water cooled engine?
>One from a WBX?
>Or is it possible to just rebuild my old one with different gear ratios?
>Will the 1.6l TD really be able to take a lower gear ratio?
>Is there some 5 speeds tranny that i could find?
>
>Sylvain Bélanger
>1982 1.6l TD Westy