Subaru Legacy transaxle in Vanagon?

[charleslabri]

this possible?
a neighbor has a 2000-something subaru legacy (manual trans) with a busted engine.
I was looking into rebuilding my aircooled trans to support a 2.0 TDI, but.. should i just pull the subie trans instead or is this a whole world of hurt?

[markswagen]

i think your gear ratios would be all wrong, with a tdi engine on a subaru trans.
a better option, perhaps, would be to use a passat transmission, they can be flipped to work upside down, a manual trans from a tdi passat, would have the right ratio's for the engine, there's a company based in the UK, ultimate engineering, they offer kits.
i believe they cut half an inch off the bellhousing, rotate it to the desired angle, and weld it back on again, it's not quite that simple.
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[charleslabri]

Ok. So rebuilding my aircooled trans best way to go?

[levi]

The cheapest and simplest option is to find a used air-cooled trans in good working condition.
Problem with that is knowing if a used transmission is actually a good working unit before you install it, and how much life it has left in it.

Used to be I could find used transmissions for vanagons in the local junkyard for 137 $. Too bad those days are gone.

The most expensive and most difficult option is to take a free subaru trans (which turns the wrong way for us vw folks) and modify it to work for your van, including fabricating a shift linkage.

Somewhere in the middle is rebuilding your existing trans.
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