Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 22:05:05 -0500
Reply-To: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Subject: Euro Ring & Pinions For Syncro Available
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
I believe I may be able to help owners of Vanagon Syncros to obtain special
ring and pinion sets for their transmission. You would want to do this
primarily in the case that you want to mount tires larger than 27 x 8.50 14
on your van, such as tires between 29" and 32" tall. The parts alone will
cost you over $1,000 and the labor would be easily another $1,000 still.
In North America we all have 4.86 ratio (notwithstanding the mistake in
many Bentleys indicating 5.42), which means that at 4,000 RPM you are doing
something like 75 mph (give or take about 5mph) on the highway. This is
with stock tires that are ~26" tall.
You can mount bigger tires such as the 27 x 8.50 14 size that many syncros
are now running, but this is approaching or at the practical limit with the
4.86 gears because any larger and your acceleration and low gear rock
crawling ability become unbearably bad.
Tim and a couple of others are running tires that are bigger than 27" tall,
but they pay for not having also changed their gearsets.
As some list members are aware, I have purchased 6.17 ring and pinions for
myself recently, although they are not installed yet since I am very busy
launching www.consumersearch.com, which is now up in soft launch, but
secret still and unannounced.
In any case, the available gear sets are these:
FRONT DIFF
094 409 142 F 32/7 4.57
094 409 142 B 34/7 4.86
094 409 142 38/7 5.42
094 409 142 D 35/6 5.83
094 409 142 G 37/6 6.17
REAR TRANSMISSION
094 517 143 K 32/7 4.57
094 517 143 G 34/7 4.86
094 517 143 F 38/7 5.42
094 517 143 J 35/6 5.83
094 517 143 L 37/6 6.17
Of those with 6 teeth on the pinion instead of 7 are said to be weaker
because there is one fewer tooth driving things. Daryl and Wolfgang have
both weighed in on this. All of the very latest 2WD vanagons may have the 6
teeth instead of the 7, if my memory is correct, and Daryl has been
complaining about the results on his workbench.
Michael Sullivan was asking about the 4.57 gears but I do not recommend
these since there is such a tiny difference from the 4.86 it seems ill
advised given the problems one would have later being unable to source
replacement parts in the event of a breakdown.
The problem is that all North American VWs are running around with 4.86
gears and in the event of a breakdown with any other gearset, you will not
be able to buy a used transmission or front differential without also
changing the ring and pinion in it. In the case of the transmission, this
is a big job. You cannot replace just one set: you have to replace both
front and rear unless you take the center drive shaft out to disable 4WD.
In any case, of the above listed ratios, the two ratios that it makes sense
to import and install are these:
38/7: 5.42
37/6: 6.17
Here's why:
1. The 5.83 should be eliminated because it has six teeth and is close to
5.42, which has 7 teeth on the pinion and is therefore preferred.
2. The 5.42 is also preferred because Weedle had some 5.42 front diffs
around, so getting a rear set of 5.42 gears is all that is needed to pair
up with these weddle front diffs to get into action.
3. The 5.42s are also a nice friendly ratio for the purpose of matching
gear sets to rpms with available large tires and I recommend them for this
purpose.
4. The 6.17s are the other size I believe makes sense because, although
they have the disadvantage of having only six teeth, the 2WD vanagons seem
to have six teeth and they seem to do OK with them, generally speaking. The
Europeans say they hate their 6.17s because it makes their highway driving
too slow. The solution was suggested by Tim Smith, which is to install
6.17s in combination with Weedle special 4th gears so that the highway
driving is normal again. This combination gives you nice low speeds for
rock crawling and you still get a nice highway speed. The gear size 6.17s
indicate one should drive around on 33" tall tires, but this is too big
even for syncros with the 16" trailing arms, so the Weedle 4th gears seem
like the ticket. The 6.17s are the ultimate in off-road gearsets.
In any case, it seems advisable that the Americans should standardize on
either 6.17s or 5.42s as alternates to the factory 4.86 ratios we all use
now. There is already some standardization in the direction of 6.17s via my
initiative, and 5.42s through Weddle's special front diffs. We have at
least one list member with a 5.42 front diff but no 5.42 in the rear yet.
You will find him in the archives.
In any case, the upshot of all of this is that if you want me to get you a
set of any ratio, send me email selecting which of the above pieces you
would like as soon as you read this and can make up your mind. Let me know
within a day or two if you can. This is a little like the recent VC
purchase project, which I did not advertise publicly and where there were
double the number of buyers as there were VCs. If you are too late in
responding to this email, it is OK, but it may mean a six month delay. The
cost is about $985 for a set (front plus rear) plus shipping within the
USA. The preferred installers for a big job like a ring and pinion swap at
the transmission are Daryl (pacific northwest), Wheedle (California
www.2weddle.com), and Dennis Haynes (Long Island; dhaynes57@msn.com).
If you are waiting for Round 2 of the VC shipment, I still do not have a
ship date on it yet, but we are working on it.
If you would like to read up more on this subject, search the archives for
posts by me and/or posts about 6.17s and 5.42s by others generally.
________________________________________________________
Derek Drew New York, NY & Washington, DC
drew@interport.net
'90 Syncro Westfalia...
...seen off-road at http://www.tiu.net/~des/vw/drew/index.html
Also seen at:
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/snow.html
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/Campers/Campers.html
Note: most valuable Vanagon sites on the planet (for owners) are:
http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon
ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/
