Hi all, I've recently joined the list and have a question already :-) I recently moved to California from the UK having previously owned an old bay window followed by an 87 waterboxer vanagon. My 87 UK vanagon had a 5 speed gearbox which was great (and very common in Europe). Having moved out to the US one of the first things I did was start searching for a new bus. I was amazed to find that none of the waterboxers (except Syncro's?) had 5 speed gear boxes. This is really noticable on long journeys where I find that at 70mph I'm now doing nearly 1000 rpm more than my old UK bus used to do, which isn't good. My theory on this is that in a country that used to have a blanket 55mph speed limit VW probably didn't see the need for the cost of the 5 speed box compared to Europe where 70-80mph is the norm. I know I can't drop the syncro box in there without some major modification but I don't see any reason why I can't drop a waterboxer 5 speed in there, the final drive is the same and in fact there's very little difference in the first 4 ratio's and it's the same bellhousing. I might need to look at the linkage. The problem is sourcing one (I think it might class as excess baggage if I try to bring it back from a UK trip). Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this? Much appreciated, Bruce 91 Westfalia (untold luxury following teo previous self conversions :-) |
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