VANAGON archives -- January 2003, week 3 (#263)

Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 11:27:14 -0500 Reply-To: "Forhan, Thomas" <Thomas.Forhan@MAIL.HOUSE.GOV> Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com> From: "Forhan, Thomas" <Thomas.Forhan@MAIL.HOUSE.GOV> Subject: Re: [Syncro] Re: 16" Trailing Arms / BIG 15" Tires Comments: To: Derek Drew <derekdrew@rcn.com>, Syncro@yahoogroups.com

Derek has the facts, god bless him! But before going down this road, I want to make a point about Chris' original question.

He asked about the trailing arm limitations on tire size, and that is what we are discussing.

However, as you move up in tire size on a stock syncro, the first real wall you have to climb is gearing. Without changing at least the ring and pinion sets, or going a step further like some of us have and also regearing the transmission, about the maximum diameter tire you can pull with stock gearing is around 26.5" or 27". Anything larger than that, and you need to get into gearing.

You can just do a 6.17 r+p swap, which will be great in granny gear, but you will significantly reduce your speed in other gears of course. Thats why some modified syncro's get towed or trucked to off road sites.

Tom F.

-----Original Message----- From: Derek Drew [mailto:derekdrew@rcn.com] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 10:51 AM To: Syncro@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Syncro] Re: 16" Trailing Arms / BIG 15" Tires

I can get the 16" trailing arms through a special arrangement that make them less expensive than other sourcing alternatives I know about, and as far as I know I have sold more of these here in North America than other list vendors. .

While I sell and ship them to other listers, and I have installed a pair myself, they do not add all that much capacity for the price, which is, at last check, about $1,350 at an exchange rate that was current a while back but I don't know the current price. The extra capacity is something less than an inch, I think, however. As I recall it was on the order of only 2cm extra or something like 3/4". And as John Wessels points out, there is an limit to how big a tire you want to put on because even with 6.17 final drive gears the G gear is insufficiently low. However, the problem with the G gear can be negated to some extent by switching to diesel TDI motor or other higher torque motors.

But the real answer is basically the 16" trailing arms enable tire sizes of 245/75/16 or 215/85/16, which are about 1" larger in diameter than the 30x9.50/15s and raise the vehicle about 1/2 inch further off the ground. Is $1,350 worth 1/2"? For me it was, but I use my syncro off road a lot. Not to mention a higher likelihood of using chains or cable chains with the 16" arms.

Also, be advised that Karl Mullendore (Westy Ventures) is planning to make some custom made equivalents to the OEM trailing arms and I am sure he will offer these to the list and at less price than the OEM trailing arms. Since Karl is a man of uncommon talents, to put it mildly, these look very promising. Also, he is an expert welder and very creative.

In general, in Europe much attention has been made of custom made 16" trailing arm equivalents, but there is concern about the structural integrity of such a critical suspension component, which in automotive engineering world "should never be welded", with the possibility of highway accidents, fatalities, not to mention liability issues. Accordingly, I am not aware of anyone who has actually fabricated 16" trailing arm equivalents that have reached acceptance in Europe and the VW OEMs 16s still rule the day there. For the record, interestingly, the VW OEMs are indeed welded, but I have been examining them further recently and noticed that: a) the welding jobs are among the highest quality of work that I have seen, and b) there are extra internal structural supports that VW fabricated and installed inside the trailing arms that are not included on 14" trailing arms. I actually tracked down the OEM for these and they indicated that they could make another run of them if I were to place a minimum order of some outlandish number of units.

Note that Wessels indicated that the mount 30x9.50/15s the stock 14" rear trailing arms may need to be cut and welded along the inner seam so even 30x9.50/15 stresses the limit of our vans in stock North American configuration. Since I live here in DC, I had this welding done by a local shop with my 16" trailing arms (just to get the maximum clearance I possibly could) but had to take the arms back to that shop for a reweld because I found pinholes in the welds. If I lived in California and wanted to mount that size tire, I would go to Wessels to have that work done.

A final note on the trailing arms is that you even look at them, let alone buy new ones or modify the ones you have, you should rustproof them with a wax based rustproofing compound such as Waxoyl and/or possibly some of the excellent Wurth products as indicated in the manual. As always, in any rust proofing on a Vanagon, avoid any "rubberized" rustproofing compound which sets into place a time bomb for the destruction of your van by the cracking that this rubber material exhibits after a few years of aging, and consequent holding of moisture against the body. In some british UK car circles, it is widely felt that you must choose between the slow death non-rustproofing method of automotive ownership, or the rustproofing method which results in no rusting for a period of, perhaps 8 years, followed by sudden violent death of the vehicle at that point when the rubber dries out and cracks. Some avoid the sudden death syndrome by going under the vehicle with a scraper for about 175 hours at the 8 year mark.

The material in this email is a concise answer to your question, but readers interested in large tire issues may benefit from reading additional posts from me in the archives of the Syncro lists regarding gearing and other related matters. There are links below to many, but not all, of those posts in a special VW signature file that I prepared and that is appended to this email.

At 10:01 AM 1/17/2003 -0500, you wrote:

I understand to mount REALLY big tires on your syncro you need to upgrade rear trailing arms to 16" type. Where do I get some? How much are they? Anyone have part numbers?

Also, assuming one makes this upgrade and goes to syncro.org springs or the fastforward lift kit, how big of a 15" tire can you get back there?

It seems like 30x9.50/15 is as big as you can go without doing all of the above (assuming you don't care about carrying the spare in the stock location) is this true?

Thanks, Chris

________________________________________________________ Derek Drew Washington, DC (& NYC) derekdrew@rcn.com Phone 202-966-7907 Email me for viscous coupling s (Cell 703-408-1532) '90 Syncro Westfalia... ...seen off-road at http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/Syncro_Madness_Area.htm <http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/Syncro_Madness_Area.htm> Note: most valuable Vanagon sites on the planet (for owners) are: http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon <http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon> http://gerry.vanagon.com/files/ <http://gerry.vanagon.com/files/> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro> http://www.vanagon.com <http://www.vanagon.com/> http://www.syncro.org <http://www.syncro.org/> Many of my Syncro list postings consolidated http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro/messagesearch?query=212-580-6486 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro/messagesearch?query=212-580-6486> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro/messagesearch?query=202-966-7907 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro/messagesearch?query=202-966-7907> My refrigerator article: http://www.vanagon.com/info/articles/Refrigerator/Reefer_Madness.htm <http://www.vanagon.com/info/articles/Refrigerator/Reefer_Madness.htm> All About 16" Wheels And The CV-900.htm

http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/vanagon/All_About_16-Wheels_And_The_CV_900.ht m <http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/vanagon/All_About_16-Wheels_And_The_CV_900.h tm> All About Viscous Couplings

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syncrolist/files/Wheels%2C%20Tires%20%26%20Gea ring/Wheel%20%26%20Tire%20Photos/16_Inch_Trailing_Arm.jpg <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syncrolist/files/Wheels,%20Tires%20%26%20Gear ing/Wheel%20%26%20Tire%20Photos/16_Inch_Trailing_Arm.jpg> My article about belt protectors and CV joint protectors http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro/message/6112 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro/message/6112> SYNCRO OWNERS WHO DRIVE OFF THE ROAD: You only get to change your ring and pinions once every 10 years because that's how long the average syncro transmission goes before its next rebuild. If you want bigger tires and more ground clearance start planning your higher number ring and pinion sets right now so you can take advantage of your next trans rebuild.

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