Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 19:03:58 -0500
Reply-To: "Carrington, Tom" <TCarrington@RELITECH.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "Carrington, Tom" <TCarrington@RELITECH.COM>
Subject: Re: Vanagon carrying capacity impresses
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I have 2 heavy load stories to recount. One about my 85 crewcab (with pics)
at http://volksweb.relitech.com/85crew.htm and the other is from my '80
sunroof that I had a few years ago.
From the text on my website about the crewcab:
Like many other family guys, the garage is no longer just for car stuff. A
few lawnmowers, rakes and an assortment of bikes have crowded into the
already tight 1-car space. Over the Labor Day weekend of 1999, I built a
small 8'x8' storage shed in the back yard to help accomodate this gear. The
shed itself is the "Regent" kit from Handy Home Products that I purchased at
The Home Depot.
The kit ships "knocked down" into a relatively flat 4'x8'x11" tall box that
weighs about 575Lbs. I also bought 2 sheets of 3/4" pressure treated
plywood, 5 landscape timbers and 500Lbs of crushed stone as a base for the
foundation. I would estimate that the total payload weighed in at 1250 Lbs!
I have hauled some drywall and framing studs in the Crew, but never anything
this heavy. Notice in the picture to the right how low the rear is in
comparison to the front.
The Crew had no problems with accelerating or braking, but steering was a
problem. At speeds over 35MPH, the front end wandered so much that it was
hard to keep in my lane. It seems that too much of the load was behind the
rear axle, which took most of the weight off the front wheels. I guess that
the Crew is easily a "1/2 ton" pickup, as long as you load it properly!
And from a March 1996 posting to the list:
(online at
http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind9603&L=vanagon&P=R11998 )
A few years ago, I drove my '80 Vanagon from Washington, DC to Atlanta,
GA (500+ miles) and towed a VW Bug back. I assume the weight of the Bug
has to be around 1800lbs or so. The Van ran great, but long uphills were
best attacked with a running start. I would accelerate up to 80mph or so
on the downhills, and be doing about 45 to 50mph at the top of the next
hill.
The best part of the whole trip was near the bottom of a hill just North
of Atlanta. I was going full out to get my speed up, and had just started
up the first mile of a LONG hill. I was in the left lane doing a little
over 70mph, and I passed another Vanagon doing approx 60mph in the #2
lane. The look on that driver's face as I passed him, with the Bug in
tow, was priceless.
A few months after that, I drove to Newark, NJ and picked up 2 Chevy V-8
engines (new, on pallets) and a few bare V-4 OMC Outboard blocks. I had
removed the middle seat, and had one engine there, and another on top of
the engine. Talk about a leap of faith! If the Van engine needed
attention, there would have been no way for me to get it!!! Once again,
no problems!
TomC
tcarrington@relitech.com
http://volksweb.relitech.com
http://checkerweb.relitech.com
85 VW Vanagon Crew Cab
82 VW Westy Diesel=>Gas Conversion
81 Checker A-11 (Taxi)
65 VW Notchback
-----Original Message-----
From: Gregory Smith [mailto:budgetzagato@YAHOO.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 4:03 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Vanagon carrying capacity impresses
Hey listees, what's the most you've carried in your
rig?
I'm a carpenter and recently I helped a friend build
some covered parking for his "project" cars, room for
nine.
I made several trips to the site, often ridiculously
loaded, like with 960 lbs of concrete.
The winner was the trip where I had 10 10' 4x6s, 10
10' 2x8s, and 48 10' 2x6s. The lumber almost all fit
with the passenger seat moved forward, but talk about
slowing me down.
For the trips with plywood I split the load into 2
700lb loads. The Vanagon is great for this since the
entire load of 4'x8' sheets can ride indoors.
Again, very impressed.
Gregory Smith
'84 Vanagon
Olympia, WA
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