Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:09:16 -0800
Reply-To: Jake de Villiers <crescentbeachguitar@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jake de Villiers <crescentbeachguitar@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: VW bus and beetle on Yahoo's 10 deadlies car list. Any
thruth? Bay vs. Vanagon
In-Reply-To: <f700b5ac0902160303tda62580q235b09627d24baa7@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Snail-boy, Nuremberg was where they had the war crimes trials after WWII;
the Nurburgring is a race track!
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 3:03 AM, Andrew Grebneff <goose1047@gmail.com>wrote:
> > The rear swing axle designs of the beetle, bay
> > and splittie all offered problems for the inexperienced or ignorant
> driver
>
> Bays were not swingaxle, used the basic Split suspendion and had an
> added semitrailing arm. A Split with an added front swaybar, or a
> later Split, handled very competently, with none of the rear-jacking
> and gross (but not unsafe) oversteerr of the swaybarless 50s examples.
> Those 50s vand would hovever handle very well with a decent load in
> the back
> if the tprsionbars were adjusted to bring the rear-wheel camber
> unloaded to zero.
>
> > The high
> > center of gravity in the bay and design exaggerated the roll under rear
> tire
>
> The Bay was a more than competent handler, even on basic radials, and
> I had real fun on twisty backroads, hitting 130kmh-plus on the short
> straights and slowing only minimally for corners. It was a sporty
> vehicle and the center of balance was not high. At 140kmh there was
> slight looseness in the steering, but nothing serious.
>
> > The splitty couldn't go fast enough in stock form to be rollover
> > prone, so safety was achieved through moderate performance.
>
> With a 1600 added to the split-case trans, my 57 Split panelvan could
> hit an easy 130kmh and was stable. Adjusting the rear camber helped
> reduce the spectacular antics on hard cornering, and as I say, a load
> kept the body cornering flat and she could, like a Bay, whix through
> the twisties.
>
> > As noted by Martin (Poppie?) Jagersand, the T3 or vanagon is actually a
> very
> > safe design for a forward control vehicle as demonstrated in the
> technical
> > paper on the safety design of the Vanagon in the files I have alluded to
> > previously on Alistair's site.
>
> The T3 is supposed to handle extremely well.
> My only experience with this was in the 4 months I had my Caravelle GL
> before its 5-speed failed. What I found was pig-understeer, certiainly
> not what I'd read about! Tossing the iron V6 and fitting the Porsche
> six hopefully will cure this unpleasant trait, and the Whiteline
> swaybars front & rear with Konis snd low-profile 18" tires should make
> it a winner... wish I could take it out arounf the Nuremburgring...
> --
> Andrew Grebneff
> Dunedin, New Zealand
> Fossil preparator
> Mollusc, Toyota & VW van nut
>
> <goose1047@gmail.com>
>
--
Jake
1984 Vanagon GL
1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"
Crescent Beach, BC
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
http://subyjake.googlepages.com/mydixiedarlin%27
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