Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:22:55 -0700
Reply-To: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Doka Look Alike (friday reply)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 10:19 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans <
scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:
> I am familiar with gear reduction boxes in Split window VW Buses..
> have worked on those since about '72.
>
> but never have heard of them being called Portal Axles.
>
> I have also seen them used in a Dune Buggy rotated ...to increase wheel
> base, not ground clearance.
>
> I also have a plan for some ..
> likely in a 1 to 1 ratio, used in an 'extend wheelbase' configuration.
> or 'increase ground clearance' configuration for off road types.
> to enable putting in a stock subaru transaxle turned around..
> as the Gear boxes reverse direction of rotation,
> which is what you need if you turn around a front transaxle .
>
> scott
> turbovans
>
> On 3/29/2012 3:50 PM, Jim Akiba wrote:
>
>> Best part about the mighty FC, is it's sitting on portal axles...
>> looked at the pricing for these from dynatrac (the OEM) and they run
>> 12,500 for the front, and 11,000 for the rears.. anyone want a syncro
>> with portal axles and have about $50k to spare? We'll do it up..
>>
>> Jim Akiba
>>
>>
Back in The Day...
One of my buddies took his splittie bus south in March, to escape Mud
Season in Jackson, Wyoming. He lost a couple of gears south of Ensenada,
which at the time was a nice small Baja town. Him being our local VW Fixer
(did every town not have one of those guys?) he wasn't too bummed, he went
to the junkyard and got another tranny and we towed him to the beach at San
Miguel, a Baja surf break and campsite, so we could all surf while we
waited for him to fix his 'stupid bus'...by then, I'd grown disgusted with
fixing VW busses and trying to drive them in Wyoming with a string to pull
up the accelerator pedal all winter and an ice scraper in the other hand
for the defrost/windows. I'd switched to a 66 Ford truck with a straight
six, a long bed with dents and rust all over, but a good heater and it
started all winter.. It was Cat yellow with Skidoo stickers on the
doors....We also had one of those single slab windshield cab over Chevy
vans along and a Jeepster, having just driven the last year of Baja Hwy 1
before they paved the final stretches.
He swapped in the tranny and then went..."Whoops, I got 4 gears
backwards and 1 frontwards".... because he'd used a sedan driveline from
the junkyard.. He was quite embarrassed by that mistake but he eventually
got it right...and if I recall, there was a really good swell, so we didn't
much mind waiting around while he did it over again.
Don Hanson
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