Date: Tue, 4 Jun 96 10:59:38 PDT
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: stafford@newport26.hac.com (Jack Stafford)
Subject: sway bar kit on a breadloaf
My camper would tend to wander around in my lane on the freeways.
The aerodynamic "bow wake" from passing trucks tended to push me
aside then suck me back once they passed.
Another handling problem in high-speed (65 mph) cornering was like
the van was tipping over. Then the front end would plow in and
bounce a little bit. Understeer caused me to slow down quite a
bit to stay in my lane and not tip over.
I put some new KYB gas shocks on a couple months ago. The ride
has improved. Kind of like wearing a new pair of running
shoes with lots of "cush" in the soles. The handling problems
are still there though.
Last week I had the ball joints replaced at a local repair shop.
(The rubber boots on the joints had split open at least 3 years
ago and I noticed that the bushings on the front sway bar were
cracked and deteriorating. You would be too after 22 years under
a VW camper :)
While it was all apart I asked them to add a sway bar kit as
it went back together. The ball joints were really shot.
The kit adds a larger than stock sway bar in the front and a
new sway bar to the rear. Urethane bushings and hardware, etc.
The kit is from sway-a-way and cost about 200 clams. This is the
only sway bar kit I could find for a type2. Disclaimer: I'm just
an end-user, no affiliation. This is not an infomercial.
Now that I have the van back and done some testing I can say
that there is a big differance in the handling. The "bow wake"
problem is practically nil. When cornering the rear end stays
down and level with the road surface. No more tipping over.
The steering has improved. The van goes where I point it and
no more understeer. It is not so quick to return to driving
straight on it's own when exitting a turn, but that is not
unbearable, just differant from the way it was before.
YMMV,
Jack '73 Westfalia
Costa Mesa, CA
