Date:         Mon, 19 May 1997 16:00:52 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Derek Drew <drew@interport.net>
Subject:      Reinforcing Skid Plate Frame Rails

At 12:02 AM 5/16/97 GMT, you wrote:
>On Thu, 15 May 1997 14:35:03 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>To fix this park over a gutter drain. Chain the skid rail down to the drain,
>>and then jack the van up into the air with some strong jacks. This will pull
>>the skid railing back down.
>>
>>Sort of a hairy exercize as a lot of force is being expended.
>
>Another recommendation was a body shop because they have anchors in
>the floor, frame straighteners, double hook winches etc.
>
>>Then, reinforce the skid railing back up to the frame rails on the vehicle
>>with angle iron so it doesn't happen again.
>
>That sounds like a welding job.  If it's a bolt-in I would look into
>it, because this is the 2nd time.  If I had decided not to drive over
>those rocks and turned around, it would have been a long, long detour.

There is no need to weld to perform this operation. All you have to do is
buy angle iron, say, about 1.5" per side, and fashion two pieces about 1
foot long (you have to measure the exact amount). What you do is bolt these
two pieces onto the frame rails about half way between the front and back of
this skid plate, and then bolt them up to the frame rails of the vehicle up
above. This will keep the skid plate from behing pushed up against the
vehicle again and contacting the exhaust pipe so you won't have that
horrible exhaust sound coming in to the vehicle. 

It is important to a Syncro owner to be able to smash his undercarriage down
upon heavy rocks or he will become timid, afraid to drive up roads that he
could otherwise easily traverse, so I hope that all syncro owners would make
this modification for their piece of mind.

Installation notes:

Bend the ends of the angle iron in such a way that they can present a flat
surface to the points to which they will be bolted.

Next, find the point on the frame rails of the vehicle that have vacant
available spaces (unused holes) on them. These are roughly mid way along
that rear frame rail, but up and out. This is the point to which you will
bolt the upper end of your reinforcing angle irons. If you plan to do a lot
of heavy smashing, you could eventually harm these frame rails due to
transmitted force, so consider doing what I did and put some giant washers
of some sort between the frame rails there and the angle iron--my washers
were about 4" diameter x 3/4" thick. 

Be sure to pull the skid railings down below the muffler *a lot*, like 1
full inch or more, before fitting these angle irons, as there is a tendency
after a lot of bashing for things to settle upwards and hit the muffler pipe
again if you don't give enough room.

The angle irons can be bolted sideways onto the skid rails by drilling a
sideways hole through these. The holes should be drilled *approximately* 3"
forward of the exhaust cross pipe, or just forward of the giant metal flat
pan welded to those skid railings (the one with three very large round holes
in it).

No welding required, but the modification can take a whole afternoon because
you have to engineer it.

A similar, (but easier to accomploish) mod can keep the driveshaft railings
from being bent upwards too.

>Thanks Derek.
>-- 
>Brian Kraft <bhkraft@gj.net> Grand Junction, Colorado
>'86 Westy GL Syncro
>
>
____________________________________
Derek Drew                              New York, NY
drew@interport.net
'90 Syncro Westfalia... 
...seen off-road at http://www.anet-dfw.com/~ddes/vw/drew/index.html