I considered doing this very thing, even bought both vehicles, but changed direction, bought a Westy Syncro. It was a do-able job, but lots of hours and I decided I didn't have that many to spare. The toughest job would be swapping out the suspension parts. Lots of work, but again could be done. It's mainly a bolt-on with some heavy drilling and probably a little welding in some areas. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Steyr just took a vanagon and made the modifications. I don't think syncros unibodies were any different from other vanagons at the outset. I hope someone does this, I'd like to hear an account of how it went. I also pondered cutting the frame of a syncro from the rest of the unibody, doing the same with a Westy, and swapping that way. It would be a lot fewer hours to do the complete swap, but riskier. (What do you do in your home shop if the unibodies you're trying to mate don't match up very well?)
I think it would be less work to convert the syncro van to a custom camper of your own design (always wanted a Country-Homes type straight-up poptop with Westy cabinet design) and perhaps a little more rewarding creatively. But, it wouldn't be a Westy.
Bill www.geocities.com/yosemite/gorge/1706 |
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