I remeber, that there was a thread about the engine high. Some information about: VW SA offers the Vanagon with 5 cylinders. The cross member is directly mounted onto the frame rails, which is not possible on our vehicles. Therefore VW SA raised the deck lid by 10 cm. Anyway, any SA Vanagon are built on base of the Syncro undercarriage. This says, it does have more ground clearence than the regular 2WD. The 5 cylinder, with the Syncro undercarriage, is specified with ground clearence of 19 cm. To mount the cross bar I had to weld a retangular pipe underneath the frame rail, which lowers the whole drive train by 3 cm. The engine still shows 3 cm out of the bay. The oil pan shows very closed to the ground. I you need to, I may measure the distance. If you don't like to raise the deck lid, you have to lower the engine by additional 3 cm, in total 6 cm. This is possible, but the ground clearence will allow vehicle operations on well maintained roads only. For Westies I recommend to modify the hinges for the rear seats and add a box on top of the engine bay. You may exchange the hinges or modify the present one. I'm sure, Steve likes to offer you Reimo (or from someone else) hinges. To modify the present one, you have to move some axles and may have to extend (or change) some bars, I can give you dimensions. Regards Helmut '80 Vanagaudi |
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