Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 12:53:38 -0800
Reply-To: gholst@RAMBUS.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Grant Holst <gholst@RAMBUS.COM>
Organization: Rambus inc.
Subject: Re; How to lower a Westy?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I put H&R springs in my '85 GL. They are harsh.
The van does handle great though. On hard bumps
the front end used to bottom out on the shocks. I have
KYB shocks front and rear. To keep the front
from bottoming out I made some shock extenders.
Basically they allow the shock to return to their
original length. All front Vanagon shocks are the
same length, 80-92. The shock extenders bolt through
stand-offs to the outside of the lower control arm.
1/4" plate drops down 2" to two more stand-offs that
bolt to the lower mounting of the shock. Tabs must be
welded to the inside of one of the 1/4" plates to keep
the whole assembly from rocking back and forth. The tab
hits on the lip of the lower control arm. I've had these
shock extenders on for several months and they work great.
Without doing something like this you will bottom out.
The Eurospec Vanagon has some really short front shocks,
but don't know what they came from.
The H&R rep. says you need Bilstein gas shocks up front
to keep from bottoming, but I think Bilstein's would make
the ride even more harsh. I drove the Eurospec van and it
has late '88 springs in it. The ride was about the same as
mine, maybe alittle more harsh.
The rear H&R springs are a joke in my opinion. There are
7 coils of which the first 5 1/2 coils are touching each
other. This gives you 1 1/2 coils of suspension. The H&R
rep. says that is the way they designed them. The first
5 1/2 coils are used as a spacer.
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