Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 11:40:34 -0400
Reply-To: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Subject: Re: [Syncro] Skid plate mods
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990411211441.00749f40@mail.abccom.bc.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
The factory skid plates require four piece of metal to be bolted to them
and then bolted up the the frame above. Two of these pieces of metal are
small angle irons for the driveshaft protection rails and two of these
pieces of metal are 1.5ish foot long angle irons to go from the midpoints
of the rear skid plate up at an angle to the body frame rails back there.
Without these reinforcements, serious syncronauts will eventually smash
their skid plates up against the body/exhaust/motor/transmission.
In addition, the next thing to do is to protect the exhaust pipes on either
side in the back.
Rear trailing arms are OK as is, although one could simply screw flat metal
plates up onto them with rubber washers in between the plates and the
trailing arms but I judge this to be not neccessary.
Fuel pump is exposed somewhat but the mods earlier mentioned here are more
important than the later ones.
I am already running the JC Whitney anti sway bars on my syncro, and this
helps protects things a lot so I recomend it. You have to fabricate some
special brackets to do this out of super heavy angle iron pieces.
At 09:14 PM 4/11/99 -0700, you wrote:
>From: David Marshall <david@volkswagen.org>
>
>After taking my Syncro down the wrong logging road today I had to do a bit
>of belly surfing in some mud, sticks and rocks. When I was washing the
>under belly at home I discovered mud on the fuel pump and twigs on the
>cables below the trailing arms. Does any one have any decent suggestions
>on how to further protect:
>
>- fuel pump
>- rear CVs next to transmission
>- e-brake cables
>
>As far as the fuel pump and rear CVs it looks as though welding on some
>pieces of 1/4" plate to the side of the skid plate will do the trick
>(simular to the oil filter protector). I have no idea what to do about the
>trailing arms though. Are there any other "at risk" points that I should
>be concerned about? What really worries me is that I did this with 320mm
>of ground clearance! My dad is still amazed we didn't get stuck!
>
>
>-- David Marshall --
>-- 78 1.8L VW Rabbit, 80 2.0L VW Caddy, 87 Audi 5KSQ --
>-- 85 VW Cabriolet, 88 2.0L VW Syncro 16" Double Cab --
>-- Volkswagen Homepage http://www.volkswagen.org --
>-- Classic H2O VW Parts http://www.fastforward.ca --
>-- mailto:david@volkswagen.org - Quesnel, BC, Canada --
>
>VOLKSWAGEN.ORG is not affiliated with VWoA or VW AG
>
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________________________________________________________
Derek Drew New York, NY & Washington, DC
drew@interport.net
'90 Syncro Westfalia...
...seen off-road at http://www.tiu.net/~des/vw/drew/index.html
Also seen at: http://www.pipeline.com/~tforhan/swrange.htm
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/snow.html
http://www.pipeline.com/~tforhan/swmassn.htm
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/Campers/Campers.html
Note: most valuable Vanagon sites on the planet (for owners) are:
http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon
ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/