t2 vw syncro original (4x4 four wheel drive)

[c3sar3]

I think so too! . unfortunately I could not photograph the code of the gear box

[busdaddy]

Yes, thank you for taking all those pics and posting them, I always wondered how that bus was built, looks like alot of other parts were adapted, very cool!
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[Tcash]

Thank you so much for posting!

Tcash

http://ranwhenparked.net/2013/02/06/a-look-at-the-experimental-four-wheel-drive-volkswagen-bus/

[Brian]

Thank you! Holy crap that is the perfect Bus right there.
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[jokgel]

Nice pics ..! I have a lot off picture to, from that

[WestyPop]

Great pics! Thanks. However, they bring up some puzzling observations & questions...

1) Shades of Fiat, BMW, Lotus, Ford, et.al.... VW used a Guibo / Roto-Flex joint to transmit power to the front diff!

2) Surprising that VW chose to use cardan cross u-joints on the rear axles, instead of their traditional Rzeppa-style CV joints.

3) With all those mods, they took a big step backwards to... front drum brakes!

4) It's neat to see VW AG display an actual beat-it-up test model, rather than a sanitized trailer queen 'concept' vehicle.

5) Very visible is the 'extra' instrumentation that VW did already know that we needed, but they did NOT install in our production buses. Hmmm...

6) So, 37 years later, who's making the 'conversion kit'?
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[Brian]

^ #5 is because they could cut production costs.

Yea, I want to know what would it really take to make that nose cone mount and tap the drive shaft?
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Wash your hands

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'68 Baja Truck
'71 Bug
'68 Camper

Only losers litter

[jokgel]

Maybe that's the answer !

[jokgel]

[Brian]

Well here's the money shot:

Also I love this:

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Wash your hands

'69 Bug
'68 Baja Truck
'71 Bug
'68 Camper

Only losers litter

[jokgel]

yes , with cut original holder and a new subframe . Cable circuit and decoupler .

[HastaAlaska]

Great to see this thread after much recent discussion about the T2 Syncro. What an interesting engineering project, thanks for sharing.
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[61Ragster]

[61Ragster]

Wait! That's not even a slider. It's a hinged door! Even stranger.....

[1967250s]

This build still fascinates me. Looking at the body now, I wonder where the engineers got the body. Is it an export or foreign build chassis? Obviously the front valence is not from a USA or European bus without the front bumper reinforcement. The hand brake/s is a one of a kind, too. Is the interior a stock Westie?
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[Iain]

[Spike0180]

[rusty busty]

[OrangeZA]

Hi, I thought I would share a wee bit more information about the T2 4x4 prototypes that I have found on the net.

I found this interesting photo of the engine bay here: http://www.7-forum.com/bilder/news/2010/technoclas...amp;ort=59

You can see the odd looking air filter and it looks like the alternator may have been repositioned.
Topaz’s photo appears to show that the alternator support bracket that connects to the heat exchanger is present and connected to something!

I also found this interesting video about the development of the 4-wheel drive Transporters, including an interview with engineer Henning Duckstein and footage of the 4x4 T2 in action.
http://video.agaclip.com/w=a7AWzfdpYcc

I found a further interview with Henning Duckstein on the interesting German site http://www.vw-bulli.de.
Here is a link to a page translated into English via Google: https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=de&...mp;act=url

Next up, I translated part of this OFF ROAD Magazine article published in March 1985 following the launch of the T3 syncro. I found the article on Michael Knappmann’s site which is a great resource for VW Transporter information http://www.michaelknappmann.de

Original article here with pictures! -> http://www.michaelknappmann.de/bulli/michaelk/vw_bus_d/or385.htm

The Zwiegespann

To advise a German that the name of Mayer should be remembered makes little sense. With OFF ROAD readers it is - as so often - different. If you want to get to the far-flung origins of the syncro transporter, you can remember: Mayer (59), Gustav, Head of Commercial Vehicle Development VW AG. Gustav Mayer will tell you at once, you must remember another name, Duckstein (43), Henning, But first of all, one by one

There are two things that are important to Gustav Mayer's life: Desert and VW Transporter. Now one has to beware of finding such illuminating formulations as, Mayer's life was marked by deserts and transporters. It's the opposite.

Honestly, can a man shape deserts? You have to see this: Count together all the VW vans, which are now driving through the sandy plains of Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Egypt, at this hour, and then take the deserts of the Niger, Chad and Sudan In the figure that all these deserts without the VW Transporter would still be a bit bleak.

And that Gustav Mayer coined the VW Transporter, there is no doubt in any case. He, who came from 1952 from Ford Cologne to Wolfsburg says: "In my 33 VW years I always traveled by VW Transporter. There is already a difference, whether you are informed about driving trials or if you feel everything yourself. "

Dr. Ferdinand Piech, Chief Technology Officer at Audi, was able to see Mayer's commitment to the product at an early stage: "I already know why the Transporter program is carefully engineered and why these commercial vehicles are so comfortable. Because you always have one of them as a company car. "

By the way, finally, by the end of four children, Gustav Mayer says that this is obvious. After the first change of the transporter and bus program in 1967 he took the desert: "Like the new van, I made my first African safari, down to Niamey / Niger."

Well, the journeys of the coming years showed the limits of the rear-wheel-drive transporter. The first overview of all-wheel drive in the archive is from January 1971.

Gustav Mayer said: "The two oddballs!” The second was Henning Duckstein, also infected with the desert disease. Oddballs everywhere: The work program EA 456 of 30 January 1975 already provides for the installation of an all-wheel drive in a series van. The construction of a mobile prototype has been decided. Mayer adds: "We both have more or less illegally tinkered. We did that as a study. "

This became the legendary red and white bus. This first prototype was tested on holiday in 1975/76. Naturally private, the journey financed the two-team Mayer / Duckstein. Henning Duckstein: "It was all about it: does it work at all?" She was accompanied by two optimally prepared Land Rover 109, which belonged to friends in Vienna.

Even then it was following a compass course across the dunes. When they started to refuel Hase Messaoud in Algeria, they were placed in a military restricted area and were initially ordered to stay there for one and a half days. They were suspicious of espionage, because they said the truth was untrue. Whoever claims that he came in a VW bus from Bir Rhoraffa to Hase Messaoud through the Grand Erg Oriental, they is lying. And who is lying, must also be spies!

Of course there was some damage, nothing serious about this first tour. The red-and-white lives after years with the first transmission, the involuntary end had prophesied before New Year's Eve 1975.

The desert behind the workshop

From now on, the Christmas holiday was the desert and the all-wheel-drive van was part of it. However, in order to have the sand all year round, Duckstein built his own desert, with all the formations that can be found in the Sahara. The accumulated sand masses known as the “Duckstein’s Desert" are not located in the official VW test ground in Ehra-Lessien, 25 kilometers from Wolfsburg, no, the desert is just behind the commercial vehicle development. All this seems so self-evident as if someone were to pose two flower pots.

Even if the syncro had not become such a pleasing vehicle, its development alone would be a pleasant process: it is comforting to see that in a large industrial enterprise, which is also the largest automobile group in Germany, that in such an organisation even the half-crazy have a chance to climb up the success ladder. During the third New Year's Eve Tour to the Algerian (1978/79), a member of the board was already on board, Prof. Final, the development team. That was official?

No, no, it was a test of the months of the changed series Transporter program. Mayer: "We took the four-wheel drive only as a recovery vehicle." By the way, it was still the red and white.

With the all-wheel-drive transporter from then on it was rather tough. The 1979 model change took precedence. Then I did not have the production capacities at Hannover Transporter Factory. Finally, the agreement with Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Graz came about in May 1982. The first official tour of Africa started in 1983 (see The Testing, page 34). Text: Kasimir Karina

I found some more photos of the red and white bus on vw-bulli.de. It seems to have been used as a support vehicle for testing new models in extreme conditions. One of the engineers that worked for VW during the ’70s and ‘80s, known as ‘fimue’ on the site, shared some stories and photos he took whilst working on the development of the T3 in North Africa.

First we have photos from October 1978 when the team get stuck in a rainstorm: https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=de&...mp;act=url

Next it’s August 1979, the air-cooled T3s have just been released to the public, but the engineers where out in the Algerian Sahara developing the diesel models. A freak hailstorm severely damages the test vehicles and the red and white 4x4 T2 https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=de&...mp;act=url
More photos here -> http://www.vw-bulli.de/geschichten/t3-erprobung-1979

Lastly it’s September 1980 and the VW engineers are back out in the Algerian Sahara with the red and white 4x4 T2, this time they are testing the water-cooled boxer engined T3s and probably 6-cylinder VW LTs which will be launched a few years later. You can see the red and white T2 with its distinctive back bumper in the background of the photo below.

Link to more photos -> http://www.vw-bulli.de/geschichten/t3-erprobung-1980#home

Hope you enjoy discovering all this as much as I did.

[Tcash]

Thank you.
Also notice they cut the exhaust tailpipe and modified the body and bumper to run the tailpipe out the bumper.
Tcash