Pretty Normal Vanagon Build - Project little Van.

[ALIKA T3]

That's a great build thread man
_________________
Silicone Steering Boots and 930 Cv boots for sale in the classifieds.
Syncro transmission upgrade parts in the Classifieds.
Subaru EJ22+UN1 5 speed transmission
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=416343
Syncro http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4...num+gadget

[GreggK]

I second that! Nice work.

[vwhammer]

Daaaaawww
Thanks guys.

[vwhammer]

Well geezy petes it's beena minute since I have posted anything in this thread.

I wish I could say I have gobs of work to show you but it's been pretty slow going.

My wife and I bought some land and have been sorting out how to build a bridge and a drive and house and, naturally, a shop.

At the same time we have been working out our current house so we can put it up for rent as soon as we have a living space on the new property.

Anyway, as you can imagine, that has occupied some time but since the ball is rolling on all that I decided to give myself another target finish date for the van in anticipation of some events some friends and I would like to attend.

With the date in mind it seemed I needed to get back at the van post haste.

I wanted to start by getting the front suspension back on but there were a few things I needed to sort first.

Before the suspension I wanted to get the gas tank, radiator and the throttle and shifter assembly back in place along with all of the associated cables and hoses.

Before all of that I wanted to get the electric power steering sorted because I figured it would be easier to access the steering reverser box thing while the radiator and associated bits were not in there.

The primary reason I needed to access the steering box was so I could replace all the rag joints in the system.

For those that don't know here is one of the joints in question.

There is one of these on the input and output of the steering box.
I would be replacing these joints with a combination of factory Vanagon parts and some extra joints I got with my electric power steering parts.

Ok I am getting a little ahead of myself here.

First I needed to combine my factory Vanagon steering column with the Saturn vue EPS set up.

I started by tapping out the tube on the right end of this assembly.

I cut the van tube which eliminated the second bearing assembly and mated it to the Saturn 3 bolt flange so it would bolt to the EPS box.

With the column tube sorted I needed to work on the shaft that would connect the van to the Saturn parts.
With some careful measurements, which is necessary for such things, I cut a little bit from both systems and joined them with a spacer/alignment sleeve that I whipped up.
I guess I was in a rush and never took any pics of that process or the finished product but I at least got pics of the parts that I eventually welded up.

With that part worked out I needed to mod the second van steering column bracket so I could bolt the the Saturn box.

With a little cobbling I ended up with this.

It bolts in the stock Vanagon location and then bolts to the Saturn EPS box.

With the column secure it was time to connect it all to the rest of the Van steering and eliminate the rag joints at the same time.

The first step involved cutting a bit from the right joint in this pic.

Then I welded it to the right part of this assembly that used to attach to the van column.

Next in line was connecting that assembly to the van steering reverser box.

With the adjustment available in the reverser box, everything lined up really well and I did not really see a reason to put a U joint in there.
I just connected the two parts with a spacer I made from 7075 aluminum and a couple of bolts.

Last in line is the shaft from the reverser to the rack itself.
After fiddling with my power steering rack trying to make it all tidy I decided to swap it over to a manual rack.

little did I know that the splines on the manual rack are different than the power rack and the manual rack also has a rag joint at the rack itself.

Now I needed to whip up a shaft with two U-joints that would join the manual rack and the reverser.

On the rack end I started with the power rack u-joint and the rag joint half that mated to the manual rack.

You may notice my quick and dirty centering jig I slapped together with a bolt with the head cut off and some electrical tape.

Is this the best way to do this?
Nope but I was too lazy to machine a thing to make it work so I made an executive decision and took the Appalachian engineering approach.

Here is that end all welded up.

I then used what was left of one of the other saturn joints that I cut up along with some more van bits and worked on the other end.
First I cut the saturn joint free from its shaft and machined it down so it would fit in the end of the van shaft that I also cut the end from.

Coupled with the van bits and my janky "centering tool" I ended up with the joint to make it all work.

My new rack is suppose to be here tomorrow.
I will get it in place, take the necessary measurements, cut the shaft to length and weld the joint in.
Other than the electronics, that completes the electric power steering conversion.

That's all I have at the moment.
I really need to take a look at whats next but I have a few other things on the way to keep this train on the tracks.
My rebuilt torque converter will also be here tomorrow.
I have been doing all the measurements and math and will be placing an order for some wheel spacers and new studs and lug nuts so I can get the front suspension back together.

Who knows what will come after that.

[vwhammer]

I thought I was all ready to start slappin's this bish back together.
Boy was I wrong.

I can't believe all the little and maybe not so little things that needed to happen in order to just get the radiator back in.

I started to get the radiator in but there were a lot of details I had not thought of.
for starters I wanted to get a neat little bleeder vent thing set up so I can bleed all the air out of the rad without removing the grill.

Yeah I know you can probably do it with a wrench through the grill but I wanted to make things more complicated.

I bought this little banjo bolt doo dad to screw into the existing bleeder port on the rad.

I then bought this simple needle valve that I would plumb in somewhere where I could reach it under the van.

I ended up bending up a piece of stainless that I would weld into the banjo and route under the van

I still need to get a couple of clamps to secure it to the frame rail but I think it will do the trick and it satiated my need to complicate things.
I spent way longer on this than I intended but it is what it is and I am moving on.

You may also notice the new hoses, elbows and clamps that I had to get in order to actually plumb the rad.

I then realized that I only had one of the three radiator baffles that the van was supposed to have and the one I had was in two pieces and all the mounting holes were ripped out.
a week later I had the necessary baffles and was finally ready to put the radiator in.

OK so with the rad out of the way it was time to get my shifter and cable/rod assembly cleaned up, lubed rebuilt and ready to install as I wanted it in place before I moved on to the gas tank.
I don't have any pics of the rebuild but more or less I descaled the rigid tube part of the shifter and gave it some paint.
I then bead blasted the metal brackets on the flexible cable part of the assembly and gave them some paint.
after that I ran some cable lube through the cable and worked it out for a while until every thing was working smoothly.
Then I put it all back together with some new boots to seal everything back up.
The end result looked like this.

I will get it in place tomorrow and I can route and secure the rad hoses and front heater hoses and put the tank back in.

If I was going to put the tank back in I needed to get my fittings in the tank that eliminate all of the rubber grommets and plastic fittings.

I debated whether I was going to weld or braze the fittings in place and eventually decided on welding since I I had been playing with the tig welder a bit lately and did not actually have a torch that can put out enough heat to do the braze job properly.
I am pretty new to the tig so its not super pretty but it will probably do the trick.

I also welded in a new flange or lip or whatever you wanna call it so I can clamp on my new filler neck set up.

Once again in my never ending quest to complicate things I decided to redo the filler neck because I wanted to ditch the filler neck grommet in the tank because I think it is dumb.

Some length of this filler hose will clamp on the new neck I put on the tank.

Then this one way valve will also be placed in that hose.

Finally I will cut my old filler neck and the new filler hose to the proper length that they will mate together nicely while allowing the filler hole to bolt into the stock location.
Here are two necks I was cutting to sort out how I might be able to make this work.

You can see I cleaned up the top one and that's the one I will cut a bit more from to make work with the other parts once they are in place.

Naturally if I am gonna put the tank back in I needed to do a quick refurb job on my tank straps.

a little wire wheel action and some paint and they are ready to rock.

The only other part of the coolant puzzle that I have sorted at this point was the expansion tank.

in anticipation of putting some of the other systems back together I decided to get a few things on the way that I absolutely knew I would need.

I got some new axle nuts for the rear.

Decided to spring for the Mercedes spindle lock nuts that some people have used as I like their more reusable nature.

don't know if I mentioned it or not but during my EPS install I noticed that my brake master cylinder was leaking real good so I bought an new one to swap out.

Speaking of steering I managed to get my new manual steering rack as well.

I also started looking into my rear disk brake set up but in order to get started on that I need to machine the rear hubs down to fit in the rear rotor.

I will get to that at some point but its a few weeks out.

Speaking of jumping the gun a bit I also got a piece of stainless that I will cut up into my new exhaust flange.

I also finally shipped my torque converter off for a rebuild and have that all ready to rock.

Well I think that catches us up for now.
There are a million little details that I will just have to cover once I figure out what they are but I think I can officially say that I have finally started the rebuilding stage.

Until next time...

[nsmal]

[vwhammer]

[vwhammer]

Made a little more progress over the last couple of days.
I got my shifter cable assembly in and bolted in place but who cares about that.

I scrounged around and found all of the hardware to make sure I had what I needed to put the front suspension together.

Just a matter of bolting them in when the time is right.

I pressed the lower ball joints out so I could blast the spindles to get them cleaned up and painted.
If I was reading the gauge on the press correctly, I was approaching 30 tons before one of the joints popped loose.
I had this issue once before and it made a hell of a noise when it broke loose.
I made sure to warn some people in the building beforehand this time so no one freaked out thinking there was some kind of active shooter scenario goin' down.

Naturally before paint it made sense to get my ball joint adapter bushings welded in place.

I will probably finish blasting them tomorrow and get some paint on them.
Then it will just be a matter of putting the new BJs in and they will be all ready to go as well.

On the topic of suspension I really wanted to get a bigger anti-roll bar since my van came with the lamest of the Vanagon bars.
Who knew that the last year and the lowest of the Vanagons would come with a 19mm anti-roll bar?

I really dig T3Technique's bar and end links but I just could not bring myself to lay out the dough for it.

I found a deal on another brand that's the same diameter and got a 10% discount because I was a new customer so I decided to give it a shot.

I have the option to use the end links that came with my van and have also worked out another more stout option that might work.
I need to get the bar in house to see what I can come up with.
If I use the stock links I will probably get some poly bushings for them (from
T3Tech) which will add to the cost.
My other option eliminates all the bushings and might actually cost less than the stock links with poly but it will use generic parts that might not last that long.
Either way the total ends up about 25-30% less that T3's set up.

While surfing the nets for front bar stuff I came across a rear bar set up.

Now I ain't no rocket surgeon but this bar looks an awful lot like my current stock front bar.

I don't know if I need a rear bar but you can guarantee that I am going to keep this one until I know for sure if I do.

I did not give T3Technique my money for the front bar but I will make it up to them when it comes time to order the wheel spacers, studs and lug nuts that I will need.

Moving on, I picked up a bunch of fuel line at the local parts store so I could start plumbing all the gas tank expansion and venting stuff.

I got some 1/4 and some other size I can't remember for the tube that goes from one side of the tank to the other.

OK tangent time.
I am absolutely dumbfounded buy the ignorance that exists in the local auto parts store scene.
Like these people are completely devoid of virtually any automotive knowledge.
All I was getting was fuel line and that was enough to throw 2 employees into a panic trying to sort out how to deal with me.
Like holy F#(k "you don't have a part number or a year of the car for which you need parts."

I remember, at some point when I needed a job and had several ASE certifications while flopping around in my college career, applying to more than one auto parts store and not getting a single call back or interview.

This is why smart people buy all their auto parts on the net.

Not only are the parts cheaper but you usually end up getting the thing you need and don't have to deal with the dolts at the local parts store.
END RANT.

Back to the expansion/vent set up, I know there was some hard plastic line all over the place in this set up but it seemed really dumb to me to have an extra clamp and little rubber hose piece to make all that work so I ditched it all in favor of some plain ol' rubber fuel line.

For this situation it does not even need to be EFI rated.
Also it's seemed like a good idea to have some line that you can buy just about anywhere.

Now I am trying to decided if I wanna buy some of the Oetiker type clamps or just run some plain jane screw type hose clamps.

I like how tidy the oetiker clamps are but they are certainly not serviceable in the field.

Realistically though I should never have to mess with this system again once it is installed so maybe I will go with the oetiker clamps.

Anyway I'm kind off getting of track here.
This is likely why I spend so much time building these things while everyone else is out camping and driving and living it up.

I tend to fixate on a lot of little details that will likely not matter over any time frame long or short.

After getting some line and starting to lay some things out I think my new screw in tank fittings are going to work out pretty well.

I think I can get every thing up in place and reach in from the wheel wells to simply screw one banjo bolt in place.

I thought long and hard about my new filler neck arrangement and I think I am going to mount it like so.

More or less there will just be a little coupler at the tank to connect the cut down stock filler to the tank.

then I am going to cut a little section out of the stock filler up a little higher to make room for the one way valve.

Another little piece of the rubber tube to join it all back together and we should be goo to go.

I am so pumped to have, hopefully, eliminated all of the rubber grommets on the tank.

Hmm other than that I got some heavy duty heat shrink tubing to cover my radiator hoses wherever it might make contact with anything.

The silicone tube I bought might be real easy to route but silicone is not exactly real abrasion resistant.

Pretty much wherever I run a zip tie around the hoses to tidy everything up or wherever the hoses are secured to the body or run through any cross members there will be a piece of heat shrink.

Speaking or securing the rad hoses to the body I picked up some thicker steel strapping that I will bend into some tidy little brackets to support the hoses and hold them against the body.

The holes in the strapping should make it real easy to run some zip ties to really hold things in place.

I think that brings me to the end of this particular update.

I did a little to-do list today and it seems I have 35 to 40 days to complete 45 items on the list.

I think I knocked out a few today so that's good but these are all the easy bits.

I have some fab work coming up in the engine compartment that will take a few days so I need to keep crackin' to knock out as many things as I can per day.

I am taking a 4 day weekend over my birthday weekend to focus in the van.
I also have some peeps lined up to help me over that weekend.
If all goes as planned we should make some real progress.

That's all for now.
Stay tuned...

[RoryGirl]

Tristar Eric is running the front sway as a rear on his LeMons van...I plan to do the same when I finally pop for the T3 bar

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7958083#7958083
_________________
1991 Double door pop top conversion

[vwhammer]

Well I was planning on cutting into that space above the trans and building out some extra storage there maybe I will leave a little extra room to squeeze the rear bar in there should I choose to run it.

[vwhammer]

Made a little progress lately.
Got everything routed above the fuel tank so I could finally get the tank in place.
No real pics other than the rad hose and shifter pics.

As is tradition with installing Vanagon fuel tanks, it was still a pain in the butt but I think it went ok.
My new screw in tank fittings and filler neck worked out pretty well and I am glad to be done with the grommets and plastic fittings forever.

Next on the list was front suspension.
I made a doo dad to press my new ball joints in and proceeded to clean up and paint my spindles.

My only regret at this point is not having my air suspension finished.

It made things a little more difficult as far as using the shocks I had in a non-air bagged set up.

All those difficulties circle around this silly valve.

With the air set up the mounting is all different I this valve is not a real issue.

Using this shock in the stock (ish) assembly required a couple mods.

First was putting a little clearance hole in the upper spring/shock pocket.

I then totally overlooked the fact that this shock has to go in from the bottom after the spring is installed.

I had to re-modify my already modified lower control arm to make that work.

Yes. I know this is the arm for the opposite side but the mod is still the same.

After dealing with that I managed to get it all together.

I don't really have the radius rod bushing tightened up but as of right now the limit of suspension travel is the lower ball joint stud hitting the spindle.

Obviously none of the suspension setting are dialed in.
My upper control arm may be set in the full negative camber setting

As it is just slapped together the contact (AKA droop limit at this point) occurs at 21 inches from the spindle center to the fender lip.

It will be interesting to see if it will still droop that far once the radius rod bushing is tightened to spec or if it will go farther once my camber is properly set.

The thing that will likely hit next will be the shock hitting the inside of the spring.

The lower arm was modified with the air set up in mind and, as such, is not optimized for the typical shock inside the spring set up.
The lower shock mount could be moved outward as well as downward and it would eliminate the issue.

When I jack the suspension up it starts to lift the van off of the jack stand at 17.125 inches.
I was shooting for somewhere between 17 and 17.5 at ride height so hopefully once its on the ground under its own weight it will settle in around there.

I have yet to cut my brake brackets for my new fat brake set up but for fun I figured I would slap the rotor on.

These rotors only measure 12.6 inches (321mm) but man do they look beefy
The rotors also weigh about 23 lbs each so hopefully that is plenty of meat to keep the from over heating when loaded up and heading down the mountains.

With the big fronts and the 11.8 inch rear vented disk set up that I am building I don't think I will have to be concerned about brake fade or stopping power.

I cleaned and painted the front calipers yesterday and hope to have them together today.
Also awaiting a drill bit delivery so I can finish drilling my front brake adapter brackets.
Then I can finalize the front brake install.

I also received my front anti-roll bar.

It measures in at 25mm.
I ordered a bunch of bits to build some end links for it.
hopefully that will show up today.

In anticipation of wrapping up the front and moving onto the rear I took a little time to get some of those parts ready and see what else I might need.

Got my axles refurbed and ready to go.

Actually I have a question since I am on the topic of the axles.
These particular boots have two points where they contact the axle.
The one closest to the joint fits real tightly over the axle.
The secondary point is a bit looser but still pretty snug.

Every cv joint I have ever dealt with has had a clamp of some sort.
These did not come with any clamps and as such I am wondering if I actually need them.

I keep meaning to contact Burley to ask but just have not done so.
Figured I would toss it out here since I am on the topic.
Anyone have any input?

Moving on.
I got my trailing arm bushings pressed out but have not cleaned the arms up or put the new bushings in

I found a set of springs for the rear that I hope will do what I want.

As you can see they have two blue marks.
From what I understand these were used on many of the campers as well as some other vans.
The ones that were on my van had two green marks which I am unable to find any info on.

Either way the new springs are roughly 1.25 inches taller than the old springs.
However the wire diameter is quite a bit smaller.
I think the old springs measured 18.3mm and the new ones measure 16.7

I am hoping I do not need to pile on an inch and a half of spacers to get the rear up to the same height as the front.

I have been eyeballing some other springs that I might use so I don't need any spacers but I am just going to roll with these for now.
My plan is to still finish my air set up so I hopefully won't have to run these for too long.

Since the rear disks are in the cards it made since to get my rear hubs machined to fit in the new rotors.

Had a friend chuck them up and machine them as he is much more competent than I at the art of lathe.

A little deburring work and some time in the blast cabinet and they should be all set.

Now that the hubs are ready I can start design work on the rear brake brackets.

Welll I think that's all I have for now.

Getting ready to head out to the garage now and have the next 3 nights after work free so hope to have a lot more progress by the end of the week.

Until next time...

[vwhammer]

More progress.
Still slower than I would like but it's happening.
Most of the things that I was planning on doing are being canceled anyway so I could realistically push my deadline out a bit.

As of right now I still have a memorial day trip planned but who knows what things will be like then.

Ok so
I did the necessary mod to the calipers and got them cleaned, painted and rebuilt.
The "mod" is the notch that you see in this pic

Cut and drilled my brake brackets the hard way using a drill press, a band saw and my belt grinder to get them into shape.
Finished on the left rough cut on the right in case that is not obvious.

Yes yes. Get your laughs out of the way now so we can move on.
I know what the bracket looks like now but it looks a little less..... You know, pee buggie, once the standoffs are welded in place.
I don't have them welded at the moment so there obviously are no pics of that.

Anyway got all my hardware so I figured I would bolt it all together and see how it works.

Seems like maybe a little overkill but at least they look cool.
But do they fit under my 16 steel wheels.
Uuuumm sorta.

little tough to tell from this pic but I would be surprised if there is even a millimeter of clearance between the wheel and caliper.

This is with a 7mm spacer installed.
Not a big deal.
Chris at T3 was nice enough to let me return them in favor of a set of 10mm spacers so we should be all good there.

Moving on
I needed to build some sway bar end links so I bought these parts.

Yes they are rod ends but they are greasable and I bought some rubber seals for them as well so I think with regular maintenance they should last a good long time.
The set up is a touch on the long side though.

With the suspension at full droop I don't think the anti-roll bar is angled down low enough.
I plan to remedy this.

Orignally the plan was to make a mount that bolted in the original mount on the lower control arm but it's too far forward and there is interference between the tie rod and end link.

I am going to build a lower mount that welds to the main part of the lower control arm and moves the lower end toward the spring

The lower mount will also be moved up a bit so I definitely had to shorten the link.

hope to get after the mount this weekend along with a bump stop and limit strap mount.

Probably going to end up tearing the suspension back apart to do that work and address a couple of things.

The main thing I need to do is modify the back side of my upper arm so it doesn't hit the spring at full droop.

The big welded seam where the BJ plate welds to the other plate needs removed.

I never thought in a million years that the control arm would angle down far enough to hit the spring but I was wrong.

I am pretty sure I can grind it off and weld it lower.
after I fix that issue the suspension still can not go any lower because the lower ball joint stud hits the spindle.

I could grind a bit to solve that issue but my upper ball joint is pretty much at its maximum angle and the shock would hit the inside of the spring if it went much farther.

I may rework the upper and lower arms to fix this later but for now a bump stop and limit strap will be my band aid fix.

Other than that I filled the voids in my new trans mount with a super tough polyurethane foam in an attempt to prevent the mount from breaking down like the other three old trans mounts that I have.

The larger white part is actually the bottom side of the mount once it is in place on the van.

I think that's all for now.
Gonna keep on keepin' on and get things done when they get done.
No plans to really slow down the pace too much as I still really want to get this thing on the road.
I also have a motorcycle that I need to get built before the bulk of riding season gets here and I need the van out of my way before all that can happen.

[vwhammer]

I spent several days since the last time we talked putting new cabinets and a counter top in my kitchen so not so much van work.
I managed to get the kitchen back to functional and the rest of it is on hold so I don't have to leave the house.

As such I got back to work on the van.

I ordered some 8 inch limit straps and a bunch of parts to mount those but I simply could not get them to fit in the space I have available.
I don't have any pics but the main problem is that the straps themselves are really stiff and do not collapse that much.
They make some spring loaded upper clevis mounts that will give you a bit more compression but the whole assembly takes up so much space.
This is more or less what I was trying to fit.

I could get the strap to compress about 2 inches without too much damage.
The clevis net me another inch of compression.
There needed to be about 4.5 inches of travel where I was hoping to mount the straps on the lower control arm.
With the parts I had I could only get 3 inches.
It is likely that the straps might have compressed more under the weight of a vehicle but there was a lot of stress on the stitching and I could not afford to have them fail.

With more measurement I decided to bail on the 8 inch straps and ship them back in favor of some 11 inch straps.

The hopes are that these will simply compress enough to not need the clevis mount and I can run a much smaller mount top and bottom.

I do apologize that I did not get any pics and if this does not make any sense.
I was too busy head scratching to think about getting any pics.

I promise to get some pics once the new parts show up to show you what i am trying to do.

Next on the list was a lower anti-roll bar end link mount.
This was simple enough.
Cut a few brackets and weld them on the lower arm and...
PRESTO!
Lower end link mounts.

Naturally this did not go off without a hitch.

Like a moron I build the lower mounts at full droop.

I recently took the springs out of the front suspension so I could cycle the suspension more easily and better understand the whole mess.

Of course at full compression the angle of the lower end link mount is more than the rod ends can accommodate.

Once again this is not a huge deal since it is only tacked in place.
I will just break them loose set the suspension to ride height and weld them at the appropriate angle.

As I wait on my new limit straps to arrive I decided it was finally time to move on to the rear suspension.

The rear bits were in need of some serious clean up and refurb.
There was some serious scaly rust in between the spring mount and the control arm.
I decided to drill out the spot welds to remove the spring plate, clean it all up blast and paint it and weld it back on.

I decided to try out some Steel-It for the paint on the trailing arms as you can weld through it and it functions as a pretty durable coating to finish the arms.

Yes technically I did weld through it but obviously it bubbled up a bit and needed some touch up after the welding was all finished.

Once that part was sorted I needed to get the new bushings installed.
I got them smashed in place and tracked down all of my hardware and they are ready to install.

The arms are only one part of the equation.
I needed to clean and paint the bearing housings, the hubs and the drive flanges so I could have some nice clean bits to carry on with the rear disk brake design work.

That's as far as I have made it.
Going to do some work on the bench with the rear brake set up then get all the rear suspension bolted under the van to see whats next on that endeavor.

After that is the part I have been most anxiously awaiting.
It will then be time to mate the engine and trans and swing that pile under the van to see whats next.

[vwhammer]

'nother day 'nother project.

At this point I am either waiting on parts or waiting to order parts for about 5 different things right now.

While I await some front suspension bits and since I have the rear parts ready to bolt in I figured I might as well put the rear suspension together and see what kind of nightmare I created for myself there.

Just to get everything out in the open let me explain why I have had to change so many things.
All these parts were either custom built or carefully selected for an air bag set up.
Due to time constraints I bailed on the bags and decided to run what I had but with coil springs instead.

If I knew I was going to do coils I would have done some custom coil-overs and all of this would have been a lot easier.

Anyway, it is what it is and I will get it all sorted.
For the most part I think I have the front sorted but I assumed I might run into issues in the rear but the only real difference there was the longer shock with more travel.

This did cause an issue that I think I have solved.

So here is my rear suspension loosely bolted together at full droop

I don't know what my stock rear suspension had as far as droop is concerned but my guess is that it was nowhere near 24 inches hub center to fender lip.

This is all well and good and with my 944 CV joints and my plan to lower the engine and trans some to make sure the engine would clear the deck lid I figured it would be good.

However, now it turns out I might not have to lower the engine that much and I fear that 24 inches might be too much.

I took some time to cycle the suspension a few times and look it all over and there are a few issues that i needed to address.

The main issue is that the spring will likely fall out at full droop.

My first thought was to source a different spring but honestly I don't have a ton of money to be throwing at this thing right now.

I then did some more cycling and measuring and fell upon a different issue

It turns out my max compression was only about 15.5 inches hub center to fender lip.
If I recall the front was about 13 inches.

The limit here is the shock bottoming out before I get anywhere near the bump stop.
Since there is no bump stop on the rear shocks like on the front this would need to be fixed.
Another issue was, with my planned ride height of somewhere between 17.5 and 18 inches, I was not comfortable only having 2 or 2.5 inches of compression.

It seemed I would need to relocate a shock mount in order to accommodate the longer shock.
If I could lower the shock mount on the control arm that should give me the extra room I need but will limit my droop by whatever amount I lower the mount.

I figure since the front can only droop to 21 inches before all sorts of interference (which will be limited to about 20 by the way) then it would be ok to limit the rear to 22 inches.
In reality I will install a limit strap that will probably stop the rear at 21 so I do not over extend my shocks all the time.

So with a plan I did some measuring and whipped up some shock mount drops.

This is what the originals looked like.

They weld on thusly.

They are not finish welded in this pic.
I thought this would be simple enough but it turned out that the shock body was hitting the mount at full compression so I had to do some hackin'

When it was all said and done they look like this.

If I would have known that I would have had to hack up the stock mount as mush as I did I would have just removed it and started from scratch.

A little clean up and some finish welding and that part is good enough for who it's for.

Well almost...

It turns out I completely overlooked many of the angles and ratios involved and it's close but no cigar.

It droops out fine and and once I have my spacers in to reach my final ride height the spring should still have a bit of compression on it at full droop.

The problem arises at full compression.

It hits the bump stop but just barely.

The shock is still the limiter so I need to make some changes.

I was just going to buy a bigger bump stop and do the mods to install it but I think my plan now is to cut the bump stop mount off the end of the stock set up and fab in a threaded adjuster so I can really fine tune it.

Or maybe I will raise the lower point a bit where the bump stop hits just to insure my spring does not somehow kick over the lower mount when I take this bish off some sweet jumps.

I hope to work on that tomorrow so I will let you know how it goes.

Other than the fact that the rear suspension needs to go on in order for this to be finished I have other reasons for the install.
I hope to swing the engine and trans in place so I could start fabbing all of that stuff but I wanted to make sure none of my mounts or exhaust would hit the trailing arm or axles.

With this in mind I decided I wanted to cut some of the firewall to make routing things and working on the transmission easier.

I guess it was put there for a reason but the pros of removing it far outweighed anything I could come up with in my mind for why it was put there in the first place.

I do wish I would have done something different when I cut the right side but my air box will cover a lot of that so I am probably not going to worry about it.

Now I have to decide if I want to turn the space above the trans into storage or use it to mount my new trans and oil cooler set ups.

As is tradition, the rear suspension stuff took way longer than I thought it would but at least I have it mostly sorted.

Some may have noticed that I had my rear rotor installed. (albeit loosely)

I obviously put my rear hubs together and did some work trying to sort out my rear caliper mounting.

I needed a concentric ring to center my rotor on my hub and had plans to have a friend machine some for me or I would machine them at work.

Well as things go my friend ran the machine shop at the local university and that's shut down.
Now he is not even allowed in the building.

I also haven't been to work in 2 weeks so I needed an alternate solution even if temporary.

Turns out a friend just bought a cheap 3d printer to have something to mess with while he is taking some time off work.

I drew up the parts and he had them printed that night.

He dropped them off and that sorted that part.
I will still make some out of aluminum at some point but this works for now.

After a few more measurements I had a drawing for a mock up bracket that I could use to properly locate the rear calipers.

The plan is that the big radius on the bracket will allow me to spin the caliper around the hub center so I can get everything right where I want it.

I need to make sure I can still get some ebrake cables routed to the calipers without any serious bends so I may spin them down as much as I can.

Once the caliper is located I will drill some holes in the bracket, get new measurements and rework the drawing to get rid of the material that is no longer needed.

I may also just send that drawing off to the new laser cutter company that I found locally and have them cut while I work on other things.

Ok I think that's enough rambling for now.

I get in such a rush to do things when I am in the shop that I forget to take pics so I apologize if it seems like I zip through some of this stuff without the aid of pics for detail.

Maybe someday soon this thing will be on the road and I will take the time to get pics of everything that I have done.

More later.

[vwhammer]

K I think I have the bump stop thing mostly sorted.

It basically consists of the following parts.

I cut a hole in the top of the stock bump stop nub and welded the larger of the two nuts in place to give me a threaded hole.

I then cut the threaded section from the bolt and welded the washer to the top and had my threaded bump stop adjuster.

It works but might be a touch too tall

As you can see there is still a good bit of shock travel left.

My original plan was to add about 1 inch to the bump stop but perhaps that was a bit too much.

I placed a washer under the stop contact point to get me to that 1 inch mark.
That washer can be removed and I can actually grind down the threaded part in the bump stop nub to get the initial setting point much lower.
I am going to give that a shot to see if I can get the shock down to about 1/4 of travel at full static bump.

This should allow for any harder bumps and still insure that the shock does not bottom out.
I could also add a metal on metal contact point somewhere that I would hear when the suspension completely bottoms out.
Realistically I would probably have to jump this thing pretty hard before it hit that point but maybe it's a good idea.
If I hear the clank then I could just crank the adjuster up a bit and eliminate the issue.

Anyway I will think all that over and see how ambitious I feel before I do any of that.

Now I just need to get my limit straps and spring spacers for the rear and it will be all ready to go.

When it is all said and done the rear measurements should be about 21.5 inches hub center to fender lip and full droop and 13.5 inches at full stuff.

My ride height should be roughly somewhere in the middle of that 8 inches of travel.

All in all I think that should work out nicely.

I need to order some steel for my engine mounting but, with the suspension pretty much sorted and just waiting on parts, I think its time to move on to engine and trans mounting and fabrication.

I want to build a complete engine mounting cradle arrangement that will also have a built in skid plate.

I was going to start with a stock mustache bar but mine is really crusty.
By the time I clean it up and cut off all the stuff I don't need I probably could just build a new one that better suits my needs.

Once the engine is mounted I can fab up the exhaust and all the other junk that makes the engine work.

Wish me luck.

[4Gears4Tires]

The adjustable bump stop is a great idea and great execution. Looks really cool.
_________________
'87 Syncro
Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition

[vwhammer]

Well thanks.

The best part is that it did not cost me a dime.
These are all parts I had laying around the shop from another project.

Well I guess technically I paid for them at some point many moons ago but ya get my point.

There are limits to how much you can use the stop.
As the control arm travels down the contact point moves further out of alignment from the bump stop itself.

You can see in my pic that the bump stop is actually sitting just forward on the contact pad.

This will get better once I shorten the contact pad but it is a thing you have to think about.
_________________
Pretty normal daily driver build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=708418&highlight=

4x4 build
https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/volkswagen-vanagon-4x4-conversion.162055/

[vwhammer]

Quick update.

Wrapped up design work on the rear disk set up.

Finalized the caliper bracket design and sent the drawing to the laser cutter.

Yes I know I have the wrong caliper on this side in the last pic.
It's just the one I had out and had pads in so I bolted it on.

It fits under my 16 inch mercedes wheel just fine.

Have a little over a half inch of space between the caliper and wheel.

This space is even at the smallest diameter inside the wheel.

I could imagine that you could just fit this set up within a 15 inch wheel.

Not too bad for a 300x22mm vented rotor.

Should have the steel brackets sometime next week.
I still need to pick a flex line that will go from the Vanagon hard line on the trailing arm to the caliper.
There are several available that will work so I just need to make a choice.

Then all that is left is the park brake cable work and the rear brakes will be sorted.

Pretty pumped that that went as smoothly as it did.

My limit straps for the rear are on the way.
I got the plastic for my rear spring spacers and just need to sort out a nice way to cut it.
Thankfully that should wrap up the rear suspension and brakes.

Now on to the next thing.
_________________
Pretty normal daily driver build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=708418&highlight=

4x4 build
https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/volkswagen-vanagon-4x4-conversion.162055/

[vwhammer]

An update is an update no matter how small.

Seems like an awful lot of waiting when there is so much to do but what are ya gonna do.

I'll tell ya what you can do.

Polish it up. turn is sideways and...
Oh wait that's something else.
For real though I decided to get after sorting out some engine junk so I can think about mating the engine and trans together and getting it in the van.

I made a quick and dirty cap for an extra outlet on the coolant flange at the end of my cylinder head.

I ordered some material to build a gasket because I hate using silicone for any sealing.

I deleted most of the stock PCV system on my van in an attempt to make it better and simpler.

The tan plate and freeze plug you can see in this pic used to be occupied by this big plastic box that seemed wholly unnecessary for a PCV system.

Not to mention that all the system did was hose down the intake system with dirty oil and gas vapors.

Not sure if it is necessary or proper but I put an actual simple one way PCV valve in the line that will go to my oil catch can.

I just picked up a cheap catch can from the nets but I am super pleased with its construction.

It's pretty small but it has baffles and junk in all the right places.

It has a threaded fitting on the bottom to which I plan on adding a fitting with a clear tube and a valve on the end so I can monitor any oil that it may catch and empty it easily when it needs it.

Is that harder than just running the stock system and never having to empty anything?
Yep but I prefer that over caking up my intake with nasty oily gunk and burning the rest of said oily gunk in my engine.

It also seemed fitting to install the cap and plug wires since the distributor and plugs have been installed for a year or more.

Probably did not need to think about this at this point since it is pretty east to get to when in the bay but I wanted to get the remote oil filter adapter on so I could think about some of that stuff and maybe get some hoses and fittings on the way.

This will run to a pair of remote filters and a, likely bigger than necessary, oil cooler.

Also seemed like a fine time to install the new 270 amp alternator and see how all that goes.

Took a couple of washers to get it lined up just right but so far it fits pretty well for being a generic housing with some adapter brackets.

lastly I picked up the steel that will make up my engine mount/skip plate mount.

I decided to not worry too much about all the little details for now since it seems a lot of things can not be sorted until the engine is in place and with some of my mods most of it is pretty easy to get to once it is all installed.

Tomorrow I hope to get the engine and tans mated together and the whole shebang raised up in the engine bay.

The big day cometh...
_________________
Pretty normal daily driver build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=708418&highlight=

4x4 build
https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/volkswagen-vanagon-4x4-conversion.162055/

[vwhammer]

This update is a quick one but all the things in it took way longer than expected.

I finally got the engine and trans together.

It started out simple enough.
Use the engine hoist and get the engine off of the stand and on the ground.
The tricky bit was swinging the hoist around in the five or six foot wide space I have in the garage to do such things.

I also needed to do a rear crank seal real quick before getting the adapter plate bolted on so I could do the flex plate and finally the trans.

The holes on the bottom of the crank seal housing were tapped with some odd ball size threads that didn't fit any bolt I had in the garage.

There are suppose to be M6 but an M6 bolt slid right in.
They were not an M8 nor would any 'merican bolts I had lying around thread in place.

It seems something was amiss.

I bought this seal/housing from rockauto more than a year ago so returning it was not an option. (national bearing or national seal brand for everyone's information)

I could buy a new one but it would not have been here until May 5th from anywhere I could purchase it.

I did not want to wait that long so I borrowed an M6 helicoil kit from some friends at the local bike shop and had it all ready to rock in 10 minutes.

Bolted it on and moved on to the next step.

I ran into a small issue while stacking adapters.
I am running a KEP auto to inline vw 4 adapter and a TDI starter adapter from Westy Ventures.
Turns out I needed a long M10 socket head cap screw to bolt through the starter adapter on the trans, through the trans itself and into the KEP adapter plate.

Fortunately that could be added later so I ordered it and carried on.

I spent a lot of time sorting out what goes where and asking a bunch of questions on here because several things seemed not as they should be.

I wanted to get as many things on the engine as I could while it was out of the van and accessible.

I got to the bottom of as much of that as possible and decided to move on with getting the engine and trans in the bay.

This part took 2 or 3 hours simply because I did not have enough room to get the engine hoist around to the back side of the van.

I had to use my he-man strength to drag and kick the combo around to the back side of the van.

I then got to the point where I could not lift it anymore to slide it easily because it was under the van.

After many minutes with ratchet straps and my quick an dirty engine bay hoist apparatus I wangled the thing into the bay area.

With the help of my motorcycle jack, a floor jack, my in bay hoist and many ratchet straps I was able to get the engine lifted up and located in the bay.

After bolting up the the trans mount and raising the engine up where I thought it should be, it was obvious that this was not going to clear the deck lid.

It was also very obvious that, with the engine that high and the extra suspension travel that I had, there was was no way that the CV joints were going to work at that angle.

I had already planned on dropping the engine in the bay so I was not too concerned about it.

I started with a quick and dirty 3/4 inch spacer at the trans mount and that got me real close.

Tough to see in this pic but I had about 9 or 10mm of space between the deck lid and the highest part of the intake.

It was also obvious that the engine was not level in the engine bay.

I did some angle measurements at the oil pan plan flange to confirm this.

I needed to drop the trans mount a little more.

Since I had some 1 inch square tube in house I decided to give that a shot.
Whipped up another trans mount spacer to try out.

I have not actually tried this spacer yet as I was waiting on the paint to dry.

While waiting on paint to dry I figured I would work on my primary engine/skid plate mount cross bar.

I have friends with tube benders but none of them have anything to bend square tube.

Figured I would just make a few pie cuts and bend it up that way.
I need to final weld it but it seemed to work well enough.

This will be what the actual engine mounts bolt to.

I need to cut the main bar and weld in the top pieces that bolt into where the factory mustache bar bolts in.

I took some measurements and drew everything up in some software but I want to do some actual mock up of the parts before I notch the bar and weld in the frame mounts.

That's as far as I have made it.

I am still only working 3 day work weeks so I have another 4 day weekend coming up where I might be able to finalize the engine mount and start on some other fun stuff.

More later...
_________________
Pretty normal daily driver build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=708418&highlight=

4x4 build
https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/volkswagen-vanagon-4x4-conversion.162055/