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This is where we get serious so roll up the sleeves, order the pizza, chill the beer, get your mates over and tell your girl you'll see her in a week because it's time to get the back up there with the front!!! First up you should know that this is a pretty major mod and really is a looks thing as you don't get any extra ground clearance under the engine or transaxle. The first thing you need to do is pull out the engine and transaxle. Note all the points that they bolt to the chassis because you need to lower them all!! Early loafs have two and the later ones three. First you'll need to fabricate from scratch a modified engine hanger that drops the whole thing about 4", that's the easy one. Then you'll need an adapter plate to bolt on the clutch housing and the transaxle hanger, that's if you've got a later loaf, that one's not to bad either. The last adapter you'll need will be to lower the point where the 'elephants tusks' on the nose cone of the gearbox bolt to the torsion tube. Again it's not too bad. If you've got this far then the engine and transaxle should now be about 4" closer to the ground and the driveshafts should be angled upwards to reach the wheels. Hmmm, no lift yet just a weird engine and transaxle setup and funky angles on the driveshafts. Now comes the really hard bit, getting the wheels lower to restore the normal driveshaft angle and give that lift. Below is a picture of what you'll be trying to achieve with the positioning of the rear wheels, this setup is lowered using this method but just flip it to lift it (I feel so ashamed, I can't believe I had to use this picture)
You also need to adjust the rear torsion bars so that the suspension is just sitting off the bottom stop. All up you'll get about 6" to 8" of lift, add a 33" tire and you've got 12" of lift all up. If you've gone to all this effort feel proud as there won't be many other Buses around this high up, just carry something for all those nosebleeds and the thin atmosphere up there. Just to show you it's possible here's an underside shot of a Bus lifted using this technique.
Here you can see how the transaxle has been lowered and you can just see that the driveshafts are almost straight. There's also a skid plate mounted under there to protect it all since it's now hung out in the breeze like a pair of dogs b@##s. Looks real cool but you gotta be careful of all that soft alloy. If you've got this far and done all this work congrats, you now have a bus that's as unstoppable as they come with at least 12" more ground clearance and 33" tires allround. Now get out there, take some photos and e-mail them over so we can all see!!! Oh, and let me know how it went ;) |
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