Volkswagen Vanagon 4x4 Conversion.

[vwhammer]

Ok back to the build.

As I mentioned it could be possible to reverse the rotation of the Subaru auto.
I am carrying on with the build with that being the plan.

I bought another front housing that will be getting most of the factory brackets cut off and prepped for a steering knuckle cut and turn.

The factory pinion angle was way off for my situation so it will need rotated.
This means that the steering knuckles will have to be rotated so the caster is back to a safe level.
All of this rotation is going to make my diff and my tie rod battle for the same space so I am going to have to flip the tie rod on the steering arms.
After researching some of the stuff on the market I don't suspect that this will be too much of an ordeal but I have been fooled before.
I will likely get to the cut and turn this weekend and see exactly what needs done with the steering.

In the meantime I slid the housing under the van to see what I need to remove to make it fit.
As you can see I need to make a little room.

Now on to the rear axle.
I originally was just going to run the 9.5" Land Cruiser rear axle after taking all the factory brackets from it and building some new stuff.
However space is going to be pretty tight with the Subaru auto trans back there so I started thinking maybe an 8" toyota rear axle would afford me a little extra room.

The 8" diff may not be the best choice for rock crawlers but there are plenty of loaded down Tacoma and 4Runner expo rigs out there doing just fine.

The only real problem is that all of the 8" toyota rear axles are much narrower than the land cruiser axle.
Since I am not in a position to have housings made at this time I was left with no choice but to build my own.
So I started cutting the original FJ80 front housing that I worked so hard to clean up and salvaged some bits from the 9.5" FJ80 rear in an attempt to build my own full floating, locking, Land Cruiser width 8" Toyota rear axle.
Here is what I am starting with.

I have a friend of mine machining some parts for an alignment jig then I will trim everything to length and get it all welded back together.

After the axles I need to move on to the transfer case.
I decided to go with the Land Rover LT230 case.

It has an aluminum case and is gear driven with a 3.32:1 low range.
Beyond the low range the high range is also under driven 1.2:1.
When I combine this with my 4.10:1 axle gears it works out to about 4.92:1 final drive.
With my drive train, something a little higher (closer to 5.40:1) would be better but this will get the ball rolling.

I am only running a 235/85-16 which is about 32 inches tall so I will see how the 4.92 ratio works.

As far as transfer case mods go there are a couple.
For starters I needed to flip it around so the driveshafts are still on the passenger side.
Fortunately with the LT230 you can run the input in on the opposite side where you would otherwise run a PTO attachement
I will just build a driveshaft flange out of the spud shaft that normally connects the land rover trans to the case and run it in the other side

So in this case (no pun intended) the transfer case will be divorced mounted right in the middle of the van and the drive shafts should be virtually identical.
As a matter of fact, with the 50/50 weight distribution I hope to achieve with the van, the front and rear suspensions and driveshafts will be identical.

I hope to tackle some more things this weekend and hope to be back early next week with updates.
Until then...

 

[vwhammer]

There is plenty of room between the frame rails for tanks. Filling could be a challenge, but power filling via a transfer pump is doable.

If you move the spare to the back, there is plenty of space under the front. Hmmm, definitely going to be interesting. For 35 gallons you are pretty much stuck with two tanks I think. I have seen some tank switching valves and whatnot available, so its doable.

What kind of ride height are going for? Fender lip to wheel center? Just curious.

Yeah I think I can re-route some things under the van and fab up a pair of tanks.
there would be one on both sides just inside each frame rail.
It also helps that I am building a sub-frame that is dropped a bit so I can mount the transfer case and control arms.
just eyeballing it and a little simple math tells me that I should be able to squeeze a pair of tanks in the 13 to 16 gallon range depending on how tricky I get with the fab work.
The tanks would then be joined by a couple of hoses so I dont need to switch tanks all the time.
I am also running a small 2 liter post tank that is cone shaped on the bottom and is filled by a pump from the main tanks to the point that it overflows and feeds back in to the main tanks.
With this set up and the main fuel line pickup on the bottom of the cone tank I can be at extreme angles and rarely have to worry about starving for fuel.
This sounds complicated but it's a lot simpler than building some complicated baffles in the main tanks that do the same thing.
We did this on a buddies trail truck and it worked flawlessly with zero baffle in the main tank.

I should also be able to use the stock filler location to run to the new tanks.


The spare is moving to the back but I plan to use the existing spare space to mount a hidden winch, an air compressor and small tank for the air lockers and a pressurized window squirter.

As for height, it will end up somewhere around 21 inches from the fender lip to the center of the wheel.
I tried to keep it as low as possible and it will require some fender trimming for full stuff action.
over all it was designed for more droop travel than compression.

 

[Charles R]

I believe that if you can reverse the rotation through the transfer case, you could avoid all the diff flipping and subaru trans reversing stuff. I saw an aftermarket unit that could do that... But just skimming what you wrote about your rover case, it might be possible to do it with that too. I'll re-read what you wrote later when I have more time.

 

[tequilasunset]

I just love watching craftsman at work... sweet build... nice to see a vanagon getting a complete makeover.

 

[DudeAbides]

Have you looked into the caster correcting trunion bearings Slee sells? Accomplishes the same thing as a cut and turn without the issues of tie rod and such. Have a set in my 80 going on two years without issue.

 

[vwhammer]

They are good for 3 degrees. I need to rotate my pinion somewhere between 10 and 12 degrees so the knuckles will need to be rotated accordingly.

 

[vwhammer]

Sort of a slow going in the old garage this weekend.
Managed to get a couple things started then was short some things I needed so I had to stop.

The plan was to get the front axle cut and ready to turn.
However I was unable to get the pipe cutter I was hoping to get Friday so I did what I could in preparation for that and stopped.

I will be using FJ80 coils for this build so I decided that I would cut the stock spring perches off and save then either to weld back on or for measurements to build some new mounts or possibly both since I am using front coils on the front and rear of my van.

Then I proceeded to remove the rest of the brackets and clean it all up to get ready to cut.

I am not a fan of getting too many things started all at once.
BUT... I still had a lot of time left so I decided to do a couple of things I needed to do to the transfer case to shorten up the profile a bit.
I did not want the case eating up all of my under chassis clearance by having it hanging down too low.

I am rotating it a bit and shaving a couple things.
I cut off the little flange that used to stick up here.

Then I shaved some extra material off so I can rotate it more.

I am also going to replace these bolts with some button head stuff so I can shave another 0.25 inches from the overall height when it is all rotated and where it needs to be.

Over all I will have made the transfer case about 2.5 inches shorter with the rotation and shave.
This will net me about 13 inches of under-body clearance.
This is not an amazing amount but should be just fine for moderate off road action.
For reference the stock FJ80 has almost 11.

Well the plan for the week will be to get the axles cut and trim a couple cross members from under the van.
I think my sub-frame plate design work is just about finished.
I will likely send the drawing to the laser cutters this week and hopefully have some parts in hand by late next week or early the week after.

I don't know if I mentioned that I have been "designing" this project for about a year but until you actually start getting the parts in your hands (which I just started about 2 months ago) its tough to really work out all the details.

Hopefully I can actually get started on some construction once the laser cut bits start to show up.

More later.

 

[D90Rovin]

Great build!

While waiting for the parts, go "Get High at the C I"

 

[Clawhammer]

Great build!

While waiting for the parts, go "Get High at the C I"

I think any dude that actually gets his hands dirty would be happier at Tony's or maybe the Skull!

 

[proper4wd]

Running the transfer case the way you are talking (which is genius by the way) will reverse the direction of the drivetrain on it's own.

(Essentially leaving the tbox in place, but driving it from the PTO side)

 

[Lunchbox2]

I'm loving this build! I am finishing up a unibody van 4x4 conversion, so I know what kind of work lies ahead of you. Good-luck man and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

[vwhammer]

Running the transfer case the way you are talking (which is genius by the way) will reverse the direction of the drivetrain on it's own.

(Essentially leaving the tbox in place, but driving it from the PTO side)

That is precisely the problem.
Once the engine is in the back and the transfer case is being fed from the back, the outputs will now be spinning counter clockwise when viewed from the front.

The problem is that I need them to spin clockwise as they would in a normal front engine configuration.

So now, as I mentioned, I need to either flip the diffs which I am steering away from or reverse the transmission output (this is the game plan)

My local Subaru guy has been on vacation since late July but once he gets back in town I will get my hands on another 4EAT to experiment with.

Having looked at pics I feel like this something that I can accomplish with some careful measuring, some good drawings and a competent machine shop.

 

[vwhammer]

Great build!

While waiting for the parts, go "Get High at the C I"

I think any dude that actually gets his hands dirty would be happier at Tony's or maybe the Skull!

I tend to frequent our 3 local breweries; Jackie O's, Little Fish and Devils Kettle but as far as other bars go the newly rebuilt Union (after the fire), Tony's and the Smiling Skull are about the only other places I go.

 

[unplannedbbq]

There is a company that makes an adapter that bolts the TDI to the Subaru 5 Speeds.
With a few additions I could likely make it work with the 4EAT auto that I am using.

The plan from the get go has always been a TDI Vanagon but I already have the complete Subaru drivetrain so I have decided to use that to get it up and running and swap it to a TDI a little later.

A new gas tank is in the works as my front driveshaft location is essentially right where the factory gas tank is.
There is a lot of space above the transmission in the rear and that's where the Syncro has the tank mounted.
I have plans to put some other stuff there but if I can't squeeze a tank in under the floor somewhere I may rearrange some things and put the tank back there.
Ideally I would like about 35 gallons but I would be happy if I can cram 25 somewhere: Then I can just carry a jerry can or two if I really think I am going to need extra fuel.

Some vanagon fuel tank ideas:

http://www.easy2design.de/bla/tigerbus/zusatztanks/

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=430849

http://www.syncro-bernd-jaeger.de/ENGLISH/Spezialitaten/spezialitaten.html

Enjoying the build!

 

[yurtdweller]

Wow, what an awesome build thread! This is very inspirational for me to see. Been wanting a van, but can't bear to spend the $$ on a 4wd Vanogan. Great ideas!