:sandrine








:jesus



http://www.vwt2oc.org/page/syncro/index.asp 

more, more.... pictures like these turn me on

I want a Syncro now damnit!
Great read..

I've got a pic of the underside of that bus somewhere.
I took it at the Dieselstrasse Museum.
that bus (or one of the other test mules) was on display when I was there.

.

Go check out the link I posted under the pic there... It's got all the sh#t you need to know.......:thumb








:sandrine




[Edited on 17-5-2005 by WABaja]

Gees i wouldn't try that in a kombi well not mine any ways

ALL kombi's are off-roaders!!

This is my old bus, a '76 micro, fully stock...

Poor picture quailty, but good photo!

My current bus, back when it still had the 14x6 white spokers on it. Tyres were 195R-14 Wintertreads

My current bus now, with 16" BA Falcon rims, running 235/85-16 Rears and 205-65-16 Fronts. Also coil-over shocks on the front. Unfortunately, I don't have any 'offroad' photo's yet...

Is that a windsurfer i see on ur roof there ?

New York Times

July 18, 2003
This 1980's Camper Thinks It's an S.U.V.
By CHRIS DIXON


BOUNDING and bouncing through the dusty backcountry of the Hollister Hills in central California, Ron Lussier demonstrated a rugged bravado that would do the steeliest off-roader proud. "You know," he said, "roads like this are really the only valid reason for owning a Humvee. They're completely silly in cities or even driving down the freeway. But get back here in one, and you can have some serious fun."

After easily clearing a three-foot berm on Bonanza Gulch Road, Mr. Lussier headed for an alarmingly steep route, marked by a sign with a single black diamond, indicating a particularly tough off-road drive. Not convinced that his vehicle would make the ascent, I climbed out of the passenger seat and clambered up the road, occasionally on hands and knees, to watch his attempt. He released his clutch and lurched upward. Four knobby tires clawed the ground, and in about 20 seconds he made it, leaving several hooting onlookers, including me, astounded. Mr. Lussier was not driving a Hummer; he was in a 1991 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia Syncro camper.

That's right: camper. After this grueling backcountry jaunt, the Syncro converted into a well-equipped R.V. ù a trick no Hummer has ever mastered. And Mr. Lussier, a photographer from San Francisco, settled in for the night.

Produced in Germany and sold in America from 1986 to 1991, the Syncro Vanagon, a four-wheel-drive version of the standard, boxy 1980's Vanagon, is now exceedingly rare, and rarer still are the camper models ù the fully outfitted pop-top version made by Westfalia in Germany and the hardwood-trimmed models modified by Adventurewagen or Country Homes in the United States. The Syncro has a military-inspired undercarriage and a jacked-up drive train with a special gear for climbing hills; on the camper models attachments fold out, slide out and pop up to create sleeping space.

More than 50 Syncro owners, who had largely met through Syncro.org or an Internet mailing list, gathered a few weeks ago in an oak-shaded campground in the Hollister Hills State Vehicular Recreation Area to compare notes and put their vans through the paces on challenging and beautiful backcountry roads. The vans are an anomaly amid the Jeeps, Land Rovers and four-wheel-drive pickup trucks that usually ride this terrain. "People do get pretty surprised when they see us back here," Mr. Lussier said as he rolled back into camp after our white-knuckle ride.

No one, not even Volkswagen, seems to know for sure, but hard-core Syncronauts estimate that only about 5,000 Syncros ù 1,500 campers and 3,500 passenger vans ù were sold in the United States. Well-preserved camper models now sell for almost their original sticker price of around $18,000 and are appreciating in value.

The couple ù a married former Roman Catholic priest and a former nun ù who sold Mr. Lussier his Syncro told him they had driven it from California to Alaska, where they lived in it. Mr. Lussier once shipped it to Venezuela and drove it through Brazil. Now, with upgraded shocks, wheels and a gleaming paint job, it is in superb condition. "I don't believe in mollycoddling it," he said. "You've got to use it. Otherwise, what's the point in having it?"

Brian Smith, 44, of Oceanside, Calif., has a 1987 Syncro camper that he has customized with a microwave, toaster oven, camp heater and external generator. "I swear to God if someone offered me $50,000 for this car," he said, "I wouldn't sell it." He added: "I drove it down to Tul·m in the Yucatßn and camped right on the beach. I went through Chiapas and saw the waterfalls and rain forests. You can go and camp 10 feet from the water, completely self-contained."

These Syncro enthusiasts were preaching to the converted. Last year I purchased my own 1986 Syncro camper, paying $12,000 to a family in Los Angeles who had named it Cecilia. For me, Cecilia represented the ultimate journalist's tool. In it, I could get nearly anywhere to cover a story, and I wouldn't need a hotel. I could fix a cup of hot coffee, plug in a power inverter to run my cellphone-connected laptop and type away.

Of course, there was also the promise of camping adventures with my wife, Quinn, which we have pursued with abandon across California's outback. And like many other Syncro converts, we soon began to wonder why there weren't more of these versatile vehicles on the roads.

As Christian Bokich, a brand marketing strategist at Volkswagen, and Thomas Niksch, a mechanical engineer who runs a German Syncro enthusiasts' Web site ( http://www.syncro16.de ), tell the story, the Syncro was both behind and ahead of its time. At $18,000, the camper model was expensive for 1986, yet it had only a 90-horsepower engine, better suited to a Beetle than a 4,000-pound van. It was complicated to manufacture, and Volkswagen was concentrating at that time on building a new minivan. The company was loath even to promote the Syncro, though magazines like Car and Driver gave it glowing reviews.

"I've had a lot of contact with managers from that time," Mr. Bokich said. "They said that the biggest challenge was that people weren't getting the message about the Syncro."

The Syncro's origins go back to the late 1970's when two Volkswagen engineers, dreaming of a vehicle they could use to camp and travel to remote places like the Sahara desert, built some prototypes. In the mid-1980's, Steyr-Daimler-Puch, manufacturer of a legendary military off-road vehicle called the Pinzgauer, teamed up with Volkswagen to design and manufacture the Syncro.

IN many ways, it was a groundbreaking ground pounder. An independently suspended four-wheel-drive system gave it excellent ground clearance and kept all four wheels planted in challenging terrain. A locking system gave it tanklike traction by preventing any one wheel from breaking free and spinning. A viscous coupler, now a common device, automatically engaged the four-wheel-drive in response to any slippage in the rear wheels. Many of the inventions found in the Syncro have since made their way into vehicles like the Subaru Outback and Volkswagen's own new S.U.V., the Touareg.

But it was the camper model that truly distinguished the Syncro. In it you could keep food fresh in a small refrigerator, cook it on a two-burner stove, wash the dishes in a stainless-steel sink with water from a 13-gallon tank, store gear in a series of cabinets and sleep four people comfortably. The little-known Syncro camper was a backcountry mobile home, the ultimate expression of a sport utility vehicle before the term was even coined.

At the Hollister camp, Brent Christensen, a director of product development for a software company in Santa Barbara, Calif., described a family trip "all the way up the coast, close to Seattle, then through the Sierras" with stops at out-of-the-way campsites. "We'll say, `There's a neat-looking site, but it's right over that big berm and down between those two trees,' " he said. " `Let's see if we can get down there.' The next morning we wake up with the creek outside our front door."

Eric Ching, 35, a lifeguard from Huntington Beach, Calif., and his wife, Tina Om, have taken their 2-year-old daughter, Zoe, around California with them, charging in their 1990 Syncro through the soft sand dunes of Pismo Beach and the deep snow of Mammoth Mountain and up the punishing hills at Hollister (where Zoe snoozed in her car seat the whole way). "We like going places you don't see people," Mr. Ching said.

Brian Smith's Syncro traveled the world even before he and his family began taking it on trips to Mexico. "The guy who owned it before me was a diplomat," Mr. Smith said. "They shipped him out to Africa to work and he shipped the van. He was with his wife and two kids camping in the van and they woke up one morning and thought there was an earthquake. They look out the window and there's an elephant running at them. He just jumped down from his bed with the pop-top up and started driving. The elephant collapsed the back hatch but they got away."

The Internet has not only coalesced the thinly spread community of Syncro zealots, but created a viable market for Syncro parts. Today, you can buy any Syncro part online, including oversized South African VW wheels and improved suspension components from Australia. You can even swap the engine for a more powerful VW turbodiesel or a Subaru Outback powerplant.

Mr. Lussier said he was already wondering how to put an electric engine in his Syncro in the distant future, when he expects petroleum use to be banned.

Like several owners at Hollister, he said flatly that he would never sell his Syncro.

I think I'll hang on to mine, too.

here area some tough baja buses




[ Edited on 7-9-2006 by fozee ]

Thats insane!!

Quote:

Originally posted by pete wood Quote: The Internet has not only coalesced the thinly spread community of Syncro zealots, but created a viable market for Syncro parts. Today, you can buy any Syncro part online, including oversized South African VW wheels and improved suspension components from Australia. You can even swap the engine for a more powerful VW turbodiesel or a Subaru Outback powerplant. Mr. Lussier said he was already wondering how to put an electric engine in his Syncro in the distant future, when he expects petroleum use to be banned. Like several owners at Hollister, he said flatly that he would never sell his Syncro. I think I'll hang on to mine, too. Well they will until they lunch the gearbox and try and find another one for less than the value of the car. From what I've been told, the syncro gearboxes are fragile at best with the standard motor. One mechanic I know had to source a 2nd hand box from South Africa 5 years back for the tidy sum of $8000, and that was before shipping and installation.

two of mine and one from the states

Love your dark coloured kombi...need some help with my dilemma...I have an ecotecV6 sitting under my house waiting to go in my 74campmobile but today had a rush of blood and bought a wrecked 2.2 suby off egay...so which do i install? I want the grunt to go on the sand and down and up bush tracks...the V6 will have it but love the suby motor...will it have the power to turn big wheels in the situations i'm talking? interested in hearing opinions...thanks, Rob

I thought the BA rims had a the same offset??

I was thinking of having my 16" momo's with the 60 profile tyres for highway cruising and have a set of 15's with offroad tyres for when i want to get dirty...but i think i'm going to commit and fit big desert duellers to the momo's...if i'm gonna get dirty i want to do it in style

The Syncro gearboxes are weaker than other type 2 boxes BUT, we have sorted out many of the problems.
VW South Africe developed oils splash plates that can be installed on a rebuild. These plates divert more oil to bearings that were otherwise not receiving sufficient.
Stronger gears are also available from Albins in Victoria.

Many folk have been running 2.5 litre Subaru engines in Syncro's for a number of years now, particularly in th US, and largely without problems.

There are a few helpful hints with these boxes:

A) Install a decoupler which allows the drive train to function without the extra loading incurred by having a "binding" system that can not free itself ie. when travelling on sealed roads for long periods. Even with a standard motor many of us believe this is an essential aftermarket add on.

B) DONT repeat DONT do burnouts! No matter how tempting it may be.

I have been running a 160 odd horsepower (EJ25) in my Syncro for a year now and (touch wood!) have had no problems. I have a decoupler and the transmission bearings were replaced 40000 miles ago but all other parts are 170000 miles old.

They are in my opinion only slightly (at worst) weaker than the standard T25 gearbox.
The key to the longevity of many things is often in understanding how it works and being aware of it's weaknesses. A bit like a relationship really!

Here endeth the lesson!

Cheers,
Andy
1990 Syncro with Subaru EJ25
1965 Panel
197? Microbus (not going)