Lift kit for T5 4 Motion - supplier?

[Transporter]

Should have give them the wheels only.

[MAD]

See link for NA =ok for 50mm

Well..... Ordered 5 Yokohama 235/65/17 AT GO12's from Bob Jane as they had a deal, buy 3 and get the 4th free. Finally arrived this week and booked in to get them fitted today. Went off to the doctor and got a phone call to say they couldn't fit them as they were too big. They were illegal as the VW wasn't a proper 4WD with low-range gearing. So I need to do some research into this or can anybody help with relevant documentation. I see on the compliance plate it is Category NA Vehicle which is a Light Goods vehicle but haven't worked out yet where that fits into the 50mm larger tyre rules. There must be something in those rules somewhere.

Bruce CQ

Seems that vehicle category "NA" is ok for 50mm extra diameter in vic according to the vic roads modification rules for vehicles, see section 13. (LS) , in particular section 13.3 (4wd type vehicle category "NA" ) and 13.3.1 (option 1 ) for specifics of lift and tyre allowance, if this is correct they should be able to fit your tyres legally no problems.
Here's the link https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/~/me...les.ashx?la=en

Let us know how you go cos I just bought a T5 lwb 4 motion and its gunna get either seikel lift or air bags and 235/65/17 Yokohama geolander AT G012's like what ur doing,

Also I'm currently retrofitting rear diff lock fully integrated to factory specs as we speak!

Regards
Mad

[Big Bug]

[QUOTE=MAD;1166775]Seems that vehicle category "NA" is ok for 50mm extra diameter in vic

Thankyou for this. That document makes it a lot clearer than it is in Qld. They have put all the info in one place whereas from what I can see here it is all over the shop. I think the same rules still apply only it says in one place the ADR's have been adopted with some "adjustments"........So you have to search those adjustments out. Why can't we just have the same laws and rules all over Australia, OH,,, I know that would be sensible....

Maybe I just put bigger tyres on when I'm in Victoria.

Bruce CQ

[MAD]

So the CQ = Central Queensland I guess?

No probs , yeah rules across aus should be the same although they'll probably restrict them more if they do that to meet the state with the tightest requirements, funny thing is if I drive my modified vic reg van around in qld it's legal I believe cos it meets vic requirements,

Hope you have some luck getting them on, would be a absolute disgrace if you weren't legally aloud to add 50mm diameter ( 25mm lift tyres) in one state but it's perfectly fine in others,

Regards

Mad

[MAD]

Finally made a decision and got the Seikel Desert HD lift kit and had it fitted yesterday. So now do I just get a wheel alignment and wear out these original tyres or do I get the van yet another Christmas present of some slightly larger tyres, very tempting. Decisions-decisions......

Bruce CQ

Btw how is the seikel HD going? Did you move from stock or VW Rough road pack 1 or 2? , interested to know as I have the VW upgraded shocks and springs for rough road use on mine as factory item ( suspension upgrade pack 2) and want to select the right seikel kit either desert or desert HD,

What's the ride like with the HD ?
And what is your lift? ( ie from centre of hub to wheel arch measurement )

Want maximum lift Just don't want it to be to hard/harsh for on or offroad use, and seikel is supposedly VW approved suspension?

Regards

Mad

[Big Bug]

Btw how is the seikel HD going? Did you move from stock or VW Rough road pack 1 or 2? , interested to know as I have the VW upgraded shocks and springs for rough road use on mine as factory item ( suspension upgrade pack 2) and want to select the right seikel kit either desert or desert HD,

What's the ride like with the HD ?
And what is your lift? ( ie from centre of hub to wheel arch measurement ) Mad

I bought the Desert HD suspension with Bilstein shocks in the front and Monroe shocks in the rear. I agonized for ages over which suspension to get. Now I haven't done much driving, mainly around town. It doesn't seem too harsh and it appears to ride much better than original. The original would, in certain road conditions get a "wallow" type effect and so far I haven't experienced that. I am driving to Brisbane soon, then to Victoria before the end of the month so be interesting to see how it goes. All driving at the moment is unladen although I have a pop-top roof, camping drawers, fridge, 2 seater rear seat and a 1200mm long sliding tray to go under the bed.

At the rear the measurement is 500mm and front 495mm.

So far I'm very happy. I also purchaced the documentation to allow up-gradeing to 3,200 GVM. Haven't done anything with that yet but I suspect that could be another obstacle.

Bruce CQ

[Murphenzo]

Bruce: Did you end up getting the tires fitted ok? They are legal being an NA vehicle.

MAD: Ride really is pretty awesome. I've just taken mine over to Fraser Island for 5 days over the new year break and while we were there I got to spend some time in my mates Hilux (N70) and Cruiser (80) as well. The VW is like riding a magic carpet compared to those two. Super smooth. About the only terrain that it REALLY doesn't like is corrugations.

I managed to get it stuck for the first time in some really soft sand on one of the cuttings. Totally my fault, wrong gear, bogged down, missed the shift to first...all over. Managed to self recover with the maxtraxx in about 60 seconds. Pretty impressed!

The biggest limitation I've found so far is the lack of articulation (note, not travel) in combination with the open diffs. As soon as you get the van loaded up on diagonal opposites you just sit there spinning wheels. The huge sway bars that make these things sit so flat on road really are their undoing on uneven terrain off road. You can drive around the limitation to a degree, trying to hit obstacles head on instead of one wheel at a time and just carrying some more momentum. The ultimate solution will be to look into fitting some sway bar quick disconnects. They should help quite a lot.

[Big Bug]

(Did you end up getting the tires fitted ok? They are legal being an NA vehicle.) I've been too busy to do anything about the tyres. I saw that one in the rules about N Category vehicles can go up the 50mm. Looked to me that even 2WD vehicles could as well so nothing at all about having to be a "real" 4X4.

Would have been busy on Fraser Is while you were there. Great place to go though.

Bruce CQ

[MAD]

Hey dudes ,
Thanks for the informative responses,

Bruce , how did you come by the pop top roof? Was it an retro fit u put on or did you by a frontline pre done van type thing? I'm agonising over whether to get the HD OR standard seikel also , so the feedback helps, that lift dimensions seems about where I thought it would be, I have the factory suspension dimensions somewhere I'll have to see what the heights are for the different factory suspensions mines 1BB ( upgraded shocks and springs for rough road use ( upgrade pack 2)) it's supposed to run 15mm higher than standard I think but I don't think it does, will check my height tomorrow and post it here, ( mines never felt wallowy must be due to the upgrade pack) , although I have less in it than yours ATM, second row 3 seater and rubber floor mat, much work is to be done lol ,

BTW not sure if you can upgrade to 3200kg unless it's a maxi or reinforced chassis, I think they also have larger wheel bearings and different swing arms,

Let us know how your trip goes and if you can get those tires on how they go cos I think there the tire of choise ATM ,

Murph, does your van have diff lock? as that maybe the reason you get diagonal spinners, I couldn't find a van with diff lock so found a diff with diff lock first was very lucky ( eBay ) , and then bought a van without and am retro fitting it right after I finish servicing it and replacing seals etc just to be sure, there's a bit of work involved wiring wise , took a good month to research all the parts required ( mainly electricals , vacuum valves etc) and will take a while to install ( I'm a bit anal) , and it's no where near as cheap as the factory option but for offroad it's a absolute necessity , I believe it also tells the 4WD control unit to close the clutches in the haldex for front to back lock as well when the rear diff lock is engaged, the lock only talks to the vehicle thru the 4wd haldex controller and it's can bus,

Some transporters have different edl and traction control systems in the abs controller so that might also be why you get diagonal spinners, diff lock is best though as you don't lose power thru ABS braking to gain traction,

Btw is your seikel the HD or standard? I'm interested what your lift from hub centre vertical to arch? to compare against Bruce's , , never though about the sway bar stopping articulation even with long travel , u maybe onto somthing there, always just seen transporters lifting wheels in all the vids I've watched,
and how are you finding your tires?

This is a bit long I might goto bed now and see how ridiculous and long winded my post is in the morning , night

[Murphenzo]

Haha no problem mate, happy to help.

So my kit is the standard "desert" option, not the HD. My van doesn't have a full camper fit out or ever carry a huge load, so it wasn't necessary. I'd say in my extended road tripping setup, I might be carrying 500kg or so. Surely not too much more than that. At that weight the standard kit is perfect. The van sits level front to rear (it sits arse up when unladen), still has a nice smooth ride, but firm enough not to blow through its travel when hitting the whoops on the beach at speed.

I'm currently over in NZ on work, so can't get you the measurements you want, but I am pretty sure I've posted them on here somewhere before. Have a bit of a look around and let me know if you can't find them. Unladen the lift in the front is pretty much dead on 30mm and about 50mm in the rear. http://www.vwwatercooled.com/forums/...archid=2869758

I'll be really interested to see how you go with the diff swap. I have looked into doing the same and pretty much came to the conclusion that the diff itself would be easy, but add in all of the control modules and it'll be a PITA. One option you do have is to only install the diff and setup a simple linkage or cable to actuate it manually. Obviously you lose all of the interlocks and changes to the 4-motion calibration, but it'd work.

So the reason I get the issues with single spinners is that mine, being an '06 model doesn't have any traction control to brake the spinning wheels. Unfortunately it's too smart for its own good and won't let you use any of the old school 4WDing tricks like pulling on a bit of handbrake to keep power to both wheels......this just cuts power to the rear as soon as the handbrake comes on. Touch the foot brake and it kills the throttle completely. That said, despite this handicap it really is remarkably capable on sand.

As for the pirelli scorpion ATRs, I'm very impressed. They're just as nice on road (ride/handling/braking/noise) as the old normal sized road tires and have proven to be quite capable offroad. I've put around 20k km on them now and have about 3 mm of wear. Sure there are others that last longer....but I'm happy with that given their performance.

[Big Bug]

How did you come by the pop top roof?

I got the pop top roof done at DIY RV Solutions in Brisbane. I may have gone for the Reimo roof that these people have if I had found it earlier. Poptop, Hitop & European style roof conversions - Southern Spirt Campervans - true custom build RV's. A bit more expensive, I think I paid about $6,500.00 for mine from memory. I've got some solar panels on my roof so I did want a flat roof when it was up so that it didn't matter which way I was parked. I bought the van new then the next week got the roof done. That took a bit of coming to terms with, getting a hole cut in my brand new van.

I also agonized over which suspension. Murph very kindly dropped into my place one day he was up my way so it was great to talk to him and see the van. I went for the middle one, the "Desert HD" rather than the "Desert" or "Desert Maxi". I wanted the option to upgrade to 3,200kg if possible so the "Desert" was out and I thought the Maxi may be a bit hard. The Desert HD seems pretty good and I was happy with the drive from Rocky to Brisbane yesterday. I included a mere 6km of gravel and it went well. Seikel assured me I could upgrade to 3,200kg GVM with the vehicle I have but I haven't tried doing that yet.

There is about 200metres of road before a stop sign on the way I sometimes go to Brisbane with some real waves in it, probably caused by breaking B-Doubles. The van used to get a real rock up but was much more stable yesterday. Gets me off the Bruce Highway for a while and is a pleasant drive in the country with hardly any traffic.

I looked at the VW rough road suspension but no one (the salesman or when he inquired at VW) could tell me what the lift was so I decided not to tick it on the options list.

Will let you know how it travels on the trip to Vic.

Bruce CQ

[MAD]

Hay guys , thanks for the replys . been busy under the van fitting stuff for the Diff lock, I'm far to anal, so taking a while and no time to reply ,
so a quick 1 and then I'm back to it,

Bruce I'm in Melbourne would be good to have a look at your van whilst your down if possible? , really interested in seeing your pop top, suspension and setup as I'm at the beginning of mine, but if your not able to thats cool,

Murph,
Im trying to make up a plan for a loom kit and vacuum kit as I'm doing the diff lock installation (makes it take longer ), may or may not work out yet , but so far is looking good to workout, will show some pics of what i did when I'm done and try to rig up a kit with the extras i bought ( would still require acquisition of a diff with the lock , or big mods to a non diff lock diff), The problem with the T5's is the amount of changes VW do under the covers each year, they really don't seem to understand Standardisation between models, ( i'm not talking improvements or updates just standardising systems that already work to stay the same through the series),
Also I believe the EDL is only a program in the ABS unit , not sure if it can be done for your model or 4motion in general , but it maybe a possibility/ option , you can only ask and find out,

Gotta get back to it , work keep asking me to do more hours so less time on the van atm will catch up with better response when diff is done

Regards

MAD

[Murphenzo]

Very interested to see how you go!

[johannvisser]

Very interesting read, following. Luckily in South Africa we don't really have rules about amount of lift on vehicles.(or maybe we just don't care)
I heard about places that takes your springs and stretch it and tempers it again. Any comments on that. I want to give my van a much needed lift.

Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk

[Murphenzo]

I wouldn't personally. You'd want to find out what that will do to the spring rate.

There's a few good reasons all of the kits out there have a max lift of 30mm.....it's the limit of how far you can go while keeping good suspension geometry and also retaining some negative travel (can be an issue if I get a bit too enthusiastic off road). It's also the limit of the angle that the rear CVs will take, and that's with the diff spacers that the Seikel kit comes with.

If you do go for the options of resetting the springs, you'll just need to be very careful they haven't gone too far.