Please help my friend with his possible future vw purchase :)

[cort1977]

Hi all, I came accross this thread while researching ways of raising the T5.

I have found that Weitec make a kit consisting of spring spacers that can raise the van either 20 or 30mm depending on the kit. East Coast suspensions in Sydney have them for $149.40 per front axle & $136.20 per rear axle. Alternatively, the Birckwerks site in the UK have the kit for both axles at about $230 + postage from the UK.

I am really tempted to get one of these, seems like a bargain in comparison to the Seikel gear.

I wonder if it could be combined with the King Springs and centre diff spacers for an even bigger lift...

[Transporter]

Hi all, I came accross this thread while researching ways of raising the T5.

I have found that Weitec make a kit consisting of spring spacers that can raise the van either 20 or 30mm depending on the kit. East Coast suspensions in Sydney have them for $149.40 per front axle & $136.20 per rear axle. Alternatively, the Birckwerks site in the UK have the kit for both axles at about $230 + postage from the UK.

I am really tempted to get one of these, seems like a bargain in comparison to the Seikel gear.

I wonder if it could be combined with the King Springs and centre diff spacers for an even bigger lift...

That interest me as well, but it would be worthwhile to find someone who used their spacers and done 50,000km + with them without affecting life of the CV joints and the wheel alignment. I also saw in your first post that you are after dual battery system as well. Did you see www.redarc.com.au lately?
And there are some posts in this section of the forum about dual batteries as well.

[cort1977]

Thanks Transporter. By coincidence I actually have a redarc unit in the shed all ready to go in. I've got a six week old boy at the moment so don't seem to have the time to work on the van I used to...

I know what you mean about CV joint angle, I tend to read the 4wd mags and am well aware of the issues in lifting IFS vehicles. I have seen T4s raised with King springs and tweaking the torsion bars that used some spacers under the centre diff and longer bolts to keep the drive shaft angles the same. Maybe that would be an option if the angle looks a bit dodgy.

To my mind a 30mm lift is not excessive in terms of CV joint angle. I will jump under the van and do some measuring of the shafts to find the change in angle. The Weitec kit is TUV certified so if it has passed some engineering checks.

I have pretty much decided to get some spring spacers so I will post up some before and after pictures. I wwon't receive them until Christmas though.

[Seano]

The spacers in the T4 are fitted to the rear diff mounts.....there is no centre diff. They are only necessary if you frequently run the van with no additional load over the rear axle. I ran my 30mm lifted T4 for half its life without the spacers and still have the original CVs after 8 yrs and 145,000 km.

I would imagine the same scenario for the T5's. That said good risk analysis suggests that fitting the diff spacers is a goodly idea.....just not that urgent.

I'm not familiar with the driveline of the T5 but I would imagine that the 4motion arrangement is not dissimilar to the T4 syncro. That is that the vehicle has a bolted on rear diff. The question is whether the main driveshaft to the diff has the same 'flexibilty' that the T4 does (my LWB has three sections in the main driveshaft each with a flexible coupling) and could therefore cope with a slightly lowered rear diff....