Dave,
I agree to what you state below. I have posted before my opinions of the
Vanagon compared to '72 westy on the limited "off road" travel I have done.

One particular route to a favourite fishing spot (for feisty cutts) was
along a disused logging road that for a stretch is a creek in the winter
time. It has lots of brick sized river rock (rounded) and little bars and
hummocks. The '72 would negotiate the passage well, I could go slow and ease
up and over the hummocks and down through the dips. The rear suspension
compliancy and rear weight bias worked well. The Vanagon however was not so
good. The suspension is not as compliant and I could easily get stuck with
one rear wheel un-weighted. Also the approach angle on the Vanagon was not
as good, the spare tire carrier often hit the sand/gravel bars. Got stuck a
few times, and when I got out and looked at the van I was surprised at how
little an uneven angle was needed to allow loss of traction. I did have to
go a bit faster in the Vanagon (and just ignore the bashing of the tire
carrier - from dam would have been long gone).

The nature of the trail didn't allow to much of a higher speed, lots of
twists and turns to avoid logs, banks. etc.

Even got stuck at the final fishing site, where there was grass and soft
earth. One had to be ver careful not to venture to far into the soft stuff
when turning/parking.

Tires at that time were a fresh set of the old Yoko 356's.

In those situations, I believe a locking rear diff would have made the
Vanagon as good a performer as the loaf.

Alistair

--
'82 Westy -> diesel converted to gas in '94
albell@uvic.ca
http://members.shaw.ca/albell

on 14/3/03 10:45 am, David Brodbeck wrote:

>
> I agree.  It has to be speed with finesse, though, especially on sandy
> surfaces.  You want to keep your momentum up, but you *don't* want to spin
> a wheel or you'll dig in and get stuck.
>
> Anyway, it'll do okay for two-tracking and logging roads.  Not real "off
> roading" (as in no road at all), though.  A lot of vehicles you wouldn't
> think of as off-road candidates can be coaxed down fairly rough two-tracks
> without much trouble if you're careful.  I used to do a lot of exploring
> in a '90 Ford Econoline.  (The price of this was a fair amount of time
> spent driving in reverse -- it takes a *lot* of room to turn around an
> Econoline.  It was an awkward vehicle, but the suspension was tough as
> nails and could take all kinds of abuse.)
>
>
> David Brodbeck, N8SRE
> '82 Diesel Westfalia
> '94 Honda Civic Si