Especially the original busses (up to 69).  Those transfer cases and tall, skinny tires gave them a lot of clearance and ability to go through or over most anything (although I carried 2 come a longs which were used occasionally).  I rarely had to jack up mine (54 barn door, 59 Westy, 60 Westy, 61 panel van) unless I was changing a tire.  I even sand blasted the entire bottom of the 61 without ever raising it.  Crawling around with the blaster nozzle, and a protection suit, under it.   The places those vehicles took me were way beyond where anyone could find me. 

Dave B.
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Caron <ericcaron96@COMCAST.NET>
To: vanagon <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wed, Feb 12, 2020 4:41 pm
Subject: Re: Bilstein shock query

Well, 
 That is for sure!  But, I try to take it pretty easy on my van these days.  Still I do get into some situations where the roads disappear. 

But,  my travels through a field or dirt road are nothing compared to what I’ve heard folks do with the synchros.    So I would not be overly challenging my shocks.

But, still amazed my basically one wheel drive van has made it to camping spots at the top of muddy wet meadows with the only bad thing being it would take me hours to hose out the mud on the return home.

These vans do provide much fun!

Now that I think about it, I did some really crazy things with my air cooled busses and they just kept on rolling along.

Eric 

> On Feb 12, 2020, at 4:14 PM, OlRivrRat <OlRivrRat@comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> On 12 Feb , 2020, at 8:36 AM, Eric Caron wrote:
> 
>> Only a 2 WD so can’t comment on off roading
> 
>              Eric
> 
>      Just so Ya know > 2WD Vanagons are not confined to roads ~
>