Hi, 

Congrats, fun job, harder than a regular vanagons by a long shot.

  The stud is so long in order to take the very fat connector on the
battery cable, a hollow slug about 1/2" thick, not the usual washer type
terminal.  This plus the rubber boot make for an (almost) watertight
high current seal, Syncro style.  Is your cable the real one???  Should
be very thick diam., almost 1.5x normal 2WD cable and with the big
connector.

  I couldn't get the Syncro specific solenoid when I had mine rebuilt
:(, but the rebuilder had nifty add-on copper posts that gave me the
reach. Plus enough to interfere with the gas tank insulation, grrrr.  I
ended up carefully slicing the fat end connector to about half its
height, then it will fit.  Lost the snug waterproofing effect of the
rubber boot, but no probs so far.

bye, Tim