I remeber, that there was a thread about the engine high.

Some information about:

VW SA offers the Vanagon with 5 cylinders. The cross
member is directly mounted onto the frame rails, which
is not possible on our vehicles. Therefore VW SA raised
the deck lid by 10 cm.

Anyway, any SA Vanagon are built on base of the Syncro
undercarriage. This says, it does have more ground clearence
than the regular 2WD. The 5 cylinder, with the Syncro undercarriage,
is specified with ground clearence of 19 cm.

To mount the cross bar I had to weld a retangular pipe
underneath the frame rail, which lowers the whole drive
train by 3 cm. The engine still shows 3 cm out of the bay.
The oil pan shows very closed to the ground. I you need
to, I may measure the distance.

If you don't like to raise the deck lid, you have to lower
the engine by additional 3 cm, in total 6 cm. This is possible,
but the ground clearence will allow vehicle operations
on well maintained roads only.

For Westies I recommend to modify the hinges for the
rear seats and add a box on top of the engine bay. You may
exchange the hinges or modify the present one. I'm sure, Steve
likes to offer you Reimo (or from someone else) hinges.
To modify the present one, you have to move some axles
and may have to extend (or change) some bars, I can give
you dimensions.

Regards
Helmut
'80 Vanagaudi