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VW T5 suspension rebuild. Join editor, Alex Brown, underneath his camper van as he attempts to learn DIY mechanics.
I'm not a mechanic
I havn’t even owned a set of spanners for two years at the time I write this. But for a long time now, I’ve wanted to start doing some work on my own van to fix everything that is broken. And across my VW T3 and T5, that list has started to grow.
Like my father before me and his father before him, it feels like a rite of passage to understand my vehicle and do what I can to keep the family car safely on the road. In my opinion, I’d rather spend a Saturday morning jacking the van up, than a Monday morning spend in someone’s office making money to pay for a repair. Think about that.
On the top of my to-do list on the VW T5 was to tackle the front suspension. I had noticed that one of the struts were leaking oil, and upon further inspection I discovered more broken parts. This included the drop links, lower ball joints and also the passenger sidedrive shaft axel.
For the past seven to eight years of ownership, we’ve enjoyed countless alpine adventures in this 2007 VW T5 California Beach. As epic as the trips have been, the camper van is now starting to show its age due to wear and tear.
Years of salt, snow, rain and dirt has worked into the running gear on this VW campervan. Taking parts off will prove very difficult as I encounter frozen hardware and heavy components. A tough start for a DIY mechanic, the first job being a total VW T5 suspension rebuild.
This van enabled us to get out there for proper adventures in the Pyrenees, where I have climbed a number of mountains on my skis, and run spectacular trail running routes through them during the warmer months. Check out my Instagram page for inspiration!
So back to the DIY mechanics. As I said, this would be the first time I would do any heavy work on my campervan and oh boy, I totally underestimated the work load ahead. What I thought would take me a long weekend, turned in to a three week job packed full of suprises. I have tried to do my best to film the journey I went on, and also edit it truthfully to how I felt going through the process.
A massive hats off to the trademen and women out there who do this sort of work daily. I was left feeling broken each night, covered in dirt and certainly a few bruises. But this is what I wanted to get into, some honest work , gain appreciateion for the knowledge, and to put the effort in to keep this show on the road. A big thank you to Heritage Parts Centre for the collaboration and getting the components I needed out to me in the Pyrenees.
