Some Seikel adaptations

[bvddobb]

We combined a short trip to the Hunsrück (Germany) with a visit to Seikel. We wanted to have some Seikel adaptations done in preparation of our Iceland holiday next summer.

We wanted to heighten the venting of the drive train to get more wade depth for the inevitable river crossings there. The gear box, the L-coupling/reduction and the Haldex differential all have air vent holes. They basically limit your wade depth to the approx 30 cm of the manual, because you don't want water or dirt entering your drive train through the vent holes. It won't lead to immediate disasters, but the dilution of the oil by water and the dirt will make for a much greater wear of those gears in the longer term. Seikel have a system whereby they basically put tubes on the vent holes of each, and have those tubes come up to high under the bonnet, in the battery compartment.

Also people had told us that the volcanic gravel on the inland dirt roads there can be quite sharp, and can easily damage an penetrate the standard plastic underside protection. So we wanted that changed for the Seikel aluminum protection.

In the morning we handed in our Cali at Seikel's:
View media item 708
As a loaner for the day they gave us their Amarok Extreme, with all the works:

Boy, we were tempted to hit the woods with that car. But hey, you can't really do that with a loaner...

At the end of the day we picked up our Cali again.

With the air vent system in place:
View media item 707In combination with our All Terrain summer wheels and the Off Road setting of our air suspension, we now have a wade depth of 45 cm.

And the aluminum underside protection is in place:
View media item 705

 

[T6 CFO]

Excellent. I love this board. Look forward to hearing about your trip.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[splitmike]

Sounds amazing for some reason I can't see the images
Look forward to hearing about the trips that follow.

 

[estresao]

Hi bvddobb, once you got those drive train vent installed, how difficult do you think it could be do by oneself? I'm tempted to get them installed, but so tempted to travel to Germany to get them installed

 

[Sp0_0k]

Adding 15cm to depth isn't much isn't it?
I've read a lot that you can travel lots of places in Iceland without any river crossing.

 

[bvddobb]

Hi bvddobb, once you got those drive train vent installed, how difficult do you think it could be do by oneself? I'm tempted to get them installed, but so tempted to travel to Germany to get them installed

Hi estresao, I have no idea, to be honest. I am not much of a mechanic myself, so we had it done. We were going to Frankfurt so we knew we were going to be in Seikel's neighbourhood, so we made an appointment.

 

[bvddobb]

Adding 15cm to depth isn't much isn't it?
I've read a lot that you can travel lots of places in Iceland without any river crossing.

Well, the venting of the drive train itself is now raised to the level of the starter battery, which is some 70 cm higher than it was.
It is just that at 40 cm (standard) or 45 cm in our case (off road suspension setting + our AT bigger wheels), you meet the next lowest point of issue: the motor air intake. So, if you just raise the drive train vent you gain 'only' 15 cm extra wade depth, indeed (which is still 50% more than we had...).
We have now also raised the motor air intake. (See this thread on this forum).

And yes, you can travel to a lot of places in Iceland without fording rivers. And you can travel to many more places (and we feel the more interesting ones) once you are prepared to ford rivers...