Just finished a conversion on a G63, only Portal axle G63 in the country!

LeTechUSABill

Observer
Taking it to the sports car races at Laguna Seca this weekend to display it and offer it for sale.




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LocoCoyote

World Citizen
I so much want to make some snide and cutting remarks about BLIN-G'ing this poor truck out.....a nice comment that makes you feel bad about doing such terrible things to nice G's.


but........

damm that is a nice looking truck! That 315/75/R16's on there?

;-)
 

haven

Expedition Leader
I guess I walked right into that one...Here is the LeTech web site.
http://www.letechusa.com/products.html

It appears that LeTech designs and manufactures portal axles and other products in Germany. LeTechUSA is the official supplier of the company's products in USA. They debuted the portal-equipped G-Wagen at last year's SEMA show.

The web site says LeTechUSA can do all types of repairs and restorations on the Gelandewagen. Bill, have you thought about camper conversions?
 

digitaldelay

Explorer
That is awesome! :drool:

Silly question: Would a standard G550 or G63 with stock wheel size benefit from a portal axle conversion? I would think you would have the best of both worlds; increased ground clearance + near-stock CG and handling.

Jason
 

LeTechUSABill

Observer
That is awesome! :drool:

Silly question: Would a standard G550 or G63 with stock wheel size benefit from a portal axle conversion? I would think you would have the best of both worlds; increased ground clearance + near-stock CG and handling.

Jason

I can tell you now that I have driven my G500 with the old test axles in it and now this virtually brand new G63 (5k miles) the handling and drivability fantastic. The best part of doing the Portals to gain ground clearance is that the suspension geometry is not effected at all, everything happens at the end of the axles. All of the lift comes from the Portals and the tires.

And my feeling is the CG is not effected much at all with the kit even with the 37" tires because of the track change gained with the Portals, all the weight we have added below the center line of the axle and in the wheels. The CG may actually be better with the Portals. I will talk to the MB engineers about that, I am sure they have some A B comparison data on that.

I know I have had my silver G pretty crossed up on some gnarly trails, I have been almost coming out of the drivers seat and the G just stayed planted on the ground!

To answer your question though, yes you could run a smaller tire but we would need to come up with a custom gear set to get the ratio right so your speedo, ABS, etc would work properly or do some electronic wizardry to adapt. The standard ratio in our Portals is the exact ratio to compensate for the 37" tires.
 

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