VW T4 Shock Absorber Mount for Flatbed and Double Cab

Hello T4 Community, the VW T4 shock absorber mount for the flatbed and double cab is finally finished.

This replica has cost me a lot of time and sleepless nights. At first glance, the VW T4 shock absorber mount for the flatbed seemed fairly easy to replicate—just some 3 mm sheet metal here and there, a bit of bending, some grinding, a little welding, and done. However, this assumption changed completely over the 8-month development process.

The real problem only became apparent when it came to manufacturing the elbow piece. The machine and the dies available to me were capable of bending a 3 mm thick sheet but not two 3 mm sheets stacked together for the left and right wings of the elbow piece—resulting in nearly 6 mm thick metal over a width of approximately 50 mm. That was too much for both the machine and the tooling. With this limitation, the first attempt to replicate the VW T4 shock absorber mount for the flatbed failed.

By this point, around 180 development hours had already been invested without a usable result. After this setback, I put the project on hold for about two months and focused on other designs. Then, in October 2023, I had an idea for a different approach to manufacturing the elbow piece. It was a bit unconventional but made sense upon closer inspection.

The previously designed elbow piece was always bent from 90-degree adjoining surfaces, which put immense strain on the machine since the opposing surfaces were very long, creating significant resistance. After shifting all surfaces by 45 degrees—changing the shape from a square to a butterfly wing—the machine was finally able to handle it. This allowed me to manufacture the main component without needing specialized tools or additional machinery. The last challenge was managing heat dissipation during welding.