2005 Gem e4 Newbie questions

GEM Forum
1

I have a couple of questions about this Gem I just bought that I need to haul from Arizona to Oregon:

  1. Can the 4-post top be removed? I need to lower the height somehow to
    fit it inside an enclosed trailer.
  2. Is there a retrofit kit to convert the headlights to have both low & high
    beams?
  3. I was told that by upgrading the standard 12" rims/tires to 14" will make
    it a little easier to turn & steer, is this true?
    Thank You
2

Hey Mike,
Welcome to the group.
That must be one heck of a cart for you to be trucking it all the way in from AZ.

  1. Sure, you can pull the top off, but then you need to put it somewhere. I hope you have a plan for that. You don’t want to be breaking that windshield.

How far do you need to lower the car to clear?
Alt1- might be to take the wheels off and drop the brakes on little roller carts? Maybe make some adapters out of plywood that fit on the lug patterns and scrrew it to a HF moving dolly? Make these things strong enough for multi-state travel.

Alt2- Bring along the smallest set of cart tires you can find. Make sure they will clear the rotors and calipers.

Alt3- Remove the spring/shock assembly and drop the cart down as far as it will go. Measure the distance between bolt centers and install a few chunks of 2x2 lumper cut and cross drilled for that height. It would be like a shock substitute.

  1. I have not seen any retrofit kits for high/low lighting. Usually people are upgrading what is there with a set of LED and if more is needed they get creative and install what they need.

  2. I’m not sure who you have been talking to but rims are only part of the front end formula. Tire width and pressures are more of a factor in making thie early cars tough to turn. Unfortunately, both of these things make the car ride nicer.

@Old_Houseboater was making an ez steer kit for the Gen1 cars. I bet it could be fit into a 2005 without too much trouble.