T3 Syncro.

I'm looking to build a camper van for myself and my family to go round Europe in. I quite like VW T3 vans/campers and i like 4X4's aswell. So after noticing the Syncro version of them i wanted one instantly. However, they are very expensive over here. I have spotted a very rotten one abroad for spares or repair. So whats involved in swapping the bits over to a 2wd version. I have read that you need to swap over the brackets for the power steering rack, but no one says if the manual steering rack is the same on the 2wd as it is on the 4x4 version. Now i know people will say its not worth it and just buy a syncro, but I'm not worried of the cost as i have priced up worst case scenario on this van and as its so cheap it still works out less than buying one here. He also has another syncro for sale but that has a single pick up body on it, again cheap and quite mint as well. So back to the mechanics of it, is it possible to leave the manual rack on?