The "Bring it Back" 71 Super Vert Thread

[Piledriver]

My sons 71 SB runs mexi 5.5s front and rear, 195-65s out back and 185-60s up front 2 3/8" drop front, 2 outer splines out back. No rub, no shimmee.

[Marc]

Nobody said it couldn't be done if "no rub" is your only concern. The problem is the positive scrub radius, which is exacerbated when wider wheels are fitted unless they have enough offset to pull the tire contact patch inboard. That's where the MaXX struts with their smaller-O.D. coil springs save the day.


Note how little clearance there is from sidewall to spring, even with a stock 4" rim and 165 tire. Imagine a line from the center of the upper strut bearing through the center of the balljoint, extend it through to the ground - it intersects the pavement well inboard of the center of the contact patch, making any discontinuity in the road surface or slop in the suspension cause the front wheel to want to turn out => the SuperBeetle Shakes. This is why the 1303 suspension was developed. Add 1½" to the rim, all to the outside, and the contact patch is moved out another 3/4", making the situation even worse.

[Piledriver]

I understand that completely...
...but as the car handles as if on rails and has zero Super shimmy even on horrible roads, it's only a potential problem.

One idea (related) was basically making up a steel ball joint adapter (MK1 outer ball joint) for the ~infinitely stronger early forged lateral links to ~duplicate (or improve upon) the late geometry using MK1 Golf struts or such.

This also potentially solves the "weird expensive custom ball joint" issue when going to 944 bits for the big brakes etc.

[Marc]

I understand that completely...
...but as the car handles as if on rails and has zero Super shimmy even on horrible roads, it's only a potential problem.
One idea (related) was basically making up a steel ball joint adapter (MK1 outer ball joint) for the ~infinitely stronger early forged lateral links to ~duplicate (or improve upon) the late geometry using MK1 Golf struts or such.
This also potentially solves the "weird expensive custom ball joint" issue when going to 944 bits for the big brakes etc.

Or, it's only a matter of time. I can remember when the early Supers were being taken back to the dealer by disgusted owners who ended up exchanging them for Standards. It's an inherently flawed design that never should have made it into production, one is often lucky if the shakes can be exorcised even when running stock wheels and tires. Putting oversized tires on can only make things "potentially" worse. All I'm sayin' is that since mountainkowboy wants to lower the front of his car anyway, this would be an ideal time to fit struts with smaller-O.D. springs and get some wheels that are wide enough for his new tires and have enough offset to improve the scrub-radius problem.

[Piledriver]

... and I'm proposing nuking it from orbit, just to be sure.
(essentially late front suspension, as we are talking about buying new struts anyway)

Mountainkowboy seems to be a fabricator at some level, just throwing the idea out there.

The late lower links look like toys, but otherwise bolt on, the idea of using the early forged lowers and the bolt on MK1/2/3(4?) ball joints avoids the stamped late links and also makes using 944 struts a gimme.
(early/late swaybars differ?)

I have not gotten around to trying it (not my car) but I see no issues in the idea.

[Marc]

I agree, the late trailing arm/balljoint arrangement is flimsy and harder to service, so your scheme definitely has merit even if you aren't after honkin' front brakes.
I don't know what the difference is (perhaps width) but Topline sells different swaybars for `71-`73 than they do for `74-`79, so you'd probably need to add the early bar to the shopping list if you put the early control arms onto a 1303. Of course if you're going to lower the front by more than a couple of inches you need an aftermarket bar anyway so there'd be no impact on the total cost.
But even with Rabbit struts, you still have the issue of the coil spring diameter limiting how much backspace the rims can have so if they don't provide enough negative scrub radius you may still end up needing smaller-diameter springs.
My son is working on a `74 and has figured out a DIY way to fit smaller springs to improve the tire clearance; he modified the perch using racecar bits and shortened the strut housings to accept Rabbit inserts to achieve the lowering. It's a different set of problems than encountered on a 1302, but the concept's similar so this seemed like as good a place as any to mention it.


For the benefit of anyone trying to follow this thread who doesn't know the difference between the early and late designs:

Don't read too much into this, the drawings don't show the same ride height (and the lower spring seat on the "early" picture is drawn several inches higher than its actual position) but you can see how the balljoint is moved outwards on the late setup; this increases what's called the "kingpin inclination" (or nowadays the "steering axis inclination) to reduce the scrub radius. Positive scrub radius tends to give better "feedback" to the driver, which is probably why VW used it in the initial design. Unfortunately the suspension and steering components proved to be inadequate and they had to go to a negative scrub radius setup in response to consumer complaints of the "shakes"

Oh, and I've been using the term "1302" to describe the early suspension that has the balljoint pointed down - it was also used on 1973 Supers which are actually 1303 (big curved windshield) bodies.

[Piledriver]

Coleman Racing is a good source for most of the missing bits (spring perches, springs etc) are there any other similar places to shop?

I still need some light springs (~75 lb/in) for the front of my T3.5 to replicate the 4-Ways suspension snubber setup out back and perhaps for the back end of my Cabby on the Bilsteins.

(Hmm... Actually Mk1-3 rear sruts might be an excellent source for the smaller springs and perches for a Super... Not quite as small as the Topline gear, but still much smaller and about the right spring)

[Marc]

If you know what you're looking for you can often find stuff on eBay, too. I've mostly run Carrera coil-overs (now QA1) and have miscellaneous stuff that was designed for their shocks, but there are other players - the problem is that they rarely give you the actual dimensions of the parts in the catalog (only what model of shock they're for) so it takes some detective work to find what you need. Summitracing and Jegs are also sources. Years ago when I built a midengine car using Rabbit front struts I made my own sleeves from lengths of steel thickwall conduit, threaded all the way, with adjusters made by welding three thin spud nuts together - because I didn't have any thick ones handy. The sleeves were trimmed away for ~300° at the bottom, leaving an inch-long "tail" to drop down into the slot formed by the wings on the strut housing to keep the sleeve from rotating. A few weld beads on the housing, ground flat on the "top", provided support for the sleeve. Crude but effective (and cheap!)

[mountainkowboy]

WOW......a lot of info to take into consideration! I have the advantage of playing with the sedans front suspension design while driving the vert. Piledriver.......you are correct, I've been fabbing for decades, mostly on 4x4's. When I get the sedan home I will see what I can come up with. Struts are new to me, never really played with them. On the 4x's its a matter of grinding the weld out of the "C" and rotating it to achieve the wanted caster to correct the ill handling, the scrub radius wasn't ever an issue. Struts will be a whole new learning process. Should be fun to play with, who knows maybe I'll come up with a kit to fix the issue...........LMAO!!

Maybe bring the top of the strut inward a touch and maybe bring the ball joint outward a touch, and using a deeper offset wheel, thereby increasing the angle of the strut to try to achieve less positive scrub, lessening the dreaded wobble. If this is possible and while still keeping the front suspension basically in the stock configuration.

[Marc]

The problem with moving the strut tower inboard is that you quickly run out of camber adjustment...plan on also increasing the eccentricity of the camber adjustment. Smaller-diameter bolts will allow more range, but obviously they'd better be of high grade for such a vital function. Be sure to look into the early Rabbit strut configuration as piledriver suggested (the later waterpumpers don't have camber adjustment). As he said, the "missing link" is an adapter to connect the newer style of strut housing/spindle to the 1302 lower control arm...since it would also need to be effectively longer to meet up with the more-outboard balljoint location, it might be simpler to design a fabricated tubular control arm that achieves that end. The late Super control arms are stamped-steel weldments and it's difficult to remove the balljoints from them. About the only good things that can be said for them is that they're light, and if you do manage to snag one on a manhole cover or something they're more likely to fold, which could reduce damage to the pivot point on the chassis.
An even more ambitious project, but one that would be worth the effort IMO, would be to engineer a way to mount Rabbit lower control arms to a Super - they have two pivot points so are more of an A-arm...this way you wouldn't be relying on the swaybar to control the wheelbase, one of the more serious weaknesses of the Super Beetle design. I could see a real market for a kit that would allow this - especially if it used a mini-subframe that could be attached with no (or minimal) welding.
Rabbit balljoints are held into the control arms by three rivets, and it's trivial to drill them out and bolt in new ones, making maintenance a breeze. You can buy brand-new ones (without balljoints) for ~$35 each and probably will be able to for years to come.

Non-GTI Bunnies had no front swaybar; the below pics show how they added one to the GTI, aft of the front axle - but it should be relatively simple to engineer a front-mounted bar for a Beetle.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y65/br ... CI0008.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y65/br ... CI0007.jpg

[mountainkowboy]

Wouldn't it just be simpler to add/fab a radius arm to the stock control arm? Maybe modify the strut to spindle mount to correct the camber for the modified placement of the strut?

Just throwing some ideas out.

[Marc]

Years ago one fella did exactly that (added a Heim-jointed link from the end of the frame head back to the control arm) to a `71 Super circletrack car; it was grossly illegal but escaped detection by tech for a couple of years, during which time it did quite well...as it turned out the builder was also doing some cheating under the hood.
One of the guys associated with my team ended up with that car, and in legal form it was a disaster. We literally took a steamer trunk full of steering boxes to the track every week since it was prone to breaking one to three a night - without that added support the front end couldn't withstand the chariot-racing happening on the 1/5-mile flat-track.
But I digress....yes, adding a radius arm helps a BUNCH, even though it doesn't address the scrub-radius issue of the 1302 layout it does stiffen up the floppy suspension dramatically. I propose using a late strut housing (be it from a Super, Rabbit, or whatever) and an A-arm style lower control arm because it should fix both problems. The shorter pivot radius of the control arm would also yield more camber gain with body roll, which should be advantageous.

If you build an adjustable upper strut mount, also make it to move the top of the strut rearward to improve caster. You'll never need less than stock, but caster is lost anytime the front is lowered more than the rear so the ability to dial in more would come in handy. The lower control arm could be shifted slightly forward for the same reason, but not by a lot since you wouldn't want to worsen the interference problem with the headlight bucket on a lowered car.

[Buggin_74]

Putting oversized tires on can only make things "potentially" worse.

Or it can make things infinitely better if you know what you are doing with the mac front end.
There are heaps of Germanlook Supers out there both 2 and 3 bolt built for exceptional handling.

For me it never gets old embarrassing people who think their modern cars can out corner and outperform an old VW.
It seems most people just think its not possible for an old VW to go, handle and stop like a modern car can, makes it all the more unexpected

Jaks 71 Super Beetle here in Aus is a prime example, he has put well over 200K on that thing just since his engine conversion and its always out on the track showing late model Porsches, Skylines and WRXs how its done.

[Piledriver]

I tend to agree, but if one is inclined to drop some change on it, I'd start with the 1303 hardware/geometry and smaller springs, if only to simplify the tire/wheel offset issues.
I would also encourage an upgrade to rack and pinion steering, as the early factory steering bits have issues as noted.
(not just the steering boxes)

By the time you go through and get it to reasonable "stock" condition the R&P upgrade would have been free.

The 944 front struts just about bolt on, which is what led me down the rabbit hole with modding the early lower links...
I confess to also having looked at Mk1 Golf lower arms.
My sons house is about finished so he may dust the car off again this fall.

The tweaks I did to it originally were all of the quick and nasty type---I simply ground off and relocated the factory lower spring perch... Added all urethane bushings, 7/8" sway bar, dropped the rear about the same.

I honestly forget what inserts we used, probably GR2s, but I liked the way the car felt better than my dual bar 914 LE w/Bilstiens.
(possibly because it was more tossable, the 914 simply went where aimed, hanging the 914 rear end out at all was difficult w/o extra power)

[Buggin_74]

I did the rewelded spring cups too long time back and it works well if you are happy with a 2" max drop.
Below that the stock inserts just dont have enough travel, thats why all the lowering struts use Mk1 Golf inserts.

These days I can't live with wheels smaller than 17" so I've always had Maxx struts since although they don't resemble Maxx struts much now as I've modified them with more spring adjustment, new spring retainers and better springs.

Valid point on the rack conversion, it really is a night/day difference but you ideally need to find a donor rack bug to get it from which is often easier said than done.

There is more parts needed from a donor than people realize, like the main steering shaft is different length not just the uni shaft.