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Steve Arndt wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 1:43 pm I have almost the same setup in my 65 bug. The 2" narrowed beam isn't the problem.

Good to hear.

There is a lot of hidden things not only in life but elsewhere too .

My blue buggy had some things that did not get discovered until after I bought it and fixed but the BAJA I bought for my black buggy body there was a lot of things that were hidden then I/we discovered while repairing other things. I learned a lot about VWs pretty quickly because of some the improper things done or the neglect to it.
If a car was driven hard/abused not kept up, things can get out of line or the fix on something else can cause the problem. That is the reason for my posting about the potential sway in the front of pan problem. "Racking" (in this case potential twisting of the car is another potential problem due to miss-use also, one of the things a properly made cage can help with.

Again, I would block the vehicle up on a level floor and do some measuring and using a bubble gage on the tunnel and beam to start with.

Lee

I forgot to mention that I have seen bent beam mounts from people getting fancy on the dunes. I also hit a stream wash through a dirt hill (the washout was hidden as we came over the small hill) and I hit the wash so hard that the pistons in my front shocks jammed to the bottom of the shock itself. We couldn't get it unjammed so on the trip back to where we were staying the front tires wore some groves in the glass body fenders. I have never checked the pan's beam mount for being twisted even a bit, especially on the driver's side where the worst jam of the two shocks were.

I also have seen (numerous times) a buggy or even a rail come back into the camping area with the front beam and it's mount part of the pan also twisted or bent from a hard nose first landing.

Lee

Did some word editing.

Lee