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I just wanted to let everyone know that thing ball joints can be pressed into bug torsion arms. I did it last weekend and the only problem was that the lip that stops the ball joint from being pressed in further has to be turned down in order for the ball joint to seat deep enough in the arm, or the arm could be ground to accept the larger diameter of the stop. But my point is the arms are basically the same for thing and bug.

BUT the Thing has ball joints that both face one way for more strength. Not so on a Beetle/Ghia

That's true, you just swap the lower arms from left to right and vice versa then the ball joints are turned the right way. I don't know if the ball joint could be pushed or pulled out of the arm through normal use then or not but they will be tested soon on a buggy with rough offroad riding.

I suspected that might be the case... Just swapping the arms...

In that case you could lower your Thing by using stock VW spindles with the lower hole machined in the opposite direction.

Any comments? All of my Beetle torsion arms and spindles just became more valuable.

This is true on the upper arms only, cannot be done with the lower arms.
That is why I lowered the price on the upper arms to $25 each, because I have a rather large stack of them.
usually comes with a ball joint included, and sometimes I can pick one with a good ball joint to save the customer $$.
which would save you an awful lot of hassle of grinding down the lip, at a pretty fair price.
And you would actually have a thing torsion arm that wont come undone.
I dont know what happens when you use them on a bug spindle, I believe you still might need the thing spindle for height?

the thing eccentric would also still be needed, unless you drilled it out to fit. we sell them for $8 used

Another point I would like to make is that the upper torsion arms of a thing are actually different, they are beefier than the thing ones.
they can be told apart.
The thing ones have a small bump around the edge of them, unlike the bug ones.
We also carry ball joints made in USA they are only $30 each.
as well as german for $35
Well, hope this helps...

Mike that is so true. The Thing arms are massive compared to beetle parts.

An easy 2" drop could be acheived by just changing over to beetle arms and spindles.

Michael Basso wrote:This is true on the upper arms only, cannot be done with the lower arms.

The guy who started this topic says it can be done with the lower arms. Which is it?

I pressed thing lower ball joints into beetle lower arms, not upper. We use beetle arms and beetle eccentrics for the upper if we need to replace an upper arm or ball joint. They may not be as beefy but they work fine and are plentiful. The arms I had (both upper and lower) that were supposed to be thing arms looked identical to beetle arms, but I may have missed something.

If you do this on a beetle, you still need thing spindles to make the 3" lift work, thats why I was saying you cant do it on the lower.
wont meet up with a beetle spindle.

BUMP!!!

After you flipped the bug arms over and installed the Thing balljoints and installed them on the bug beam, did you take the car to an alignment shop to see if they can get the caster settings within spec?
Jerry...

Mike B wrote....."Another point I would like to make is that the upper torsion arms of a thing are actually different, they are beefier than the Bug ones. they can be told apart. The thing ones have a small bump around the edge of them, unlike the bug ones."

Mike, you are correct. What you said about having a "bump" applies to both the upper and lower arms as well. They actually have two "bumps" 180deg apart, call them at 6 'o clock and 12 'o clock. My original Thing beam confirmed this when I compared it to another beam I bought.

I recently bought a race beam with Thing spindles, Thing upper arms, and Bug lower arms that are flipped over. Im concerned with the fact that the part of the arm holding the ball joint in place in the Bug lower arm is too thin. It seems as if the Bug arm was bored out to accept the Thing ball joint. If it werent for the additional brackets on these arms, I would swap them for Thing lower arms. But, if I did that I would be losing strength by going back to a totally stock lower arm.