beams?

[Rip]

I'm looking for some advice. I have a ball joint beam that was used in a baja bug, so it's condition is questionable. And I wanted to have a beam with adjusters.

Now the reason for adjusters is not to slam it, as I already have dropped spindles, rather I hope to gain a slight adjustment in hieght, but more importantly I hope to preload the torsion leaves a little. So as I see it there are two ways to go about this.

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First would be to try and find some info to check and see if the one I got is good. Straightness, bearings etc. Then see if I could add puma style adjusters myself (as I don't have the jigs nessicary to add the sway away styled ones). Pumas in this sense are easier to install correctly. The questions I have with this particular method is:

How can I check for straightness?
Can a MIG welder do the job of adding Puma adj?
As from years of use how good are urethane bearing replacements?
Anything else to check?

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Second would be to simple buy the beam new. Yes I understand that the quailty will not be as good as the german ones. But are they good enough? I will not be adding coil overs so I don't believe the strenght of the shock mount is that important, though I would still seam weld these areas.

And the big question who sells a one for what I hope to do, preload the torsion leaves? I've talked to CB and explained I wanted to preload it but the guy I talked to said that I can drop it up to 4", not understanding what I was doing. Which is okay as I believe not a lot of people do this. But, he did clarify that the adjustment was to drop it. Finally got him to say that 'if' I wanted to I could leave it at stock height, this not allowing for much preload without lowering some.

So I was hoping people here may have a new beam with adjusters and can tell me if there is up and own play, or is it solely drop.

The only good side to the new beams is looking like the fact you get new needle bearings.

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So what should I do, new beam or do it myself?

Thanks
Rip

[Guest]

The adjustable beams I have used have all been lower than stock at the highest setting.

[Rip]

that's what i'm afraid of, how far have you guys lowered your std beetles?

thanks

[Rip]

would say 3.5 inches be "far"

[Rip]

okay?.....and feel free to respond, I mean anyone, or am I totally on my own here. no one has thought about this stuff before?

Have you guys heard about preloading the front springs before? If I remember its a formula vee trick. You preload them giving a higher spring rate and then use good shocks to get rid of the perturbations faster.

I thought this would be good because guys who want to keep stock geometry would get dropped spindles, then preload the torsion leaves, and use you choice of shock. The car is lower with stock geometry and you'd have a tighter front end.

The deal would be trying to keep the car balanced. Like getting the rear to tighen up. Figured on dropping the rear by messing with the setting of the rear torsion bars (ie. moving the bars a noch or two) then adding some coil overs. That way the tightness and hieght can be adjusted, some what.

And of course put on your sway bars, but I'd assume you wouldn't need as large a roll bar due to the fact you've now got a tighter front end.

Any one up with me? So how about getting the CB beam then moving one of the adjusters?

Has anyone done this stuff or you all got supers?

Rip

[gcorrado]

RIP, you are thinking exactly the right stuff.

counter rotating the leaves in the beams results in spring preload. this will tighten up the movement of the suspension because components are under pressure throughout their entire range of motion. just to be clear, this doesn't actually increase the effective sping rate - so technically the front end is not "stiffer" thought it is certainly less sloppy.

i have never used adjusters, but my understanding is that in general they tend to be installed so that they only lower the spring. in that case if you leave one stock height and the other lowered some, you'll have preload, but you WILL have some lowering as well. BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. Sway-A-Way Front Leaf Spring Adjusters http://www.swayaway.com/VW_Components.htm are advertized specifically as being installable for raising and lowering. get some of those, install them in a good german beam, and you'll have exactly what you want.

if you DO want to change your spring rate up front, and actually have a stiffer front end, i recommend the Sway-A-Way Heavy-Duty Front Leaf Spings. I'm using them now, as is Theo. Without adjusters they actually RAISE the front a bit (cause of the higher spring rate). I don't mind because I have CB dropped spindles. With CB Drops, SAW HD Leaves, SAW Adjusters, Whiteline Adjustable Sway, some Adjustable Koni's you'd have the ultimate BJ front end with enough parameters to tune it into oblivion. (oh yeah, and don't forget those extra eccentric camber bushings and caster shim or two )

[Rip]

thank you especially for correcting my mistake, less slop not more spring. As a note though isn't it true that the front leaves have a progressive spring rate? So when you preload them enough (taken to the extreme) couldn't you increase the effective spring rate?

hmm... I hadn't really considered changing the springs up front. Since leaves are pretty easy I think I'll stick with just getting it adjustable frist, then if the need rises I'll get some HD front springs.

Thanks again for the help.
Rip

[gcorrado]

front leaves progressive? maybe - i dunno.

i assumed they were your standard linear sping (twice the twist, twice the force.) if they do deliver more than twice the force for twice the twist, then yeah, you would increase the effective springrate by preloading bunches.

i'm sure you know this, but there is some preload in the stock setup, just not very much... well good luck and glad to help.

[Rip]

I thought they were a little progressive, not like new "progressive springs" though, so little in fact that through out the range of motion they are really close to linear.

[Rip]

by mounting the springs at a slightly different angle you preload one against the other which yields a progressive effect because the action of each stack is non-linear. VW played around with this over the years, going from 4° to 6° to 2½° of preload on the kingpin frontends alone.
At stock ride height the trailing-arm suspension "steps" over obstacles easily, as any bump that pushes back also makes the control arm swing up. The more you lower the front end the less of this effect there is - when taken to extreme so that the rest angle of the control arms is up towards the spindle, the spindle must move forward to go up. The result is a less-compliant suspension.
Another concern when lowering without drop-spindles is the travel available in the tierod ends (particularly the LH side ones) and the ball joints. Simply reversing the LH tierod usually eliminates that concern, but you still want to check that they'll never be max'ed out before the suspension travel is since one might snap. Even if the ball joints don't break, when they do suddenly max out a lot of force remains in the system that has to go somewhere - where it goes is into the inner-upper control arm bushings, destroying them.
I've got both drop-spindles and Avis adjusters on my bug with a single set of caster shims (I bought longer bolts but found the stock-length ones adequate with only ~5/16" of shim). Combined, this'll let me bring the front down to where there's only about an inch between the bottom of the shock towers and the ground (the only time that might ever happen would be for a car show, I wouldn't think of driving it like that). I expect to leave the adjusters at approximately stock height and run stock-length shocks, but I do have a set of the 2" shorter Opel GT shocks handy if I decide to slam it further.

Marc said this awhile ago

[Rip]

interesting if you want to read

http://first.formulavee.org/exchange/in ... opic=226.0

[Rip]

so heres the idea, when installing adjusters get two sets, so a total of four adjusters. then cut and weld but weld them a distance from center, thus shorting the distance between the pivot and the trailing arms.

This should increase the spring rate and have no effect on height, right? What do you guys think?

Man these formula vee guys come up with some wierd ideas.

[Theo]

Rip,

I have installed adjusters in my Ghia at stock height in order to tune the suspenstion. I'm racing the Ghia in autocross and hope to do some racing at the local track.

The preload adjustment does help.

One note: I installed HD front springs from CB (15-20% stiffer) and this raised the car. Screwed up my adjusters. I was shooting for 1' up and 1"down but now I have like 1.5' up and .5 down. No a problem cause I would use lowered spindles to go lower but it did catch me off guard.

The Ghia handles like a go-cart.

Theo

okay?.....and feel free to respond, I mean anyone, or am I totally on my own here. no one has thought about this stuff before?

....

Has anyone done this stuff or you all got supers?

Rip

[Rip]

https://secure.cbperformance.com/catalo ... ductID=721

these the ones? Not bad for the price, but I wonder why are they so much cheaper than the link pin ones, or really why the link pin ones are so expensive?

Could it be because the link pin front ends were already stiff due to less leaves? So to make it stiffer it takes more, where as to stiffen up the BJ front end all you really need to do is replace the three small leaves with a single large and one of the small ones.

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May be we need to make the collars side along the tube instead of only rotate, that way the spring rates are variable. Do this on the lower beam tube then have the hieght adjustment on the top tube.

This wouldn't allow for as much hieght adjustment but then at least with dropped spindles you could dial it in, finely. And then adjust the lower tube for spring rate by moving the collars to/from the trailing arms.

What do you think, eh?

[Rip]

gcorrado and Theo thank you for the help, I think I've decided to put off the ideas for now, may even just go with stock untill I can afford to mess with the suspension. I got dropped spindles so that will at least help lower cg. May just go with an adjuster up front, but not much, not how I would have liked. My fear is if I adjust the front suspension that the car will not handle as well due to the lack of rear tunning.


http://www.neohio-scca.org/comp_clinic/ ... t_menu.htm

I found this on the net, the one on load transfer is interesting. Thanks again.

Rip